Isaac Newton Rule: How Digital Marketing Campaigns Can be More Effective

Why is understanding design and relevant cultural trends so important in marketing?

Isaac Newton stated the rule: “We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.” Translated for media purposes – when you are creating a campaign make sure that you keep it simple, provide your audience with the love and passion you have for the product or service, and make it relevant.

For example in the following digital campaign for Ragu the famous maker of pasta sauce, they have created a visual and text that lacks passion and the love they should have for their product line.

Now, compare Ragu’s approach with the following brand. Innocent uses the passion they have for their brand, and relevancy for todays label reading shoppers to engage the customer emotionally and intellectually. The brand “makes us think” and also tries to “change us to suit the world as it is today”.

There is a clean large image, the design is contemporary and relavant, ingredients and nutritional info are easily made available (a requirement for so many shoppers these days, reviews (social engagement opportunity), and the paragraph description is short and can be read quickly.

Awesome – what other examples of good relevant design and copy have you find online lately?

(Thanks Avinash Kaushik for your insight)

Mobile: Heartbreaking but Travelocity Is Not The Exception To The Rule

Mobile Strategy: “How it is possible that in 2012 an organization as successful, as profitable, and as full of intelligent people as Travelocity has still not figured out how to configure their CMS (website) to detect a mobile browser user agent id and serve me a mobile-friendly webpage?

Marketing online: Doing Mobile Right

Heartbreaking but Travelocity is not the exception to the rule.

I go back to Google and try Kayak, , and then Hotwire, . Finally, just when my tears are almost exhausted I type in “cheapflights” and I smile…”

Do you have a good experience you can share about a great mobile version of a brands website?

Thanks Avinash Kaushik of Google for your great wisdom!

Why Are Website Browser Language Settings Important To You?

Browser settings (languages)- learn what languages your visitors are setting their browsers to, and you will be able to create content, and even banners to attract more visitors and convert.

Just knowing your visitors geographic location is not always enough for targeting and converting a visitor. A/B testing is very important in this strategy. Why, because it may be that only calls to action should be in a different language not the entire page’s content.

Mobile Politics and The 2012 Election: Current Pew Survey

Mobile Politics and The 2012 Election -

As of late September, 88% of registered voters own a cell phone of some kind—and significant numbers of these voters are using their mobile devices to get information about the 2012 election, to interact with the campaigns, and to converse with other voters about political issues:

—27% of registered voters who own a cell phone have used their phone in this election campaign to keep up with news related to the election itself or to political issues in general.

—Three quarters of these cell-owning registered voters use their phone to send or receive text messages, and within this group:

9% have sent text messages related to the campaign to friends, family members, or others
5% have signed up to receive text messages directly from a candidate or other group involved in the campaign
5% say that they have received unwanted election-related text messages that they did not sign up to receive

Smartphone owners are using their mobile devices as a tool for political participation on social networking sites and as a way to fact check campaign statements in real time. Roughly half (48%) of registered voters who own a cell phone say that they have a smartphone, and within this group:

• 45% have used their smartphone to read other people’s comments on a social networking site about a candidate or the campaign in general
• 35% have used their smartphone during this election campaign to look up whether something they just heard about a candidate or the campaign in general was true or not
• 18% have used their smartphone to post their own comments on a social networking site about a candidate or the campaign in general

(Pew Internet)

Location Based Marketing Strategy: Your Next Trade Show

How about doing something more creative at your next trade show?

Ask people to check into your trade show location through Foursquare to enter a chance to win an iPad or some prize with value. Now collect their contact info, track user info through Foursquare analytics; you have now created social awareness because check-ins are shared through their Foursquare and twitter social networks.

Follow-up with your marketing funnel process by implementing an e mail campaign to separate warm from cold leads, load the warm leads into your marketing automation or CRM, then create an educational product or brand campaign with content via webinar or blog postings.

Increase Social Media engagement: Use an Editorial Calendar

Increase Social Media engagement by using an editorial calendar, why?

1. Brings consistency to your social media posting regarding subject material and post timings
2. Reduces repetition of content
3. Helps to create synergy between all your social media assets

4. The calendar includes all messages your business sent. With that data, you can see how much time passed between the message and the response, which provides useful insight that makes optimization more effective.

