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Top 5 Search Terms at Online Marketing Blog – Including Pirates

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:00:15 +0000

Here on Online Marketing Blog , we post a tremendous amount of insight on organic search optimization and content marketing related topics each month. But how about the site search tool on our own blog? Who’s searching for what, and why? And what are they finding? Mining the site search report from Google Analytics can be very useful since it’s an indication of what our visitors want to read more of. Here are the six most popular site search terms for Online Marketing Blog including our favorite, “pirates”. 1. Facebook With Facebook taking off as a top channel for social media marketing, it’s no wonder that them comes up as our leading search query. Just consider the recent numbers : Facebook boasts more than 400 million active users 50% of Facebook users log on during any given day More than 20 million Facebook users become fans of pages every day A quick Online Marketing Blog site search for “Facebook” yields recent posts on tools for sharing microcontent , insight on social media advertising and how to leverage channels like Facebook to take advantage of real-time search . 2. Twitter Speaking of popular social media marketing channels, Twitter takes to No. 2 spot for most common site searched on Online Marketing blog. Twitter may only have less than 106 million users compared with Facebook’s 400 million. But consider how quickly Twitter is growing and how active its users are: New users sign up at the rate of 300,000 per day 180 million unique visitors visit the site every month Users post an average of 55 million tweets a day So what can you get with a search for Twitter on Online Marketing Blog? Learn more about the role of news in blended search or find ways to electrify your social network . 3. Books Who says print is dead? “Books” turns up as our fourth most popular search term. Here on the Online Marketing Blog, we’ve posted reviews of some of latest most intriguing marketing online marketing books like “The Art of SEO.” Plus, we’ve conducted exclusive interview with some of the hottest marketing authors out there, such as David Meerman Scott , author of “The New Rules of Marketing.” We’ve even polled our readers on the best available books on SEO . 4. Social Media These days, social media isn’t just a hot topic for B2C marketers looking to connect with consumers on sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Social media is equally as relevant in the B2B world. In fact, 91% of business buyers read blogs, watch user generated video and participate in other social media, according to Forrester Research. A “social media” search on Online Marketing blog pulls up posts on setting and measuring goals for business blogging , which social media sites are the biggest time wasters and the risks of sponsored blog posts . 5. Email Marketing Contrary to predictions, RSS never did replace Email. Social media and network use and status updates or microblogging haven’t “killed” the popularity of email either. In fact, there have been reports that Email use is actually up. So it certainly makes sense that our readers are looking for more information on email marketing. A search for “email marketing” reveals some insight posts including, “ 5 Top Email Marketing Tactics for 2010 “, 5 Tips for Effective Email Copywriting ” and “ How Social Media & Email Marketing Boost Customer Reach “. And Finally: Pirates! Few things seem less relevant to Online Marketing Blog than pirates. Yet somehow it’s one of the most searched terms on the blog. So what do pirates have to do with Internet marketing and Web 2.0? There is an answer in this social media marketing post, we promise. Hint: It has to do with Dave McClure. Are you analyzing the top search phrases on your web site? Are you using that insight to guide your site content? © Online Marketing Blog , 2010. | Top 5 Search Terms at Online Marketing Blog – Including Pirates | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

