Measuring Social Media

The following are a few things you can do to measure the effectiveness of social media.  You can track most of the metrics below from Google Analytics, which is a free tool.  These metrics that you can monitor once visitors arrive are:

• Frequency of visits
• Depth of visit
• Conversions
• Unique visitors
• Time spend on site
• Total time spent per user

If you can afford, you will want to monitor the standard search metrics such as: Clicks, impressions, click throu rate, conversion rates, revenue, etc.  Another to consider is SEM Director.  It allows you to assign values to particular actions on the web site once visitors arrive from search. i.e. number of page views, form submission, clicking on a particular link, an internal search, etc.

Whether your goal is to push sales, drive engagement, or to increase awareness, the following are some social metrics to consider as well:

• Content Consumption
• Who is talking about you
• Profile Engagement
• Subscribing to a RSS feed
• Emailing posts
• Social Bookmarking

One thing to consider before you engage with social media is to assign monetary values to your metrics, especially if your end goal is not revenue conversions.

Best Practices of Blogging

This post is inspired by this marketing on the Internet course.  I have never blogged prior to this class and have had many questions such as:  How long should the posts be, what the best practices of blogging, etc are.  The following are my research along with my take-aways:

• Align Posts With Your Keyword. Do try to make your titles and opening paragraphs keyword rich.  This will attract readers/followers.
• How Long Should Your Posts Be? It is recommended keeping your blogs between 4-6 paragraphs.  If your posts are too long, your followers may decide to read them at a later time and not come back. 
• Create Visual Interest. Posts will have more impact if they have photos, videos, event basic html formatting of some sort.  This will attract more followers/readers.
• Do Allow Comments. Comments are a great way to solicit feedback, find out what critics are saying and respond to them, and let your community advocate for you.  You can always delete offensive or spam-y posts.

How about you?  What has worked for you and will you continue blogging after this course?

Crummy ad Budget or Crummy ad Agency?

One has to wonder if Burger King have a crummy ad budget or just a crummy ad agency.  Do they have to take situations that leave us perplexed with thier attitudes towards people and put them in their ads?  Burger King came out with another ridiculous ad (Burger King EMS Paramedic breakfast). 

First, it was okay to teach children to steal, not the people charged with responding to emergencies are entitled to have breakfast instead of taking care of an injured person? Simply classless.  A little manner would be nice.  I have provided links to other ads by Burger King below.  Let me know what you think.

Breakfast Muffin Sandwich
New BK for Breakfast
The Simpsons Movie BK Ad
BK Stackers

Small Business Privacy Policy Tool and Guidelines

Do you need a privacy policy for your  website, but don't have the budget? It's okay, because you can use the DMA's privacy policy generator.  Just plug in your company name, check a few boxes, and "bleep!" you got a privacy policy. 

After that, you might want to check out Truste. If you simply want ideas for your privacy policy, can download their application and "self-assessment" checklist for a general feel for what the "best practices" are for online privacy.  It's not cheap to get certified with them, but that's because they:

1) Review your privacy policy with a fine-toothed combe;
2) Send you all kinds of required changes;
3) And then scour your website, looking for anywhere you collect personal information!
4) They even sign up for you email newsletters to test your opt-in process;
5) Register for your products;
6) And use it!

Hope these tools and guidelines help you get started on your privacy policy!

Websitegrader

Facebook.com is a website I visit regularly.  According to Websitegrader, Myspace and Twitter came fairly close.  While FAcebook rated 94/100, Myspace rated 98/100, and Twitter rated 99/100.  I was shocked to see Facebook's rating below Myspace.  My assumption was that Facebook would have been the clear leader.  The major categories for which Hubspot based its grading on are:

* Website Grade
* MOZ Rank
* Google Indexed pages
* Traffic Rank
* blog grade
* inbound links
* del.icio.us bookmarks


Three recommendations I would make for the company's web designer and/or marketing group are:


1) Registering its domain for a long extended period of time, because search engines factor domain "stability" when looking at their pages and determining search priority;


2) And add maintain Conversion forms (since there was only one found).  Conversion forms is the primary way to harvest leads from your website; collect contact information from your visitors so that you can follow up with them later and stay in touch.  Without forms, you cannot convert your convert your website traffic into customers;


3) RSS Feed.  Though it is possible the site has RSS elsewhere on the site, it is best to make the feed discoverable on the home page itself.  The goal is quality sales leads and customers, so we need to focus on converting as much traffic as possible to leads and customers. 