We all use a calendar to keep on-top of our daily responsibilities right? A social media calendar can keep your businesses customer engagement more consistent and productive.

Are Businesses Planning To Expand Social Media Use In 2012?

 

Not mentioned in this survey is Small Business social media measurement, it is important for ROI and KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators – setting goals).

Content marketing is very important, but to be effective it must be relevant and strategically placed, tracked, and measured on all your digital properties touch-points.

Time Inc Reports – Which Social Sites Are Most Important To Be On

So what are the most important sites to be on? If the survey is any indication, an overwhelming 80% favor Facebook, while just under half are on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Only a few companies – less than 20% – have aligned their social media presence with a broader corporate strategy, so that appears to be the next big frontier in corporate social media strategy. (Survey- Time Inc 2012)

Of course your brand’s strategy will always have to align itself with your niche audience preferences, and also consider international customer preferences.

Whats hot in digital strategy? Mobile, but not mobile platforms!

Whats hot in digital strategy? Mobile, but not mobile platforms, it’s the content that your brand serves up to engage with its customers that is of real value going forward.

Advisory firm IDC predicts that by 2014 there will have been over 76 billion mobile apps downloaded resulting in an app economy worth an estimated thirty five billion in the same year. Mobile business will become big business in the not so distant future.

Bottom line – it’s about understanding mobile behavior and the mobility of your customers, tied to the content they really want to get that will determine your mobile campaigns success.

How Do You Get Started With A Successful Digital Sales Strategy?

While lead scoring is an effective way to increase e mail and marketing success, how do you get started?

Image Credit 5 PTZ NYC

A good way to begin your lead scoring analysis is to choose a scoring model that best reflects your current campaign strategy. Your sales and customer service team’s should always provide input about what constitutes a good lead. Scoring of a customer’s information (data) can begin at 1 and go as high as 100. Common lead scoring models emphasize the following areas: demographics, which provide broad general customer information, and preference which can be more granular and focus on behavioral influences.

Who Are The Ninja Internet Users? Caregivers Outpace Others

Eight in ten caregivers (79%) have access to the internet. Of those, 88% look online for health information, outpacing other internet users on every health topic included in our survey, from looking up certain treatments to hospital ratings to end-of-life decisions. (Pew Internet Survey)

“Caregivers use the internet to navigate the frontier of home health care,” says Susannah Fox, an associate director of the Pew Internet Project and lead author of the study. “Caregivers not only care for their loved one’s physical and emotional needs, but their information needs as well, and the internet is a key resource.” If you are in the health care profession and responsible for marketing your services and products then the internet is one of your best sources to connect to this particular B2C population.

A survey by AARP in 2010 states that “29% of the U.S. adult population, or 65.7 million people, are caregivers, including 31% of all households. These caregivers provide an average of 20 hours of care per week.”

How To Improve Your Brands Social Media Engagement: Transmedia Storytelling

One secret to a successful  digital engagement strategy is to provide productive interaction about your brand or service, right? So how can YOU do it best -through transmedia storytelling.

Transmedia stroytelling and digital engagement strategy

What is it? [University of Southern California professor] Henry Jenkins’ definition, which boils down to: one story over multiple media where each makes a unique contribution.

The Matrix is one of the canonical examples of good intertextual transmedia because you see things happen in the films that are only explained in the graphic novel or in the video games. There are moments where a character [exits the story in] one of those media and, in the next instant, appears in [another medium]. And if you [experience all this material] you know what’s going on in every moment.

Change the above traditional media to social platforms and weave a story or engagement thread such as a special offer, “how to” marketing strategy or even a mobile location based contest between several social platforms or venues. Make sure that you stick to the true definition of  transmedia storytelling – “one story over multiple media where each makes a unique contribution”.

Want more on this topic read Wharton.

How do you like this strategy?

Mobile: Are Mobile Phones Replacing Laptop and Desktop Computers?

Cell Internet Use 2012 Report just released!