Comment Management Tools You Should Know

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 11:43:59 +0000

What is Comment Management? Virtually all blog software offers commenting functionality, so why would you need a 3rd party comment management service? Many of the comments and “reactions” to content posted on a blog never make it to the blog itself – the source of the conversation. Comment Management tools provide all the expected features and also pull in mentions & citations of the post as well. That way when someone reads a post on your blog, they can see comments made directly on the post as well as mentions made of of the post on other sites like Twitter. Should you add a comment manager tool to your blog? It depends how much of your social engagement is happening off your blog and also whether you feel it will add to the user experience to see a collected list of on and off site interactions. For many blogs, citing comment and reaction counts is simply a matter of social proofing and popularity. For others, it’s an attempt to harvest all the conversation about a post at the source. To help you decide, here are the three main comment management tools to consider: ECHO from JS-Kit offers a wide array of features. It can be embedded on a blog or static web site and pull in comments from Twitter, Digg, comments from other blogs, FriendFeed and several others. Commenters can choose to promote their comments simultaneously to Twitter, Facebook or Google Friends. Sites like Technorati and Guy Kawasaki use ECHO. We tried JS-Kit but didn’t like not being able to show comments on top of the off site citations under each post. JS-Kit ECHO Live is $12/year and ECHO Live white label is $48/year. There is also a PRO version with many other controls and features with costs according to page views ranging from $195 to $1995 per year. Disqus , as you may have noticed, is the commenting system we are currently using on Online Marketing Blog . Disqus lets readers choose their identity, via: Facebook Connect, OpenID, or Twitter Sign-in, when they leave a comment. Comments can be threaded and the moderation dashboard is easy to use. Off site references to your content on Twitter, FriendFeed, Digg, and YouTube are pulled in as “Reactions”. You can sort comments as we do, on top, then show the reactions below. Readers can choose to cross post their comment to other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. You can edit comment content but not the names of commenters, which is frustrating because some spammers write really useful comment content but spam them hell out of their names and links. The base version of Disqus is free. Disqus VIP offers much hand holding support and analytics. Cost is not disclosed on the site so it must be very expensive. IntenseDebate was acquired by Automattic, the company behind WordPress and therefore, can be easily added to WordPress blogs as well as TypePad, Tumblr or Blogger blogs. There’s comment threading, notification by email, commenter profiles and points, moderation, cross posting to Twitter and several other features. IntenseDebate is free. Which comment management tool is right for you? It depends on your use. If you have a static web site and you’d like to add comment features, then ECHO might be a fit. If you want something that offers all the basics and works natively with WordPress then maybe IntenseDebate is your pick. If you want more features and also don’t want to pay anything, then it’s possible Disqus is the choice for you. The great thing about these tools is that they are easy to install and test out. Here are other reviews you might find useful on these comment management systems. Blog Comment System Shootout: Disqus vs. Intense Debate vs. JS-Kit Echo – 40 Tech 3rd Party Comment System Roundup – Dave Mosher’s Blog Although I pinged Facebook and Twitter connections for examples of other 3rd party comment management tools that pull in off-site citations, I didn’t hear about any. I didn’t find much on Google either. There are other comment management services, tools and plug-ins, just not any (that I’ve found) that automatically pull in 3rd party mentions of your content. If you know of other comment management systems that pull in comments from other social media sites, please share in the comments. Do you use any of the the tools mentioned above? What has your experience been? What features would you like to see added? © Online Marketing Blog , 2010. | Comment Management Tools You Should Know | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

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Comment Management Tools You Should Know

DoubleDutch: Foursquare for the Enterprise

BlogPostman — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 12:25:25 +0000