Unleashing brilliant, anitcipatory service!

Almost everyone I talk to agrees that customer service these days is marginal at best. Companies must encourage a culture of customer service.  Managers must constantly develop and train team members to better anticipate and respond to customer needs. Consider the suggestions below to “unleash” brilliant, anticipatory service, build customer loyalty, and save your organization costs in the long run.

• Create anticipatory service standards. Use focus groups to pinpoint common customer/client requirements and ways they can be met by challenging every department to develop procedures and check lists to anticipate and meet your customers’ wishes, expectations, and/or concerns. Then establish service standards that will ensure a consistent level of proactive service.  Emphasize the positive and eliminate the negative!
• Hire for attitude and train for success. For positions that require contact with customers, you must select people with a natural, customer-oriented attitude.
• Invite your staff to walk a mile in your customers’ shoes to better understand the impact they have on the customer experience. Ask employees to identify with the customer.  Ask the customer for input as to what would make his/her experience with your organization more satisfying and memorable.
• Share positive customer service stories (from within your organization) with staff every day. This practice creates a forum for sharing best practices and sends the message that delivering remarkable service is not only encouraged, but is expected.
• Teach all employees the history of your company. Then, have each team member write down the one thing about your organization they are most passionate about and how they can share that with customers. This will connect employees emotionally with your brand.  Ritz-Carlton employees tell each guest “It is my pleasure” after providing any service-even the most simple.  This is the type of attitude and culture that needs to be encouraged.

As Roberts stated, "excellent customer service needs to be delivered by the entire organization, not just a single department."  (Roberts 235)

Hope these tips help!  Let me know if you have any questions.  Thank you!

Email Marketing: 5 Building tips

Email marketing can be profitable for any business no matter what kind of product or service you are in the business of selling. You can generate more sales and profits because it is significantly cheaper than other advertising methods and it enables you to build credibility with your subscribers.  Additionally, the “new consumer” is young and internet savvy.  The new consumer looks to the internet first.  News print and magazine marketing are rapidly losing ground to the internet.   If you have a list of subscribers that trust you and consider you to be an expert in the field of your business interest, you are on the right track.   Below is a list of building ideas that will help you get the most out of your email marketing:

1. Add a subscription form to every page of your website. I suggest locating it at the top left corner; that’s where the human eye will initially travel.

2. Make the sign up process as easy as possible. Collecting just the name and email address should be enough for most email marketing campaigns.

3. Address your visitors’ privacy concerns. Tell your potential subscribers that you respect their privacy and link this statement to a privacy policy page.

4. Give away useful free stuff. Give away downloadable or web-based software (ebook or PDF report) to visitors that they join your list.

5. Include testimonials in your squeeze page. This is crucial.  Put 1 or 2 strong testimonials from satisfied subscribers on your squeeze page. This can be in any format, but you may find that multimedia (audio or video social proof) is more “believable”. People like to follow footsteps of other people.  I personally endorse video- just look at the success of You Tube!

With these tips, you can build a list of 500 Opt-in Subscribers in less than one month!  Good luck and let me know what you experience.

Build Relationships with Social Content Creators

The history of internet content creators, i.e. bloggers and tweeters has gone from an unknown to a mass market phenomenon.  The use and behaviors of these social content creators have several important implications for marketers.  (Roberts 113)

According to eMarketers, a key element that makes earned media trustworthy for many consumers is that it can’t be bought.  It represents someone’s sincere opinion. Word-of-mouth has been scaled up by social media and other online tools, but it appears many social content publishers are willing to form relationships with marketers that would move their endorsements from the “earned” to the “paid” column.  And this is changing the landscape big time! 

The social media publishers surveyed valued their efforts at an average of $179 per blog post and $124 per tweet, and marketers that want to form relationships with these content creators should note that the bloggers and tweeters prefer cash.  Social media advertising company IZEA surveyed Twitter users, blog writers, and other social media publishers about their openness to sponsorship of their social content. More than half said they had already monetized their activities, and almost a third more wanted to. Overall, 71.3% had been offered some kind of incentive, like cash, free products or coupons, for a blog post or tweet promoting a brand. 

The bottom line is that everyone has his price.  Too bad, because the trustworthiness of the social content is now eroding and I can no longer rely on what I read.  I must factor in that the blogger or tweeter has been paid and therefore, may be biased and influenced in his/her observations.