Mobile use and internet search 2012 report

 
17% of cell phone owners do most of their online browsing on their phone, rather than a computer or other device. Most do so for convenience, but for some their phone is their only option for online access

Are you one of these users?

Pinterest: The Secret Strategy To Increase Engagement

Pinterest, how can you increase social engagement on your Pinterest page ? Did you know that “calls to actions” increase engagement on Pinterest by approximately 80% ?

Try linking Pinterest to your personal Facebook account, pin trending topics to your boards, integrate your products or services with images of other relevant brands, and of course do not forget “how to tutorials” about what your brand does best.

Pinterest engagement

Twitter Use 2012: African-Americans continue to use Twitter at very high rates—28%

Internet Strategy: Here are some recent Pew Internet findings:

 

African-Americans continue to use Twitter at very high rates—28% of online African-Americans are Twitter adopters, and 13% use the service on a typical day.

Usage by young internet users (those 18-24 years old) increased dramatically over the last year, with nearly one in three now using Twitter.

How To Become A Top Marketing Professional: Deep-dive Into Your Client’s Brand Culture

How do you keep your marketing clients happy – find time to immerse yourself in their brand or products culture. As I regularly do with my marketing work, here is one of my recent deep-dives into the pop culture of electronic music, Detroit Electronic Music Festival 2012.

(DEMF 2012) Great Pop Culture Deep-dive on Saturday @ the Detroit Electronic Music Festival with over 100,000 from around the globe – Old School hip hop artists closed the show – Flavor Flav, Public Enemy, & Ice-T- Word!

Invisible Digital Marketing: Is It A Trend or Permanent Marketing Strategy?

New digital marketing strategy in Australia for getting the attention of people on the street – because the advertiser is targeting a specific demographic, only those wearing sunglasses provided by the advertiser are able to see the raunchy videos of couples making out etc..

I think that by adding some type of product discount opportunity hidden in the windows imagery, it would increase the likely hood for engagement and opt-in’s on the company’s digital assets.

What do you think?

Peter

Content Marketing: Will Hunger for Online Content Remain Undiminished?

How are your content marketing campaigns doing, do you know how your audience is consuming digital content including its video watching behavior?

Check this research out to see if it matches your current strategies.

Teens And Social Media: Pew Internet Report On Teen Video Usage

Check out this new Pew Internet Report on teen video usage (survey size, 799 teens) – is this what they are doing instead of homework?

 

37% of internet users ages 12-17 participate in video chats with others using applications such as Skype, Googletalk or iChat. Girls are more likely than boys to have such chats.

27% of internet-using teens 12-17 record and upload video to the internet. One major difference between now and 2006 is that online girls are just as likely these days to upload video as online boys.

13% of internet-using teens stream video live to the internet for other people to watch.

Social media users are much more likely than those who do not use social media to engage in all three video behaviors studied.

Facebook: Approximately 1 Billion By August,That’s 1 Out Of 7 People In The World

What Would The World Be Like Without Mark Zuckerberg?

Facebook is estimated to have 1 billion users by August, that’s 1 out of 7 people in the world.

 

Get More Page Views: Want To Know What NOT To Measure On Your Digital Properties?

Get More Pageviews – Want to know what NOT to measure on your digital properties?

Page views are easy to measure but are they telling you anything about your online customer behavior?

Next time you are on Yahoo (or other large on-line publisher sites such as Forbes), check out one of its photo slideshows. Did you know that every page (picture) in the slide show is loaded one at a time (slow and frustrating), with a “Page View-driven CPM-incentivized mechanism”, that means it has computer code to monitor your ad and page click behavior.

What is the solution to this problem? INCREASE LOYALTY!

One of your marketing objectives on-line is to delight your customer and ensure that they return (loyalty). Meeting your Page Views quota and some CPM earnings is not equal to long term gain. Right?

Make sure that your entire slide show loads when the first slide shows up on a browser so people do not get frustrated waiting for each page to appear. Reduce the amount or page links for a better user experience.

Focus your metrics on page view loyalty, create a great user experience that directly translates into visiting a site a lot more often (several times a day at least), consuming a lot more content, and in the long run actually seeing (and clicking on) a lot more ads.