The buzz on geolocation marketing is hot. Recently Lawrence Coburn released the beta version of DoubleDutch, a platform for creating your own geolocation check-in app, ala Foursquare. I connected with Lawrence to ask more questions about DoubleDutch and to get tips for marketers that want to incorporate geolocation and review services into their online marketing. First, can you share a bit about yourself and your company RateItAll? We spoke on a panel several years ago at Pubcon and I remember that you have a great story about how your company started and really exploded with media attention. Sure, RateItAll is a story of endurance. I ran it out of a coffee shop for years (along with a number of other niche sites). By 2007 it had started to grow to a point that I couldn’t handle it by myself. It was making decent money, but I was struggling to keep the servers up. Mathew Spolin, our CTO joined us in 2008 and we were able to go out get a little funding for it. We now have a team of seven based in San Francisco’s Mission District. Congratulations on launching your new project, the iPhone App: DoubleDutch. I appreciate getting a pre pre alpha view of it and now you’re really added some great features – especially the ability to white label it. What prompted you to create DoubleDutch and how is it different than Foursquare and Gowalla? Lee, you were actually one of the first people to see DoubleDutch in the wild. We’re really excited about it – it has been called “Foursquare for the Enterprise” and “Ning for Mobile Social Networks.” We’re OK with both of those descriptions. We had been eying location based services for a long time. I was an obsessive user of Dodgeball (the SMS precursor to Foursquare). By the time 2009 SXSW rolled around, Mathew and I were determined to do something with location. We approached Foursquare to team up on a reviews + check-ins combo, but weren’t able to get their attention. So we set out to build the thing ourselves, leveraging RateItAll’s massive database of geo tagged data. Over the years we had signed a number of geo data partnerships, giving us a big advantage in entering the location fray. Our goal was to put together a collection of mobile, social components that could be remixed and customized by white label partners. In addition to the check-in functionality, some of our features include game dynamics (leaderboards, achievement stickers, and “Rockstardom,”), ratings and reviews, photo uploads, Facebook / Twitter integration, and many more. This app was in development for more than 6 months and we’re quite happy with how it turned out. Our big difference from Foursquare and Gowalla is in our emphasis on reviews. We think there is an endemic relationship between a social check-in and a review of a local business. Just as Amazon has been able to leverage sales data to convert more reviews than anyone else, we think that check-ins are the first step towards posting a review. We also believe strongly in the concept of “The community IS the social graph.” What I mean by this is that on public networks like Foursquare or Gowalla, you need to recreate your social graph for the apps to get any value from the service. Not so on a private network like DoubleDutch. You can imagine an app white labeled for a conference like Pubcon, in which every attendee could see the check in activity of other attendees. Think about what a boon this would be for networking – no more just heading to the lobby bar and hoping for the best. And because everyone was there for Pubcon, no friending would be required. Are widgets still sexy ? Of course! Just not as sexy as geo at the moment. In fact, I’m not posting much on Sexy Widget any more. I started a blog called Location Meme a few months ago with a friend. The folks at The Next Web took notice, and invited me to be an editor at that network’s Location blog , and that’s where I’m doing most of my writing now. Back to DoubleDutch. Not only is this a (another) geolocation iPhone app, but you’re offering companies or organizations the opportunity white label the DoubleDutch platform to create their own location-based iPhone app. Who is your target and how do you see them using it? What are your plans to make it competitive with the other apps out there that are already well entrenched? Our three target verticals right now are Conferences, Hotels, and Universities. We think that almost any community that is tied to a location could benefit from a location and knowledge sharing service, but we needed to narrow the universe down a bit. Conferences and Hotels are interesting because they typically are communities of people who are converging on a new city looking for recommendations and interaction. DoubleDutch helps on both counts. Universities are interesting because of their tie to a specific geography, and the demographic. You can check out some sample use cases on DoubleDutch.me. How does the Double Dutch app tie in to your main business, RateItAll? Great question. We are seeing signs that