#9 IMU: Successful Email Marketing (CV301)
View more documents from Hubspot Marketing.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
#9 IMU: Successful Email Marketing (CV301)
Check out this SlideShare Presentation on e-mail marketing
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
The perfect analytics package
I've been in the Analytics business for about 5 years now. As a result, I truly believe that I have valuable information to share. In fact, I can tell you all there is to know about products that can do everything you're going to want to do as you analyze your site over time. That's a pretty bold statement isn't it?
So what products can do everything and answer all your questions? Well there aren't any. The perfect analytics product still has yet to be built. If you think about it, The Model T Ford rolled off the line 101 years ago and the perfect car has still never been built.
The tricky thing about analytics is that you DON'T know what you don't know. That's the problem. That's always been the problem and that is likely to remain the problem for a while now. Just when products get close to being ultimately flexible, fast enough, perfectly tuned within your organization and your boss has bought in to the numbers, one or more of these things can happen:
1. New MEDIA will emerge that is harder to track (like Social Media or decision engines)
2. A new version of your product will be released that will require a painful upgrade. (Does anyone still have WebTrends?)
3. Your favorite application will get bought out by someone else and the product will lose it's "soul."
4. Your boss will insist that you begin providing a new KPI that you simply can't get without a painful redeployment of tracking code.
5. Your favorite in house analyst will decide to go hiking in the Appalachian mountains and never return.
While this seems rather bleak or at least less than optimistic, my point is that it is imperative that you approach analytics realistically and with a sense of humor and humility. I am not advocating doing nothing and I am not advocating making any attempt to build your own solution.
Forge ahead with applications you like best and try to keep it simple.
So what products can do everything and answer all your questions? Well there aren't any. The perfect analytics product still has yet to be built. If you think about it, The Model T Ford rolled off the line 101 years ago and the perfect car has still never been built.
The tricky thing about analytics is that you DON'T know what you don't know. That's the problem. That's always been the problem and that is likely to remain the problem for a while now. Just when products get close to being ultimately flexible, fast enough, perfectly tuned within your organization and your boss has bought in to the numbers, one or more of these things can happen:
1. New MEDIA will emerge that is harder to track (like Social Media or decision engines)
2. A new version of your product will be released that will require a painful upgrade. (Does anyone still have WebTrends?)
3. Your favorite application will get bought out by someone else and the product will lose it's "soul."
4. Your boss will insist that you begin providing a new KPI that you simply can't get without a painful redeployment of tracking code.
5. Your favorite in house analyst will decide to go hiking in the Appalachian mountains and never return.
While this seems rather bleak or at least less than optimistic, my point is that it is imperative that you approach analytics realistically and with a sense of humor and humility. I am not advocating doing nothing and I am not advocating making any attempt to build your own solution.
Forge ahead with applications you like best and try to keep it simple.
Friday, June 19, 2009
The BASICS of Social Analytics
I've been blogging a lot about Social Media for the past few days, so I figured I'd better move back a little closer to my original premise with an analytics post. I've spent the past week participating in the Inbound Marketing University for the past week and it had been very helpful. I fully embrace some of the core principles of encouraging others to find your business through less invasive tactics like Search, Blogging, and Social Media. People are less and less anxious to be "sold to" these days and inbound marketing both recognizes that and systemizes the efforts and measurement of interest generating activities.
So what about the measurement of Social Media? That was the unfortunate topic Marshall Sponder tried to tackle today. I know Marshall better than he knows me, but I also know that he's been mired in the minutiae for several years. He uses lots of tools- most are free. I certainly understand the appeal of data. I too am a data junkie, but I heard all sorts of advice about learning things from the numbers and not too much about what to DO with any of it.
So that leads me to some ideas for you.
1. Find your Key Performance Indicators. This applies to "on site" analytics as well as "source" analytics. Time on site is an old standby. It's a good bench mark. It's not perfect, but it's worth tracking over time.
2. Watch your bounce rate. I think I heard someone say today the sometimes bounce rate doesn't matter. I still can't think of any reason why a high bounce rate is desirable. I will say that there really is no such thing as an industry benchmark. You'll need to track your own bounce rate and measure it over time.
3. Measure Social separately. Regardless what tools you have access to, there is likely to be some method of segmenting groups of inbound links, called referers. (BTW, referer is purposely misspelled. It's kind of a geek thing based on the fact that in log files, it's misspelled and true industry nerds know that. Admittedly, that may only be 12 people on the planet, but I digress... ) By segmenting into groups, you can build a social segment.
Now check all three metrics Social VERSUS the non social traffic. There you have it. The basics of social analytics. It doesn't make any sense to just start look at numbers if you have nothing to compare it to.
