Thursday, November 05, 2009

Best of 2009 (So Far): Social Media Marketing, Part 2

Social media, and discussions of its value for PR and marketing, have become ubiquitous. But which social media tool do marketers find most valuable? What's the best tool for social media research and learning? How can you maximize the business value of tools like LinkedIn and Twitter? How can you explain the value of social media to skeptics?

Find the answers to these questions and others here in more of the best articles and blog posts on social media marketing from this year so far.

11 Reasons You Can’t Ignore Social Media in 2009 by Digital Labz

Social media now has wide adoption as a marketing and PR tool, but for those still reluctant to use tools like blogs, video, LinkedIn and Twitter for marketing, Eric Brantner offers almost a dozen reasons to get started, such as "social media is gaining trust," it's fast, it's passionate, and it's free (at least the tools are for the most part).


Study: Company Blogs Lead Social Media Options by MediaPost

Mark Walsh reports that "blogging (is) the most important lead-generation source among social media options, followed by StumbleUpon, YouTube, Facebook, De.lic.ious and Digg" (not a surprising result, considering that those other sites tend to support a corporate blog, not replace it). He also quotes a HubSpot study finding that three-quarters of bloggers in small to midsize companies say that "their company blogs were 'useful,' 'important,' or 'critical' to their business."

Another MediaPost article worth checking out is Scout Labs Offers Cheaper Way To Monitor Consumers. Gavin O'Malley writes that Scout Labs offers "a more economical consumer sentiment-tracking service for agencies and marketers" than Nielsen BuzzMetrics or TNS Cymfony. The company has an impressive list of clients using its tool to monitor and analyze brand conversations across the social media landscape.


Top 5 SlideShare Groups – A Rich Learning Environment for Social Media by uber.la

John McElhenney praises SlideShare as an innovative social media tool and links to his favorite groups for learning about and sharing knowledge of social media.


How to be a LinkedIn superstar by iMedia Connection

Larry Weintraub explains how to get the most out of LinkedIn, from creating the right kind of profile, building connections and soliciting recommendations to working with LinkedIn groups.


Social Media Marketing 101, Part 1 by Search Engine Watch

For those either still new to social media, or just struggling to explain its value to a manager or client, Ron Jones provides an excellent explanation of social media, the different types of sites on the social media landscape, and the marketing and PR benefits of using social media.


50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business by Social for Business

As the title promises, here are more than four dozen ideas on how to use Twitter for business, categorized into five groups including "Ideas about WHAT to Tweet" (e.g., ask questions, retweet interesting information from others, and when retweeting your own stuff, make sure it has value to the reader and isn't just self-promotion) and "Some Positives to Throw Back" when people argue that Twitter is a waste of time, such as Twitter's value in breaking real-time news and quickly collecting market feedback.


The Periodic Table of the Social Media Elements by eyecube

This very clever and ambitious post compares social media to chemistry, and lays out a "periodic table" for social media encompassing different behaviors (e.g., sharing and listening), key influencers (David Meerman Scott, Brian Solis, Joe Pulizzi, etc.), tools (delicious, Feedburner, LinkedIn et al.), practices, blogs and more.

Previous posts in this series:

Best of 2009 (So Far): Social Media Marketing, Part 1
Best of 2009 (S0 Far): AdWords Tips and Tactics, Part 1
Best of 2009 (So Far): Blogging for Business, Part 1
Best of 2009 (So Far): SEO Guidance, Part 1
Best of 2009 (So Far): Cool Web Tools, Part 1
Best of 2009 (So Far): Twitter Tips and Tactics, Part 1

*****


Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

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Tuesday, November 03, 2009

SEO for Product Pages

It seems like so much of what is written about search engine optimization (SEO) assumes that you're writing a blog post, or a news story, or the next great "how to" article that's going to be syndicated far and wide on article marketing sites.

Sometimes that is what you're doing, but often writing for the web—and SEO—involves less glamorous pages like product or service descriptions. Of course, such pages are critical: no one will buy anything from you if they don't understand what you offer. It's just that, no matter how creatively written and carefully optimized, your "About Our Widgets" page is never going to make it to the first page of Digg. It simply can't compete with the latest Britney-Spears-abducted-by-a-three-armed-alien type story.