DoubleDutch has the potential to become our main business, with RateItAll taking a supporting role. RateItAll provides a tremendous foundation for the service, with its massive amount of geo tagged data, and its 4M+ reviews. Our server infrastructure is key as well as it allows us offer SLAs to our clients. Also, all check in, ratings, reviews, and photo activity is aggregated on RateItAll.com, making DoubleDutch another content collection channel. You were at SXSW, who won the geolocation prize there? Gowalla or Foursquare? I guess that’s a loaded question. What did they do right? Did you see any big mistakes? I think geolocation won the geolocation prize. Both those services got a big boost, but I think the whole space benefited from all the attention. At DoubleDutch, we are huge fanboys / fangirls of both services and wish them only the best. If you believe that Enterprise trails Consumer by two years (which we do), the faster that those services blaze the trail, the faster that DoubleDutch will grow. Please share 3-4 best practices and tips for companies that want to use geolocation based mobile apps to market their businesses? I think it really depends what kind of business you are. If you are a local business, you don’t really have to do much other than ensure that your address info is up to date on the mobile services like Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, and of course, RateItAll. If you are a bit more savvy / experimental, you can try offering discounts / giveaways to Foursquare Mayors, and try and incentivize your customers to check-in and push to Twitter / FB. If you are a big brand, perhaps it makes sense to try and cut a deal with Foursquare or Gowalla to sponsor some Badges. Lots of companies are cutting these sorts of deals, and it’s a good way to drop your brand into the experience of those apps in the context of the location game. But if you are a big community, it might make sense to use a service like DoubleDutch to create a more pervasive connection with your customers / members / employees and extend your community out into the real world. Social check in apps are not only fun, but they can be productive. We’re talking to companies with some pretty innovative ideas for putting geo to work – for example, a real estate company wants to put this app in the hands of their agents to encourage more property visits, and help those agents capture photos and thoughts about each property. We have been amazed at how creative some of these companies are. What about tips for marketing within the consumer reviews marketplace overall? How important is it for companies to be active, whether it’s editorially, through advertising or offline promotion with services like Yelp, Epinions or even RateItAll? I strongly recommend that businesses be active on the big review properties. Being active does not mean being confrontational and bullying – it means engaging thoughtfully with customers, even the insane and / or angry ones. If you suspect cheating, don’t call out the customer – go to the host site. Most of these services allow commenting and messaging – on RateItAll, which is the 9th biggest review site, we see a number of big brands on the site every day making use of the free tools like commenting and messaging to engage their customers. Some of those folks pay us for access to a few more tools, but you don’t need to have a budget engage your customers. One question I like to ask smart and busy entrepreneurs like yourself is: How do you stay current with technology and marketing? Do you have favorite events, books, blogs, networks or some kind of crystal RateItAll ball to keep you on top of what’s important for the future of your business? I read and write as much as I possibly can. Writing makes me smarter about a topic, because I don’t want to come off as a moron. It takes a lot of research to write a post. Sexy Widget was born out of my desire to get smart about widgets, and my role as Editor at the Next Web was born out my desire to get smart about geo. In terms of reading, I hit Techmeme and Hacker News all the time, and also get a lot of good links from Twitter. My two favorite blogs are AVC and CDixon.org . Living in San Francisco, I have access to a number of technology meetup type events – I try and hit a couple per month. There’s nothing better than talking to entrepreneurs, because for them, predicting the next big wave is life or death. I tend to listen to folks running companies more than I listen to journalists. Thanks Lawrence. You can download the Double Dutch app here. RWW did a great overview with screenshots here. Lawrence Coburn is the founder and CEO of RateItAll and co-founder of the white label geolocation app, DoubleDutch . In his spare time, he is an editor of The Next Web’s Location blog . Lawrence is also a mentor at Ventures.io , a San Francisco based technology incubator. © Online Marketing Blog , 2010. | DoubleDutch: Foursquare for the Enterprise | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