FOCUS ON THE COSTUMER NOT THE ADVERTISER, YOU WILL THEN ACHIEVE YOUR ADVERTISER GOALS. Focus on the repeat customer.

What Social Media Platforms Convert Better?

Have you taken the time to track                                     

fan conversions on your digital campaigns? Well if you

have not, we can share some of our research. Generally,

Linkedin will convert higher (3x) for B2B campaigns over

Facebook and Twitter. Also when launching a digital campaign

be sure to use unique coupon (offer) codes to track click throughs,

this way you can identify which touch points are more effective.

Wait one last thing, check out Microsoft Tags over QR codes if you want more information about your subscriber.

What social platform converts best for your campaigns?

Getting Your Blog Posts Noticed: What Can Make A Big Difference?

Marketing Strategy – Pictures can make a big difference in getting your posts noticed, so why not use them more often?

Blog post pictures make a difference! (Getty Image)

 

 

With “Pictures of the Day” you can have them sent to you, much like Google Alerts. Configure it, and see how much easier it is to collect good images (of course please reference the owners).

What The Fu.. Are Social Triggers, Why Are They Important In Social Media?

What the fu.. are Social Triggers, and why are they sooo important to your marketing and social media strategies?

They are the tools of cognitive science, and are incredibly useful for a marketer to understand in order to become a Master in his/her field. A brand also has social triggers, and should use them to be effective in its social persona.

Social triggers are valuable because they let you know what you or your brands social strengths are, and that (aha) moment provides specific personality assets for you to develop and master.

Know your social triggers

There are 7 primary social triggers, and they are the following:

1. Power – Example, Google or TSA at the airport
2. Passion – Attraction creates emotion. Example, an iPad 2 or white iPhone purchase, not necessary but you did it for emotional reasons. Passion pulls people close and increases emotion
3. Mystique- In the TV show Lost we want to find out what happens next.
4. Prestige – Respect. I want to be that or buy that.
5. Alarm- Urgency. Example, paying taxes or else jail or fines.
6. Vice (rebellion) – This is the trigger of creativity when you deviate from the norm. Groupon did it by reinventing coupons.
7. Trust – Boyscouts/Girl Scouts or Johnson and Johnson’s products. Consistent and loyal from one year to the next.

We all use these triggers every day, and each of us have two primary social triggers. One is used more than the other, the primary one is used when you are being your most influential. The secondary trigger supports your first one and that influences how you are being your most persuasive.

What are your social triggers and how are you or your brand going use them in your marketing strategy?

Social TV, It’s The Buzz Now!

Social TV, It’s The Buzz Now! Who is leading the movement in this area? If you want to learn about the latest strategies in this area you should follow Bravo and MTV.

Who are the leaders in Social TV?

I met with the head of Digital at Bravo TV recently and talked about their social TV plans. One of their goals is to develop and increase their social TV strategies by partnering with technology (even start-up) companies.

Once they find a promising fit, Bravo will put together a licensing deal allowing it to experiment with the tech company’s social technology innovations on their TV network.

Who are good audience candidates for cutting edge Social TV innovations? Here are the demographics:

Bravotv.com’s Regional Traffic Ranks

CountryRank

United States 1,355
Bangladesh 4,944
Canada 5,298
Sweden 10,078
Mexico 17,864

Audience Snapshot

Based on internet averages, bravotv.com is visited more frequently by females who are in the age range 25-34, have no children and are college educated.

“With television and Internet becoming more and more interconnected, the idea of Social TV, or interactions with viewers across the world, is expanding.” Whether a show on cable features a tiny hashtag at the bottom of the screen or a quirky host insists that viewers follow up the episode online for a chat with the cast, an online community is developing around television through Social TV.” (Likeable.com)

Smart Phones -Teens And Texting Is Up: Pew Internet Survey 2012

Smart Phones – what’s up with them, well teens are texting and using them more than ever before. New Pew Internet Survey finds the following:

“The volume of texting among teens has risen from 50 texts a day in 2009 to 60 texts for the median teen text user. In addition, smartphones are gaining teenage users. Some 23% of all those ages 12-17 say they have a smartphone and ownership is highest among older teens: 31% of those ages 14-17 have a smartphone, compared with just 8% of youth ages 12-13″

Joseph Kony 2012: The Social Media Stats Behind Its 32 Million Views

While I enjoy deep-diving into social media strategies, I also support important cause related issues. Here is one about Joseph Kony that happens to combine social media strategy and humanity -

Social Media Viewing Statistics:

Those ages 18-29 were much more likely than older adults to have heard a lot about the “ video and to have learned about it through social media than traditional news sources. Indeed, a special analysis of posts in Twitter showed that it was by far the top story on the platform.