So how do you add life, and SEO value, to a product page? Here are four complementary techniques:

1) Use the words your prospects use. It doesn't matter if your product is technically more of a thingamabob than a whatchamacallit, if your prospects are searching for whatchamacallits, and that's the competitive set they place your product in, that had better be the term you're using. Use a keyword research tool to help identify which terms to use.

2) Tell a story. Incorporate the keywords you just identified into a compelling story that helps your prospective customers quickly understand how their life will be better once they buy your widgets. Be as specific as possible, and link to case studies to support specific claims.

3) Write detailed product descriptions, again incorporating keywords. The more detailed and vivid the description, the more appealing it will be to both human prospects and search engine bots.

4) Use pictures if at possible, and optimize the alt tags associated with the images, again using the keywords identified above. Photos and diagrams add interest and aid in understanding for your human prospects, while the alt tags communicate the value of the images to search engines. Also use keywords in the file names of your images.

As prospects work their way through the research process, from general how-is-this-problem-being-solved-today research to specific types of products or services, make sure that your content fits their needs—and that the search engines can find it.

*****


Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

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Monday, November 02, 2009

Top Marketing Budget Priorities for 2010

Given the continued high unemployment rate and uncertain prospects for economic recovery, marketing budgets will be tight heading into the new year. Most B2B marketers are likely to find themselves with fewer dollars to spend but more pressure to spend them carefully.

In this environment, what are the three or four areas where marketers should focus scare resources? One area clearly is organic search engine optimization (SEO). While it isn't necessarily cheap, it's inexpensive in comparison to most other types of online marketing and advertising programs, and nothing is more effective at drawing targeted website traffic at the time prospects are looking.

According to eMarketer, SEO tops the list of effective web lead generation methods, as "Forty-eight percent of marketers (in a 2009 study by Forbes) said that SEO was the best method for generating conversions online." In addition, a 2009 SEMPO study found that SEO was second only to paid placement at producing the best ROI of any marketing tactic.

Where else should scarce dollars be allocated? Check out The Top 3 Priorities for 2010 Marketing Budgets at B2Bbloggers.

*****


Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

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Monday, October 26, 2009

Best of 2009 (So Far): Twitter Tips and Tactics, Part 1

Despite a recent dip in users, Twitter remains a hot social media platform (and arguably a better venue for b2b marketers than Facebook). Bloggers not only use Twitter to promote their content, but writing about Twitter frequently is their content.

Want to learn more about how to use Twitter for marketing, which mistakes to avoid, and learn from brand that are using the microblogging platform successfully? Check out these posts, the first of the best from this year on using Twitter for b2b marketing.

Twitter in B2B – a Velocity Slideshare by The B2B Marketing Blog

Doug Kessler outlines his firm's presentation on seven ways to use Twitter for b2b marketing. Advising b2b bloggers on the use of Twitter, Doug writes "Twitter is already playing a role in content marketing campaigns — for finding topics, inviting input and promoting the finished pieces. It’s all about the engagement."


10 ways to get your business in on the microblogging craze by iMedia Connection

Clay McDaniel offers some basic but solid advice in this guide to making Twitter work for marketing, such as pick a leader (so there is "one personality driving the charge"), establish a regular rhythm, and "talk like a real person" (not as obvious as you might think). Three other articles from iMedia Connection worth reading are 7 marketing mistakes to avoid on Twitter by Rodney Rumford, Meet the brands that 'get' Twitter by Michael Estrin, and 7 tips for the perfect Twitter profile by Jason Baer.


Twitter 101, Part 2 by Search Engine Watch

Ron Jones reviews popular Twitter tools, offers tips on finding the right people to follow while growing your own following, and provides a basic guide to understanding Twitter lingo. This post is an excellent starting point for those new to Twitter.


Case Study: How I Used Twitter to Generate 35,967 Extra Hits to my Site in Just 14 Days by Winning The Web

Gyutae Park details a real-world case of how to use Twitter to drive traffic to worthwhile content, using a hot topic, your network of followers, social bookmarking sites, the Tweet This Wordpress plugin, a helpful follow-up article—and a bit of luck.