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DoubleDutch: Foursquare for the Enterprise

Losing Time on Social Media

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 11:45:19 +0000

Social media is everyone’s shiny object in the digital marketing world. Personally, professionally and otherwise, millions of people worldwide are switching from other information and entertainment channels (or multitasking) for social destinations online and on the mobile web. I know there are a good number of early adopters that read Online Marketing Blog and since you’re probably prone to trying the latest apps and tools, there are undoubtedly certain types of social media sites that have really turned out to be a time suck. That assumption leads us to our 60th Reader Poll! (pick up to 3) Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll. No, I didn’t include online games of any kind in this poll because, while they can absolutely be social, I consider them to be inherently time wasting. Whereas the sites/tools listed in the poll above have at least the remotest possibility of helping people become more productive. If your top time waster isn’t listed, please share in the comments. I’d also like know your preferences on topics for future Reader Polls. If your suggestion is picked, we’ll give you credit and a nice juicy link when the poll is run. © Online Marketing Blog , 2010. | Losing Time on Social Media | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

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Losing Time on Social Media

5 Tips for Better B2B Branding

BlogPostman — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 12:35:19 +0000

Think branding only falls in the B2C court? Think again. In fact, three of the top 10 brands in 2009, as ranked by Interbrand, generate a sizable amount of revenue from their B2B customers: IBM, Microsoft and GE. As a B2B marketer your brand is your most valuable asset. B2B branding is less about cool, hip monikers (the Apples and Starbucks of the world) – and more about thought leadership. Particularly in down economies, B2B prospects and customers conduct significant research leading up to purchases. That means you as a marketer have to educate them early on, and establish your brand as a trusted resource that gets their problems and has the solution. To help your organization be seen as the thought leader it is, we’ve identified five B2B branding tips: 1. Consistently produce useful, innovative content These days, every company is essentially a media company. So it’s easier than ever to provide relevant, informative content for customers and prospects. From a company blog to Twitter to YouTube, there is no end to the content channels available. Provide the latest industry news and insight on trends through: Offering a white paper through an email marketing campaign Creating videos and promoting through YouTube and on your web site Conducting interviews with industry influentials and turning into blog posts Whatever channels you choose to promote, and whatever types of content you create, these consistent signals prove to customers and prospects that you are a thought leader. 2. Network digitally and in person Nothing communicates a brand more than direct involvement with customers and prospect. In that regard, online social networking has opened a new door. According to a recent eMarketer study , six in 10 B2B marketers planned to up spending on social in 2010. Whether your organization integrates Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or another social network into its B2B branding efforts, the same rules apply: Social media is about engaging in conversations, not just pushing products It’s not about the masses; it’s about your target audience It’s listening and hearing before selling and talking That’s not to say that in-person networking is irrelevant. On the contrary, perfect B2B branding combination. Take advantage of opportunities to give keynote speeches, participate in panel discussions or lead breakout sessions at industry events. 3. Get personal and be real B2C marketers seem to have this concept nailed. But humanizing your company for customers and prospects is just as important in B2B branding. For one TopRank® Online Marketing client, an industrial part distributor for the bulk powder processing industry, humanizing its image was a top concern. The TopRank team created the Powder Doctor, a unique character, to relate to customers and prospects through email marketing campaigns. This humorous cartoon character offers advice – Dear Abby style – for common industry problems. Powder Doctor campaigns have increased sales for Powder-Solutions by 83%. 4. Position yourself differently than others in the space No doubt about it, it’s tough to build personal B2B brand if you’re just like everyone else. You simply can’t be known for what everyone else is. Standing out from the crowd is easy when your products or services are truly one-of-a-kind. When products or services are similar to those offered by the competition, it’s more of a challenge to uniquely position yourself. For one TopRank client – a staffing software company – that challenge was known all too well. To help the client stand from a large pool of competitors, TopRank developed a copywriting strategy where website copy was written in first person, from the viewpoint of the staffing software (i.e., “why you should hire me to fill your staffing software needs”). This strategy has not only helped the company develop a truly distinct B2B brand; the strategy has also achieved increased search traffic, high rankings for terms such as “staffing software” and a trend up in inquiries. 5. Leverage proof points It’s perfectly appropriate – and necessary – to toot your own horn from time to time as part of your B2B branding efforts. Whether it’s an impressive media placement or a web traffic milestone, implement proof points illustrating why your organization is a thought leader into marketing communications. Keep in mind that proof points are both analytical and subjective. For example: Analytical: website traffic increases, number of retweets of blog posts, number of blog subscribers Subjective: media placements, media interviews, mentions on blogs Are Your Ready to Take B2B Branding to the Next Level? B2B branding through thought leadership is not as easily quantifiable as other marketing efforts. And investments in reputation building might not pay off as immediately as pay-per-click or email marketing. But building a recognizable B2B brand pays off in the form of long-term increased referrals, positive brand conversations on both digital and in-person channels, web traffic and sales. What methods have you used to build a B2B brand?