Younger adults were also more than twice as likely as older adults to have watched the video itself on YouTube or Vimeo. As of March 13, the video had been viewed more than 76 million times on YouTube and 16 million times on Vimeo, making it one of the most viewed videos of all time on those sites. (Pew Internet Study)

What Are Some Good Content Distribution Rules, And Why Are They Important To Social Media??

1. Brands should think like social publishers rather than brands and personalities only

2. Large and small brands should recognize their content value and realize that they have as much good content within the brand as there is content that can be created by a brand (great concept right?). This will force a brands internal story telling creativity and help to develop its branding personality. Hmmm, I like that . 

3. If you are building a content campaign for your brand set your target at approx 500 influencers.
4. Remember KPI’s need to be put in place to maintain (defend) your marketing budget. Key performance indicators (KPI), in practical terms and for strategic development, are objectives to be targeted that will add the most value to the business

Do You Have A Small Business Mobile Strategy? 46% Of Mobile Users Are Waiting For You

WOW – Nearly half (46%) of American adults are smartphone owners, is your website properly viewable on a mobile devise? Most small businesses do not have their website optimized for mobile.

Smart Phone Owners

Approximately 63% of “C” level executives use a smart phone, they are the decision makers when it comes to B2B purchases and partnerships, we encourage you to optimize for mobile. Here is a fresh Pew study on mobile devises supporting the increase of mobile smart phones use. Nearly half (46%) of American adults are smartphone owners as of February 2012, an increase of 11 percentage points over the 35% of Americans who owned a smartphone last May. Two in five adults (41%) own a cell phone that is not a smartphone, meaning that smartphone owners are now more prevalent within the overall population than owners of more basic mobile phones. If your business sells to the B2C market then you should prepare your website for mobile viewing now!

Facebook Fans, How Many Do You Really Need For Your Business?

Facebook Fans, how many do you really need? Well this is a good question and one that some of you may not be able to answer. Your Fan base will depend on your business and its required audience reach, local or national.

To reach your best Fan base size you need to know how many friends your Fans have on their FB page. Once you know this you can determine how many people you really need to “Like” your company page.

1. A minimum fan base for local business would be approx 3000 Fans
2. A large store like Macy’s or Subway may need approx 10,000 Fans because it has multiple locations

Sure its fun to have lots of “Likes” on your Brand’s Fan page, but you may not necessarily need a million them!

Got it?

Is There One Important Social Media Site With Two Billion Page Views Missing In Your Marketing Plan?

DID YOU KNOW – In 2011, ONE SOCIAL MEDIA SITE had nearly 2 billion page views and approximately 34 million unique visitors to its site?

This same site had more than doubled its traffic in a year, and possesses a wide range of topics. REDDIT, is a major force that many businesses are not aware of [and should be]. Reddit.com, a social news site, lets users submit content and vote on posts. Check this community out!

Urban And Suburban Cell Owners More Likely To Look Up Reviews Of Products They See In Store

The rise of in-store mobile commerce The latest Pew Internet Survey found that More than half of adult cell phone owners used their cell phones while they were in a store during the 2011 holiday season to seek help with purchasing decisions. During a 30 day period before and after Christmas: 38% of cell owners used their phone to call a friend while they were in a store for advice about a purchase they were considering making 24% of cell owners used their phone to look up reviews of a product online while they were in a store 25% of adult cell owners used their phones to look up the price of a product online while they were in a store, to see if they could get a better price somewhere else Taken together, just over half (52%) of all adult cell owners used their phone for at least one of these three reasons over the holiday shopping season and one third (33%) used their phone specifically for online information while inside a physical store—either product reviews or pricing information.