Virtual Gift Cards

Facebook announced that Facebook credit gift cards would be available at stores. You will be able to use real money to buy virtual money at a Target store near you. Obviously, this means that parents and friends can buy Facebook gift cards for their loved ones to splurge on virtual goods on Facebook.  I am assuming that many people will give Facebook gift cards during the upcoming holiday season. This is a clear indication that the virtual goods economy is taking hold. The virtual economy has been growing at a phenomenal rate over the last two years, especially since the growth of social gaming on Facebook, and we can expect to see this growth to continue as location based social gaming takes off. It is interesting to see the virtual economy grow so big so fast even though nothing tangible is ever exchanged. But it points to a shift where our offline identity is increasingly intertwined with our online activities.  Growing numbers of people are ready to pay for virtual items because we are spending more and more of our time online.  I even have heard that one commentator opine that this phenomenon can actually bring families together by spending “family time” gaming together online!  Wow, the computer has really changed the way we live.

Wave your phone to make payments!

Starting this month, New Yorkers will be able to pay for their morning cup of coffee by simply waving their smart phones in front of a reader: no credit card or cash required. Bank of America is working with Visa to test using smart phones for store purchases in New York. Read the full story here.

According to Wikipedia, Bank of America and Visa are actively testing Near Field Communication (NFC) technology that is already widely used in Japan.  There are several test-cases of this remarkable technology underway across the world. I believe users in US will be open to using NFC for payment for three reasons:

1. Speed of transaction: less waiting in line to make the payment. I strongly believe people are willing to adopt new technologies to increase convenience and save time.  We Americans are busy and value every second!  As an  example, I do a finger scan at my gym to check in so I don’t have to wait in line.

2. Ease of use: all one needs to do is wave his/her phone.

3. Ubiquity of phones: while many of us may accidentally  leave our wallets in another purse or jacket pocket, we’re seldom found without our phones.  Somewhat sad but true!  I always have my phone within quick reach.

Super Prices

The commercials aired during the super bowl, are anticipated as much as the game itself. Advertisers are willing to pay up to 2.6 million dollars for 30 seconds of ad space during the super bowl and every year the commercials popularity increases. The reason advertiser’s are willing to pay so much for ad space is because the super bowl is a broadcasting event that is certain to bring fourth huge amount of viewers and an audience that are interested the in commercials. The advertiser’s also tend to put a lot of effort in making their commercials the most attractive; this also generates a lot of buzz for the viewers. According to Neilson media research, in 2006 there was a recorded 90.7 million viewers during the super bowl. Click here to check out the top 5 super bowl commercials.

What’s your value proposition?

I have several friends who own their own businesses, so I have decided to discuss value proposition with a few of them.  Value proposition is customer value delivered to a specific target market (Roberts 55).  When asked about their value proposition, I hear a description of their business model.  But that’s not what most customers care about. Customers want to know: “What’s in it for me?” and “Why should I buy from you?" 

This is an area that even seasoned marketers have trouble with, because there is so much confusion about what makes a value proposition effective, including how to find one in the first place. Making a few small changes can have a big impact across all of your marketing efforts.  I have provided some characteristics of strong value propositions below to help you evaluate.

Crafting a value proposition requires a significant reflection on what is unique about your company and your products and services.  Try describing in 10 words why people should buy from your company instead of another.  What would you communicate?


Characteristics of Strong Value Propositions:


1. You must differentiate your offer from your competitor's offers
2. You may match a competitor on every dimension of value except one.
3. You need to excel in at least one element of value.
4. In this way you become the best choice for your optimum customer.
5. There is a difference between the value proposition for your company and your product.  You must address both.

Behind McDonald's Golden Arches

Have you had the chance to check out McDonald's website?  If you're like me, you couldn't care less.  Surprisingly, the McDonald’s website offers much useful information for their customers, such as nutritional information and information about what is used in their products. I liked the fact that the site is very simple and easy to navigate.  You can tell the website is there to promote McDonald's products and services. The home page is clearly marked with one of their promos, the new Angus Snack Wraps!  As I browsed the site, I found some interesting facts and learned that McDonalds provides other services besides the Ronald McDonald House. 


Have you heard of McDonald's Hamburger University?  What exactly is being taught there?  Test your knowledge (right hand side).  I did not know the Hamburger University existed behind McDonald’s golden arches. I found this to be very interesting and can see it’s no joke.  According CNNMoney Reports, McDonald’s serves 60 million people a day!  At the U, students don’t learn how to flip burgers.  They actually learn the management skills to successfully run a restaurant in a five day course.  You can check out the video below.

http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2010/08/30/n_hamburger_university.cnnmoney/