Twitter background guidelines by Croncast

For anyone still using a "canned" Twitter background found somewhere on the web, or worse, one of Twitter's own default backgrounds, this post provides the technical specifications—file dimensions, size, coordinates and instructions—for creating a custom Twitter background image.


Twitter FAIL! The 8 worst brands on the world's hottest microblog by Revolution

Gareth Jones heaps scorn on eight global brands that got Twitter wrong, and explains why their strategies (or lack thereof) went awry. Astoundingly, as of May of this year, major brands like McDonalds, Pepsi, Vodafone and Gucci each had less than 1,000 followers. This article lets you learn from their mistakes.

*****


Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

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Thursday, October 22, 2009

3 Reasons it's Tough to Measure the ROI of Social Media

Social media marketing is a hot topic, with 75% of marketers planning to initiate or increase social media use next year. With larger budgets and more time devoted to social media will come increased pressure to demonstrate ROI.

While it's not necessarily difficult to show an ROI from social media, accurately measuring the return on investment is challenging for at least three reasons. First is the problem of "last click attribution." A recent study found a 50% CTR increase in paid search when consumers were exposed to both social media and paid search for a brand, but if the actual click comes from AdWords, good luck convincing your executives that social media efforts led to that click. Similarly, a click-through from Twitter or Facebook may have been influenced by any variety of other online and offline marketing efforts, so giving 100% credit to social media for lead may be overstating the case.

For the complete story, read Three Challenges in Measuring B2B Social Media ROI on the B2B Online Marketing blog.

*****


Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

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Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Best of 2009 (So Far): Cool Web Tools, Part 1

Looking for a slick tool to easily build branded widgets? How about a social media browser that integrates social search and sharing across multiple sites? Maybe a cool application for online project management? A sophisticated yet free analytical tool for optimizing your CRM implementation? Low-cost video production? Social media analytics?

Find them all and others here in the first set of the best cool web tools for 2009.

Sprout Builder

In their own words, Sprout Builder is "a visual authoring studio that allows creative professionals to quickly and easily create branded, rich-media content and widgets." It enables designers build anything from simple Flash banners to a sophisticated widgets with multiple media types, feeds and sharing options by dragging different media types onto a canvas and controlling effects. Pricing ranges widely from $19 per month for the individual option to $299 per month for the professional version, but there's a 30-day trial for the curious to try this out.


Flock

Flock is a "social web browser" that integrates email, photos, video and social media sites into a single interface, while simplifying sharing and publishing. It runs on Windows, Mac or Linux and supports multiple webmail types (Gmail, AOL, Yahoo! Mail), social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace), blogging platforms (WordPress, Blogger, TypePad), media sites (Flickr, YouTube) and more. It includes features like a People Sidebar for staying in touch with your social connections, an integrated RSS feed reader, blog editor and web clipboard. And it's free.


Huddle

Huddle is an online project management, collaboration and file sharing tool along the lines of Basecamp, DeskAway and Projjex. It supports unlimited users, online chat, project alerts, a whiteboard feature, document management (approvals, workflow, audit trails), and collaborative document editing. Pricing ranges from a free, ad-supported version to $200/month for the enterprise package, with the most popular service level at $38 per month.


CRM Diagnostic

Customer relationship management (CRM) systems have become ubiquitous, yet many—perhaps even most—implementations fail to take full advantage of the software's capabilities in one or more areas. Most companies could be getting more benefit from their existing systems, but identifying the problem areas, and what needs to be done to improve use of the software, can involve a long and expensive consulting engagement. This free analysis tool from on-demand CRM consulting firm Demand Chain Systems short-circuits that process, helping to identify the most promising areas for improvement in just 40 minutes.


Jing

Jing lets you capture on-screen action or animate still images, add narration, and upload the final video or YouTube or other video-sharing sites or share by email. Available for Windows and Mac, Jing lets you add call-outs to screen captures or images, share your video or output it for further editing in other tools. There's a free version for casual home users, or a Pro version that adds features like additional output options and webcam capture (Mac OS X Leopard only) available for just $14.95 per year.