How To Keep Loyal Fans Coming Back To Your Web Site Or Blog

Guess what! Customer loyalty is incredibly useful information for your business (small or large), it tells you if your brands fans are coming back to your website.

What to look for:

For site number one (47%) are visiting once, NOT good. But look at what is good in site one, 40% of the people visit the site more than 9 times a month, this is great! Now explore the behavior of these 40% brand loyal customers (the ones you love), by exploring what they do (content consumption patterns). Your mission of you choose to accept it, is to (segment the 40, learn what’s working there, apply to the 47!), nice right?

If your data looks more like site two, hmmmm not good. This site simply engages in one nighters. All the above can be done with Google Analytics, any questions?

Google Promotes Google+ and Youtube With Free Wireless

Google has begun to promote its free wireless in India in an attempt to encourage new user awareness.

PSFK reports that, the service which is provided by O-Zone Networks, will run for an initial three months, and will allow unlimited usage of Google+ and 10 minutes of free access to YouTube per week, but any other websites can only be accessed by paying for minutes.

Image:PSFK

India currently has approximately 10% internet penetration. Google’s marketing of its mobile devices in India has been very successful, and the company states that it has 40 percent of its searches and 67 percent of its e-commerce coming from users on devices. This marketing effort hopes to increase mobile internet usage and create additional users of Google+ and YouTube on users’ portable devices at work and leisure.

Where Are Most Retail Businesses Page Views Coming From?

Welcome to a new week, we have some great strategy tips to share with you. We will also be taking you deep into a master level class about how YOU can get free PR and Buzz for your online marketing promotions and products. Let’s first start with this data on where most retail website views are coming from (it will help you with your strategy planning). As always, let me know if you have any questions!

Image: ComScore/Buddy Media

How To Increase Your Online Retail Business Social Sharing With Pinboards

How would you like to increase your retail business social sharing, did you know this can increase your sales? Then take a look how Etsy does it.

Pinboards can encourage customers to collect photos and links to products they purchase on your online retail site. They can also help users create socially curated shopping catalogs, the social element comes in because everyone follows their friends’ pinboards.

Take a look at this Tech Crunch article about Pinterest and how it works. Let me know how you would use this sharing strategy, and I will give you social strategy feedback.

How To Make Facebook Work For Your Small Business

Facebook can be difficult to use for many small businesses, so if you have a small business, and your finding it difficult to make social media work, you should  watch this interview with Dennis Yu. You will learn about the following strategies and more!

Reaching local markets

Number of fans you should target to be effective

Finding super fans, ones that are valuable to your business

How and why you should be tracking your social media activity

Let me know what you think about the interview.

Wednesday Tech Tip: Social Media Sharing, Tweet Via E Mail

Wednesday Tech Tip! Back again with another great social media tech tip that will help you increase your social media sharing when you send an e-mail. Have you ever wondered why people still use those old school e-mail address links to their Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and other online accounts following their e-mail signature? Well, a company called WiseStamp has created a FREE social app to share your web activity by adding social icons to your e- mails. Yup, it can even add your latest Tweet. Take a tour, and let us know how you like it.

Why Facebook’s Advertising Platform Is One Incredibly Powerful Tool For Your Brand

We received lot’s of great feedback from our recent video about multi content blogging, thanks!

We think you will also find this short video talk about how and why Facebook’s advertising platform is incredibly useful for promoting your brand, product or service. Don’t want two give away all Basil’s tips and takeaways before you listen to his presentation.  Let me know what you think.

Content Marketing: The Power of Multi Author Blogging

In this video, you will discover why multi author content marketing can be a powerful branding tool.

Content blogging should create value, be relevant, and solve a particular problem. One approach to creating good content is to have several authors contribute to your blog. Each contributing author can specialize in a particular industry niche, this approach will produce a more broad and deeper audience reach and content expertise.

Have you tried multi author blogging?

http://vimeo.com/34260837

FACEBOOK LAUNCHES BUSINESS CARDS SERVICE

This article titled “Facebook Cards takes networking back offline” was written by Mark Sweney, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 5th January 2012 13.10 UTC

Facebook is to encourage users to take their virtual brand into the real world with the launch of a new service enabling them to create personalised business cards based on images and posts from their profile.