2010 LeadingRE Conference: TopRank Digital Marketing Sessions

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:30:57 +0000

Last week, I was in Las Vegas for the LeadingRE annual conference and marketing technology event speaking on social media and SEO strategies for real estate professionals. It’s always interesting to see where different verticals are at with their willingness to embrace social channels, and I’m pleased to report the top realtors globally are already engaging, or at the least starting to define their path. I gave the opening presentation to the MarTech part of the conference – a track of panels/sessions designed to help real estate professionals better integrate their marketing initiates with technology. Additionally, I spoke on two panels in the general sessions of the conference: one on online reputation management and one as an open panel Q&A answering marketing strategy questions. For Online Marketing Blog readers, following is a wrapup of each of my sessions and some key takeaways. Architecting A Web 2.0 Marketing And PR Strategy For this session, I took event goers through an overview of the process we at TopRank implement for companies seeking social media strategy: a social media roadmap . I took audience members through the essential elements of the roadmap: 1. Define an audience Who is it you are trying to influence? Where are they participating, what types of content resonates with them? Understanding your audience comes first, and will drive the next pieces of the roadmap. 2. Identify objectives What outcomes do you want from this audience? Only after you understand your digital audience should objectives be solidified, as research may uncover new opportunities not conceived initially. While many skip to objectives, audience research provides the current situation necessary to proceed to identify objectives. 3. Develop strategic approach For a social media marketing strategy to be effective and not a cookie-cutter application, you must have a strategic approach unique and logical for your brand. Audience data + objectives + insight into your industry + strategic mindset as a marketer will enable you to formulate a strategic approach that delivers results and permeates the market. 4. Implement tools/tactics Even more popular than skipping to step 2, most marketing and PR pros skip immediately to step 4. It’s a cliché to say “we need a Twitter account” or “we need a Facebook page.” You don’t know that yet. Nor do you have the proper roadmap elements to execute them successfully by skipping immediately to tactical elements. It’s like entering a battle by sending in the latest wave of ultra-sophisticated fighter jets but not having any sort of plan of how they work into your larger strategy. Yeah, they might be bigger/faster/stronger but it’s setting yourself up for failure without knowing how they integrate with other elements. 5. Measure results/metrics What will your success metrics be? Formulate not just an ultimate objective measurement, but define the right KPIs that actually roll to those objectives. Understand how they all work together and stagger them in the right order in your marketing dashboard to keep your finger on the pulse of success. It takes a comprehensive understanding of web analytics reporting before getting into this phase. Online Reputation Management Panel For this panel, I presented alongside Jennifer Baumann , Esq. of DLA Piper. As I am not a lawyer and cannot provide any legal counsel, it was a good idea for Eric Bryn , conference organizer for LeadingRE to pair us. I shared prevention and response strategies and Jennifer discussed legal issues. In terms of online reputation management, the old adage of “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” could not be truer. I spoke mostly on prevention, but also response. Some key takeaways from this panel: Negative PR gets referenced – The web is referential, and we are actively tagging brands to their actions. For example, the first thing many mom bloggers now think of when they hear the name Motrin is the Motrin Moms fiasco. We are constantly archiving and building upon events, news and essentially our lives digitally. This paints a larger picture of people and companies, and the scars of negative PR are not going to go away. By having a presence yourself and already established as a brand digitally, you get to be a part of that debate as opposed to silently sitting on the sidelines and allowing others to dictate how you are seen. Additionally, if you foster a community of supporters, that negative PR might get hedged in the first place. If I wrote a blog post titled, “Apple Sucks,” almost immediately I’m going to get comments defending Apple – not just in my own comment section but on other blogs that debate and interact with me. Instead of a one-sided story, it will turn into a lively discussion and debate, with all sides being considered. A community of brand advocates is a powerful force for defending a brand or personal reputation. In the case of Apple, whether by design or simply due to fanatical fans, they are now a part of the brand’s organic response. Search engine brand awareness – If your brand has a large digital footprint with multiple domains/sub-domains, an authoritative presence across social channels and a fan-base, owning page 1 of Google for your brand name is possible. By doing this, you won’t let a negative (and let’s hope isolated) event or experience show up in branded searches. Of course, in cases where negative PR spirals out of control (aka a Groundswell ) a negative situation can acquire so many links/attention it ranks on page one for your brand. In those cases, buying search ads to help counter the negativity, posting responses on the offending site, adding a response on your own site, and strategizing ways to regain control of page one via organic SEO methods are just some potential steps you can take. But of course, it all depends on the specific situation what the response strategy should be. Speaking of response strategy – for problems you anticipate may arise, having one is critical to be prepared for the worst. Consult PR before engaging legal – The RIAA’s reputation is irreparably damaged by their continual treatment of their biggest fans as criminals. Whether they legally can do something is not necessarily a reason they should. When technology comes along that makes a previous model obsolete, the natural reaction of the incumbent is to rally against it to defend a previous world. Unfortunately, all this succeeds in is positioning the organization or industry as draconian and opens the door to innovators who are designing models that embrace the new. When someone says something truthful but biting against your brand, the natural reaction might be to call your laywers to suppress that information. All this does is provide ammunition for that individual or media entity to succeed in gaining greater attention. In 2003, Barbra Streisand tried to sue photographer Kenneth Adelman for $50 million for taking a photograph of her house as he documented the California coastline as part of a project. As a result of the case, the picture substantially increased in popularity – quickly attracting 420,000+ views of a photo that otherwise would have existed in relative obscurity. Mike Masnick reported on the situation and coined the phrase “ The Streisand Effect .” The name stuck, and now even has its own dedicated Wikipedia page documenting multiple examples of companies suffering from the Streisand Effect by calling legal before consulting PR. Of course, there are situations where legal should be consulted, but they should be considered carefully, with legal being used as a last resort. Strategy Salon Panel L to R: Matt Dollinger, Matthew Ferrara, Adam Singer, Steve Harney - image by Barbara Springer This was an open Q&A discussion from the audience, where, Steve Harney , Matthew Ferrara , Matt Dollinger and I all riffed on answers to audience questions (moderated by Eric Bryn). A few of the riffs from our discussion included: Getting your company to buy in to social media – This needs to happen from the top. If your leaders aren’t fully bought in and driving forward the items you want team members participating in, you can’t expect them to succeed. As one example, if you have a company blog, someone up top should be leading and driving it if you want the rest of the team to contribute as well. To inspire people to stay motivated and engaged, create feedback loops within the organization to highlight success and nurture participation. The perfect company website – There is no single archetype of the perfect website. Also, yours shouldn’t necessarily model competitors or one you think is pretty, rather it should resonate with prospects. Keep SEO in mind from the start and work with developers cognizant of search engines or consult an SEO firm to guide your development process. Site search matters, and is one of the most important features of any website according to Google . Leverage site search to gain data/insight into your customers and also tweak results to highlight fresh content or current specials. The real estate company of the future – Instead of doing everything in-house, you may begin to outsource certain elements like design, marketing or IT. Why have generalists when you can have specialists in each field and work with them across distances and time zones via agile project management systems? Also, for smaller companies, it will be about more than just those within a small radius; recruiting top talent will be vital for performance. Of your full-time team members, leadership will be an integral role and not something simply relegated to management. You need to find and empower leaders at all levels within the organization if you want to succeed against competitors.