Skimmer

Skimmer is a free Adobe AIR desktop application designed to organize your social media activities and make interaction easier by aggregating your friends' feeds from Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, and Blogger on one screen. It provides instant access to any video linked in a feed post, a slideshow view for Flickr photos or YouTube videos, and the ability to customize your profile and the appearance of your content.


TubeMogul

TubeMogul is a free online video tracking and analytics service that provides a single point for uploading to the top video sharing sites, and powerful analytics on who, what, and how videos are being viewed. TubeMogul tracks viewing statistics far beyond "views," including per-second audience dropoff, audience geography and more. According to their site, "TubeMogul's analytic technology aggregates video-viewing data from multiple sources to give publishers an improved understanding of when, where and how often their videos are watched, track and compare what's hot and what's not, measure the impact of marketing campaigns, gather competitive intelligence, and share the data with colleagues or friends." There are also fee-based versions that provide more advanced analytics and video promotion features.


Check whether the Twitter conversations about you are positive or negative with twendz by Advocable

Palin Ningthoujam reviews twendz, a free social media tracking and sentiment measurement tool that shows you who is talking about your product or brand (or any other topic) on social media sites, what's being said, a keyword cloud of the terms most commonly used in the conversations, and the overall tone (negative, positive or neutral) of the conversations. While not as sophisticated as professional monitoring tools, twendz does provide a quick, easy and free snapshot of the content and sentiment around any topic of social media discussion.

Previous posts in this series:

Best of 2009 (So Far): Social Media Marketing, Part 1
Best of 2009 (S0 Far): AdWords Tips and Tactics, Part 1
Best of 2009 (So Far): Blogging for Business, Part 1
Best of 2009 (So Far): SEO Guidance, Part 1

*****


Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

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Tuesday, October 20, 2009

A Unique Approach to Integrated Advertising Campaigns: Nabbit

In March of last year, I highlighted Nabbit as a cool online tool for tagging songs on the radio using your cell phone. It still is, though there are now competing technologies available.

But what sets Nabbit apart, and makes it interesting to both b2b and b2c marketing professionals, is the tool's ability to serve as a platform for integrated advertising campaigns.

To learn more, I spoke with John Freund, CEO of Jump Technologies, Inc. (JumpTech), the creator of Nabbit and Nabbit Ads. Here's our discussion.

WebMarketCentral (WMC): What exactly is Nabbit Ads, and how does it work?

John Freund (JF): Nabbit Ads® allows advertisers to create integrated radio, tv, outdoor, print, mobile, digital and social network advertising campaigns. For example, a listener on the radio hears an ad from a coffee vendor (lets call it “Joe’s Java”) that says to text in the word “coffee” and receive a coupon on your phone good for a free cup of coffee today. When the listener sends in the text, an ad for Joe’s Java is automatically saved for them in their Nabbit account. If the listener didn’t have a Nabbit account, one would automatically be created for them and a follow on text message would be sent telling them about the account.

If the listener has opted to share their Nabbs with their friends on Twitter or Facebook, a message would also appear there. For example, the message would say “Tom Pick just nabbed a free cup of coffee from Joe’s Java. Text Coffee to 545454 to get yours”. This is an example of a radio ad that drives a mobile coupon that launches a digital ad on Nabbit.com as well as a social message on Facebook.


WMC: What kinds of companies can benefit most from using this technology?

JF: Any business can benefit from Nabbit Ads. At its core, Nabbit helps people remember what they heard on radio, saw on TV or read in print. I am sure you can remember a time when you heard an ad for a product or a service that you wanted to act on but couldn’t because it wasn’t convenient. Nabbit allows the consumer to Nabb the ad and act on it later.

So, if you are a retailer and want to launch a coupon promotion, Nabbit Ads is a great tool. If you run a service group and want people to remember to go to your website, Nabbit Ads can help with that. If you own a restaurant and are looking to drive people into your store, Nabbit helps that tremendously. Again, Nabbit allows the consumer to Nabb the opportunity at the time they hear it, and act on it when it is convenient for them. Nabbing the ad sets in motion a sequence of events that spreads it in a very viral way through mobile, the internet and social networks.

WMC: Can you provide some real-world examples of companies using Nabbit Ads and what results they’ve seen?