The new service, called Facebook Cards, is being positioned as a “new model of social-business networking” that “bridges the gap between online and offline”.

Facebook Cards, which will become available for the social networking giant’s 800 million-plus users globally from 5pm on Thursday (GMT), has been developed in conjunction with UK-based digital printing business Moo.com.

The social networking giant believes that the time is right to launch the service because users will be able to make creative business cards thanks to the launch of the new Facebook Timeline product late last year.

In one word what do you think?

Technology and Religious Groups: Can They Be Easily Engaged Online?

Latest Pew research finds that those Americans who are actively involved with religious organizations and groups, have similar technology behaviors as those who are not.

The study questioned users of  the internet, broadband at home, cell phones, text messaging, and social networking sites and Twitter”. This study can help support online social engagement strategies, including proper content development for social engagement.

Crowd Sourcing A Pictorial Essay:The Political and Cultural Events of 2011

Do the following images show the effects of successful crowd-sourcing events? Yes, by relying on a large group of people or community (a crowd), through an open call to create and build a rich human interaction. Crowd sourcing can be ignited by political or cultural cause, emotional trigger, social media, public stage, and user control to share personal feelings with the world. These public demonstrations also display social experiment and work of art.

By engaging with your audience at a unique place, creating a two-way conversation, and not exclusively relying on digital technology, your social media efforts have a better chance of succeeding.

Social Media and The KeystoneXL Pipeline: Has It become a Social Strategy?

A multi-billion dollar controversial oil pipeline, and a little social media lobbying, that is what we saw in August of 2011.  Some fake Twitter accounts and tweets with fake links to materials in support of the project.

Brant Olson, a campaign director with the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) noticed the tweets. Olson discovered that the Twitter accounts traced back to Keith Brockmann, a paralegal in a law firm run by a registered lobbyist for the Nebraska Energy Forum.

Three months later, social media forces are growing, with environmental groups suggesting that this one issue will decide if they support Obama in his run for a second term.

Here is a look at the social media activity as of December 21, 2011, surrounding the KeystoneXL pipeline. I down loaded these KeystoneXL conversations from a social monitoring tool earlier today.

KeystoneXL Pipeline Social Media Activity

KeystoneXL Pipeline Social Media Activity

According to NPR, Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman said it would create “more than 100,000 American jobs.”

And earlier Wednesday on the Senate floor, Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas said the project “promises 20,000 immediate jobs and 118,000 spin-off jobs.” They all seem to be getting their numbers from the same source: TransCanada Corporation, the company behind the project.

One of several environmentalists concerns is that the pipeline could spill into Nebraska’s aquifer that supplies it with water.

If you follow these digital conversations going forward, you will likely find that social media and the presidential election will play an important part in shaping Obama’s and other presidential candidates decisions about the KeystoneXL project.

Have You Ever Wanted to Know What Everyone Has Been Searching For On Google? Now You Can!

Everything Google -the  annual Google  Zeitgeist report,  a look at how the world searched in 2011.

Digital Strategy and Social Media

PSFK Image
The fastest rising search trends list is as follows:

1. Rebecca Black

2. Google +

3. Ryan Dunn

4. Casey Anthony

5. Battlefield Three

6. iPhone 5

7. Adele

8. 東京 電力 (TEPCO)

9. Steve Jobs

10. iPad 2

Where Are People Getting Information About Restaurants and Other Local Businesses?

People looking for information about local restaurants and other businesses say they rely on the internet, especially search engines, ahead of any other source.

Newspapers, both printed copies and the websites of newspaper companies, run second behind the internet as the source that people rely on for news and information about local businesses, including restaurants and bars.

And word of mouth, particularly among non-internet users, is also an important source of information about local businesses. – Pew Internet

Can Parents Effectively Monitor and Reduce Bad Behavior On-line?

Pew Internet Study: On-line Behavior

Image: Rexi Media

The latest Pew study finds that even when parents friend their children on social network sites (39% have done so in this current study), it does not necessarily head off problems on those sites. Fully 87% of parents of teens are online and 67% of those online parents use social network sites.