5 Ways to Electrify Your Social Network

BlogPostman — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 18:59:26 +0000

A typical situation for many marketers when it comes to social networks is this: Setup LinkedIn profile, check. Corporate LinkedIn page, check. Facebook profile, check. Facebook Fan Page, check. Twitter account, check. Corporate blog, check. Check check check! But where’s the buzz? Where are the fans, friends, followers, comments, links, traffic, search engine rankings? Where’s the customer engagement? And the most pressing question of all: What is all this social web participation doing for our company and our customers? Showing up to the game doesn’t mean there will be an audience. This is as true with the social web as it is offline. The problem that marketers have with attracting interested customers and growing their social networks often stems from approaching social participation tactically and without a plan. Testing and experimentation is great, but if what you’re doing is something that has a cost and is to be accounted for, then you’d better have a plan and objectives. How can you score without a goal? Here are 5 tips to help business marketers energize and electrify social network development: 1. Decide to start You must start by deciding what business objectives you intend on meeting as a result of social network involvement. Once you’ve clearly identified objectives, then you can create a strategy that outlines which tactics make the most sense to reach and engage your audience. Common objectives for companies to develop online social networks include: Create connections with those interested in the type of solutions you offer so you can better meet customer needs Build out a channel of distribution for promoting content Connect with existing customers, create a place for them to connect with each other Initiate discussions around product for new ideas, enhancements, focus group Extend reach to influentials in your market for publicity Tap into active user base for content Facilitate conversations about your products & services to aid in new customer acquisition and/or upgrades Create a communication channel that reaches employees for internal PR Build up the personal networks of executives for thought leadership with journalists, analysts and key bloggers 2. Know your customer If marketers spend their time on the social networks dujour without really knowing where their customers are spending time, then of course there will be a disconnect between experience and expectations. Picking friends, at least initially, on social networks should be very intentional, not random. Understanding customer preferences towards information discovery, consumption and sharing along with which web sites they prefer is essential if a marketer wants to connect in a meaningful way. 3. Be real, be useful There are a lot of buzzwords like “transparency” and “openness” that describe the need for marketers to be “genuine”. Oops that’s another. To be real is being honesty in your intentions. I’ve seem highly respected marketers make absolutely idiotic statements about transparency, taking it to the extreme. Ignorance is bliss I suppose, but there’s not much money in it. The core principles of understanding the needs of your customers and then finding a way to meet those needs in such a way that is helpful and that at the same time leads to product sales, need not be elusive. Approaching a social network blatantly announcing that you’re a marketer and that you will be marketing so buy some product dammit, isn’t being transparent. It’s being stupid. Identifying yourself as a representative of a brand, product or service and communicating your intentions both in words and helpful actions is what I mean by “be real, be useful”. Those good deeds create trust and relationships. They create word of mouth and a certain gravity of popularity for your brand with your own identity as the proxy. Fans, friends and followers “happen” because the word gets out that your brand promise is meaningful and being followed through on. Developing relationships can be hard work. People already know this through the relationships they have in daily life. Yet it’s very common for corporate marketers to initiate online social networking efforts only to become disillusioned at the lack of immediate sales results. It’s important that social web participation for a company become a part of what the company is, long term. Not an “add on” marketing tactic. 4. Recognize and reward When developing an active social network, participants will demonstrate certain behaviors that are more desirable than others. For example, standing up for the brand when a troll appears or mashing up content in a creative way. They say people will work for a living but die for recognition. This is a key concept for electrifying your social networking efforts. First, understand what behaviors you want to reward. Participate and identify those behaviors that will influence the kinds of outcomes you’re looking for. Recognition can be active and passive. Active recognition is to reach out and recognize specific behaviors publicly and/or privately. Passive recognition is built into the social CRM system you’re using or the platform within which customers participate. An example would be points based systems that provide rewards or more access based on accumulating points for completing certain behaviors such as comments, ratings, contributed content, etc. The key to “Recognize and Reward” is for the recognition to be deserved, genuine, relevant and consistent. 5. Monitor, measure, feedback loop All the good intentions in the world won’t result in relationship and business growth from social networks unless there’s management of content and curation of interactions with the outcomes from participation. It can be as simple as noticing “5 of this” or “10 of that” tips blog posts yield 200% greater engagement scores (comments, retweets, inlinks, etc) than posts that focus on a single, general topic. Web analytics along with social media monitoring and a CRM component can facilitate the feedback loop to know whether customers are responding in the ways that you’d hoped. Simply focusing on fans/followers, comments or sales can leave out some of the essential pieces of why some efforts fail and others succeed. Social media monitoring tools are essential for upfront research, ongoing monitoring and after-action results measurement. In the end, the steps to take for growing a social network for business must be rooted in an understanding of the customers and their needs combined with whatever it is you decide you’ll provide to meet those needs. Being useful by itself doesn’t turn an active network into achieved business goals. Provide opportunities for interested members of your social network to opt-in to a more commercial relationship when they’re ready. That could be as simple as moving from a Facebook Fan to a Webinar participant or Email Newsletter subscriber. In some cases it might mean becoming a buyer of products/services. If your business has successfully developed it’s social network presence, what have been some of the roadblocks you’ve overcome? What insights can you share on best connecting with networks and growing your business as a result?