JF: We helped Fox Television launch the Dollhouse series by adding tags to the end of their existing radio spots that said “To be reminded to tune into to the premier of Dollhouse, text the word 'Dollhouse' to 545454." Listeners who sent the text received a message one hour before the show started, reminding them to tune in. Listeners who requested the reminder also received an ad in their Nabbit account for a Dollhouse contest where they could win wardrobe from the show by answering a question during the show.

We also either Tweeted or posted a Facebook news feed that alerted the listener’s friends and followers that they had just set a reminder to watch Dollhouse. The message also instructed the friends and followers to text Dollhouse to 545454 to receive their own reminder. Any person who responded to the Tweet or Facebook item also received the contest ad in their Nabbit Account.

The contest was designed to cause the viewer to tune in live during the show. A question about the show was posted at Nabbit.com. The user saw the question by clicking on the link in the Nabbit Ad that was posted when they texted in for their reminder. Once at that link, they read the question and then watched the show for the answer. We created a “Fox Channel” on our Nabbit phone applications (iPhone, m.nabbit.com and our Java Mobile app) and made it available to those who registered to participate in the contest.

During the show, viewers opened the Fox Channel in Nabbit on their phones and saw four possible answers to the question. When they thought they knew the answer, they pressed the corresponding button on their phone. The winner was selected out of all who submitted the correct answers. Again, this only worked during the actual broadcast. If a viewer watched Dollhouse on their DVR after the show, the contest didn’t work.

Fox was looking to accomplish two things in this campaign: increase viewers to the premier as well as increase live viewers rather than DVR viewers (as people with DVRs can fast forward through commercials). 33% of those who registered for the contest actually participated, which meant that they actually watched the show live—a number much higher than Fox anticipated.

WMC: Nabbit Ads seems like a pretty unique product. Who do view as competitors and how does Nabbit Ads compare to their offerings?

JF: Our primary competition comes in two areas. First, just within the marketing departments of the companies we are talking to, responsibility for mobile, digital and social network advertising is often fragmented. Many companies now have a traditional marketing group, a digital group, a mobile group and a social network group. In most cases, these groups don't work well together.

We came across one company that contacted us through their radio buyers asking to run a mobile campaign with us. We later found out that this company's mobile group was planning the same type of campaign. The radio people were trying to buy mobile and the mobile people were trying to buy radio—a real waste of time and money. We spend a great deal of time in our sales cycles just trying to get these groups to work together and drive much higher ROI from leveraging the strengths of each platform to work together.

Our second form of competition comes from the mobile text messaging crowd. There are literally hundreds of companies like Hipcricket and Vibes that sell mobile texting campaigns. While great companies with good products, they are very one-dimensional. The listener can text in a keyword in response to an ad. There is no linkage to digital or social networking, which are the two hottest ad platforms today. Nabbit Ads is the only service that allows advertisers to build truly integrated campaigns across all media types today.

WMC: What’s the pricing structure for Nabbit Ads?

JF: We price our products just like search engine advertising is priced today. Everything is set up on a cost-per-click basis. This creates a no-risk opportunity for advertisers. If our campaigns are not successful, advertisers will not pay for it. We have budget caps so that when the campaign response is higher than anticipated, we can alert the advertiser that they are approaching their budget, and they can decide how they want to move forward.

WMC: Anything else you’d like to add?

JF: The other key component of Nabbit Ads is the measurability of everything we do. Our customers have real-time analytics available to them to track response rates to their campaigns. They can see what media outlet works when. They can see the demographics of those responding as well as the viral impact of the campaign. These are examples of just a few of the many reports we provide. The bottom line is that we provide analytics that most advertisers have only dreamed of.

Finally, Nabbit Ads is extremely easy to implement. Advertisers can Nabbit-enable an ad with a simple 10-second tag at the end of existing creative, or a crawler on the bottom of a TV ad, or a simple texting option in an existing print ad. We get campaigns up and running within hours of notification from our clients. The process is quick and easy, and leads to terrific a terrific ROI for our customers. With our shared risk/shared reward pay-per-click pricing model, there is very little risk to an advertiser in trying Nabbit Ads.

*****


Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

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