And of those social network site-using parents (who have children who also use social network sites), 80% have friended or connected with their child via social media. That translates into 45% of all online parents of teens and 39% of all parents of teenagers who are “friends” with their children on social media sites.

Parents who have friended their child on social network sites are more likely to report using parental controls.

Teens who are social media friends with their parents are also more likely to report that they had a problem with their parents because of an experience on social media.

A notable number of teens also engage in online practices that may have the potential to compromise their safety online.

Close to half of online teens have said they were older than they are in order to access a website or online service, and a third have shared a password.

44% of online teens admit to lying about their age so they could access a website or sign up for an online account. Social network site-using teens are twice as likely as non-users to say they misrepresent their age online in order to gain access to websites and online services (49% vs. 26%).
30% of online teens reports sharing one of their passwords with a friend, boyfriend, or girlfriend.
47% of online girls 14-17 say they have shared their passwords, compared with 27% of boys the same age.

Read Entire Pew Internet Report

Google research

Google research shows that mobile based searches tend to be localized; they are also valuable in the conversion of customers to a location or product purchase.

Mobile Purchase Conversion Rates

Are Local Businesses Marketing Online? You May Want To Before The Competition Does

The graphic below is based on a February 2011 survey, 83% of small business owners interviewed were not involved in any kind of mobile marketing.

Small Business Mobile Optimization

In June, a second survey found that 48% of SBO believe mobile marketing is very important. While there appears to be an increase in SBO’s desire to market their brands on-line, the market is not mature. This means your brand will be more easily found with less mobile/digital competition now.

Increase in Small Business Mobile Marketing

Research suggests that mobile shoppers buy a product or service shortly after finding it (about 1 to 2 hours), and that PC shoppers spend up to 1 week before making a purchase decision.

If you are working with clients that have a small business, you should talk to them about mobile marketing, and its related marketing research. It is also important that they understand how to strategically use their mobile analytics data found on their website analytics dashboard.

The sooner they begin their mobile web site optimization, social engagement and some level of rich media awareness branding, the more ROI they will realize.

Do You Know Who Your Customers Are? Consumer Intelligence, Not More Data Is The Answer

A recent Forrester Report of 137 global customers found that the top problem marketing professionals experience today with their intelligence data is creating a single view of the customer.

 Creating The Customer Persona 

For many companies, consumer data collection has doubled in size because of social media engagement and digital marketing activities. One of the ongoing problems marketers have had is that intelligence data are siloed and not turned into useful consumer insights.

Marketing professionals and analysts alone can not always translate intelligence data into one single view of the customer, particularly when it is collected from different parts of a company’s business operations.

One of the ways to make sense of customer data is to employ a cultural anthropologist, or even a psychologist to help create a customer personality (persona).

What marketing and operations managers are now realizing is that these cultural and social specialists may not be capable of handling the strategic side of data analysis, and putting it into action on a company wide-level.

One skill set that is predicted to solve this dilemma is the Customer Intelligence professional. CI’s are responsible for taking consumer intelligence from different parts of an organization, and employing it as a strategic asset throughout the company. This is generally a difficult tasks considering many division managers have their own vision for achieving their business goals.

Forrester’s recent research predicts that the customer intelligence professional will be the future go-to person responsible for driving marketing performance and business strategy throughout the organization.

We are now in the age of the “customer”, and this fact has changed the customer intelligence landscape. Collecting data in nontraditional ways such as unstructured, online and mobile make the analysis and collection process more difficult. Determining what data is useful and should be acted on, converting it into intelligence, and using it for business strategy throughout the company will be the CI’s challenges going forward.

CI’s will also be expected to help shape and deploy, on an enterprise level, customer intelligence data and turn it into a corporate strategic asset.

Many brands’ customer conversations, intelligence collection, and digital activities will grow online and become more complex. There will also be greater need to have deeper understandings of human behavior and use it strategically, beyond what quantitative and qualitative analysis are currently doing. One way to do this for CI’s to be directly involved in the organizational strategy, process, technology, data, and measurement activities of your company’s team.