5 Social Media Tips for Ecommerce Marketing

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:30:03 +0000

If you run an ecommerce business, chances are your customers – regardless of their age, gender or economic status – are active on social networks and social media sharing sites. Just consider the statistics from social media monitoring site Pingdom : Males and females almost equally use social sites (47% vs. 53%) 61% of Facebook users are middle aged or older, with the average age being 37 18- to 24-year-olds don’t dominate any particular social networking site; they’re spread out all over The bottom line: If you aren’t discovering which in social networking channels your customers spend time and include them in your ecommerce marketing mix, you’re probably missing out on building relationships, community and increasing new customer acquisition through online word of mouth. Leverage these five social media marketing tips for ecommerce to either get started with more social digital marketing or take your current social strategy to the next level: 1. Go Where Your Customers Are Very few things in life promise endless options – digital and social media marketing being one exception. From Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn to YouTube, there’s no limit to the number of social networking channels available for your business to leverage. Key to successful social media marketing for ecommerce is choosing the right channels to reach customers. Find out where your customers are congregating by: Asking them. Sounds overly simplistic, but sending a formal survey to customers or more informally polling them on your website can provide a wealth of knowledge. Monitoring social sites. Use a free tool like Social Mention or Trackur . For something far more robust use tools like Radian6 to discover how and where customers are talking about your brand, your competitors or target keywords. Leveraging the stats. Some sites like Facebook are transparent when it comes to user statistics. Or leverage research conducted by third-party firms like eMarketer . Revivew backlinks, job postings, news announcements and keyword rankings of competitors on a regular basis to get a glimpse into their online marketing health. 2. Monitor What Your Competitors Are Doing Whether your ecommerce business is new to social media marketing, or just need to take your efforts up a notch, competitive intelligence can be very useful. Spend some time by conducting a competitive audit of your top five competitors on the social web. Include: The social sites in which they are active The type of content they publish on the social web The number of followers/fans/views they have on each site How they promote specific products, programs or events via social media For even more inspiration and insight into what works well on the social web, look to ecommerce sites in other industries or even successful B2B social media examples . 3. Promote Exclusive Offers Through Social Media In order for your ecommerce business to gain a following on whatever social channel you choose, entice customers with something they can’t get anywhere else. For example, promote a contest via social media. Last fall, TopRank® Online Marketing leveraged this tactic for one of its ecommerce clients. TopRank used the client’s blog and Facebook fan page to promote a Halloween contest to name the best costume. This initiative not only drove additional traffic to the client’s website, but also helped increase the number of Facebook fans. Alternately, offer an exclusive item to social media followers or fans, such as free shipping or a weekly coupon. You can also offer “breaking news” that does not appear anywhere else, like pre-product release announcements or an inside look at your company’s inter-workings. 4. Don’t Just Push Products and Promotions The primary goal of your ecommerce site may be to sell products, but your social media marketing strategy should encompass a wider range of tactics that simply promoting offerings. With too much product pushing and not enough engagement, you’re unlikely to experience optimal success. Incorporate some of these ideas into your ecommerce social media marketing strategy: Share messages or news stories from external sources Create a blog on your website and feed blog content to your social accounts Ask questions, participate in discussions or poll your customers via social media Post pictures from company events or videos from your CEO’s speaking engagements 5. Sell Products Through Social Networks 1-800-Flowers maximizes the use of social media for its marketing efforts. Many ecommerce sites leverage social channels to make it even simpler for customers to purchase their products. 1-800-Flowers has taken this idea to the max (see image above). It was the first ecommerce site to launch a Facebook store , allowing customers to browse and purchase its products directly through Facebook. 1-800-Flowers may be an extreme case, but ecommerce sites large and small can still indirectly sell products through their social profiles. For example, highlight new products or best-sellers and provide a link to the order page on your website. It may not be quite as simple as purchasing directly from the social profile, but it can be just as effective. The five ideas are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ecommerce social media marketing. What social media tactics have you found to be successful?

Ford’s Focus on Social Media: Scott Monty Interview

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:04:26 +0000

When you think of successful consumer brands in the social media space, names like Dell, Zappos and Pepsi come to mind. Another is Ford. Last year the Ford Fiesta movement generated tremendous amount of awareness (and pre-orders) for a vehicle that wasn’t available to the public yet. At the same time, it inspired a community to engage, create content and continue discussions about the Fiesta with over 7 million video views. While in Dearborn, Ford’s Head of Social Media, Scott Monty , extended to me an invitation to The Henry Ford Museum, The Rouge Truck Factory and a visit to Ford’s World Headquarters where we did a short interview. In the interview, Scott talked about the place for social media with Ford’s new product lines, local social media work with Chapter 2 of the Fiesta movement and advice for companies on empowering communities. Being able to learn about the history of this 100+ year old company through experiences at The Henry Ford and Rouge Factory tours was very informative. Being able to sit down with Bob Kreipke, Ford’s full time historian and hear stories about Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, company history and the evolution of Ford was priceless. Fast forward over 100 years and Ford is a very different company, as is the automotive industry. It’s not enough to be innovative but to be able to innovate quickly and connect with customers in more meaningful ways. Based on my discussions with Scott, Ford is very committed to making those connections. Watch the interview below to get more insight on how Ford is approaching social media: Click here to view the embedded video. By leveraging technology and the social web, Ford is moving from being known as “A truck and Mustang company” to a “Car, utility and truck company”. I think the decision to focus on local social media marketing is great evidence of understanding audience in a social strategy. So much of what companies are doing in the social space is a shotgun approach based on popular applications vs focusing on where and how actual customers spend their time. Check out the The Ford Story , a great example of a corporate social media aggregator not only of Ford social web participation, but of what others are saying about their brands. I can’t imaging any active brand online not launching a site like this. What are some great examples of consumer brands you think we should focus on in future posts? What kind of insights would you like to learn more of from those kinds of companies when it comes to the social web?