OK so now how to get actionable data. Here's the deal- we know the numbers will be different. But if your KPIs are "lower" in your social segment, it doesn't mean you should abandon your strategy. After all, time on site from paid search is often shorter than organic search- it doesn't mean you should abandon paid search. It means you need to learn more. Oh no! are we gonna get complicated? Not really.
Now it's time to consider some new KPI's. Be careful not to violate the cardinal rule of analytics. It can be very dangerous to "add new KPI's" or to try to get the data to tell the story you want told. Don't do that. Just think a little more about what you would expect a social visitor to do on your site. Consider where they are entering your site, what they are doing and how long they stay. If your site has many goals, which many sites do, it's possible that your social visitors are providing more value towards some of your goals and less for others.
WARNING- This may get complicated. Consider this bonus content.
Let's say that your time on site is longer for social visitors, but they don't seem to be converting very well. Perhaps you need to consider that you're customer life cycle is different for Social Media. If you don't already have a latent conversion tracking method, you might need one now. Check out the concept of closed loop analytics- the idea is to follow the whole customer cycle start to finish- including off site metrics in some cases. The other related idea is attribution management. Their exactly the same, just different. Clear as mud right?
If you're confused, I'll offer you the same advice David Spade gave (the late) Chris Farley in Tommy Boy. "Take tylenol for any headaches, Midol for any cramps..."
So what about the measurement of Social Media? That was the unfortunate topic Marshall Sponder tried to tackle today. I know Marshall better than he knows me, but I also know that he's been mired in the minutiae for several years. He uses lots of tools- most are free. I certainly understand the appeal of data. I too am a data junkie, but I heard all sorts of advice about learning things from the numbers and not too much about what to DO with any of it.
So that leads me to some ideas for you.
1. Find your Key Performance Indicators. This applies to "on site" analytics as well as "source" analytics. Time on site is an old standby. It's a good bench mark. It's not perfect, but it's worth tracking over time.
2. Watch your bounce rate. I think I heard someone say today the sometimes bounce rate doesn't matter. I still can't think of any reason why a high bounce rate is desirable. I will say that there really is no such thing as an industry benchmark. You'll need to track your own bounce rate and measure it over time.
3. Measure Social separately. Regardless what tools you have access to, there is likely to be some method of segmenting groups of inbound links, called referers. (BTW, referer is purposely misspelled. It's kind of a geek thing based on the fact that in log files, it's misspelled and true industry nerds know that. Admittedly, that may only be 12 people on the planet, but I digress... ) By segmenting into groups, you can build a social segment.
Now check all three metrics Social VERSUS the non social traffic. There you have it. The basics of social analytics. It doesn't make any sense to just start look at numbers if you have nothing to compare it to.
OK so now how to get actionable data. Here's the deal- we know the numbers will be different. But if your KPIs are "lower" in your social segment, it doesn't mean you should abandon your strategy. After all, time on site from paid search is often shorter than organic search- it doesn't mean you should abandon paid search. It means you need to learn more. Oh no! are we gonna get complicated? Not really.
Now it's time to consider some new KPI's. Be careful not to violate the cardinal rule of analytics. It can be very dangerous to "add new KPI's" or to try to get the data to tell the story you want told. Don't do that. Just think a little more about what you would expect a social visitor to do on your site. Consider where they are entering your site, what they are doing and how long they stay. If your site has many goals, which many sites do, it's possible that your social visitors are providing more value towards some of your goals and less for others.
WARNING- This may get complicated. Consider this bonus content.
Let's say that your time on site is longer for social visitors, but they don't seem to be converting very well. Perhaps you need to consider that you're customer life cycle is different for Social Media. If you don't already have a latent conversion tracking method, you might need one now. Check out the concept of closed loop analytics- the idea is to follow the whole customer cycle start to finish- including off site metrics in some cases. The other related idea is attribution management. Their exactly the same, just different. Clear as mud right?
If you're confused, I'll offer you the same advice David Spade gave (the late) Chris Farley in Tommy Boy. "Take tylenol for any headaches, Midol for any cramps..."
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Twitter is Media
That's right- I said it. Twitter is Media. Lot's of social networks are, but Twitter is farther ahead than others. Why? Well because it is a whole new distribution channel. Media has been spending too much time figuring out how they can talk AT more people. Twitter builds in relevance and recency. So what is the "reach" of Twitter? It's as much reach as is relevant to the audiences that are interested in the content produced by the Genre of You. That's both terrifying and really freakin' cool.
If you remain relevant, and you've found content you are interested in, you are consuming media. If twitter is smart, they won't make a terrible mistake in trying to:
1. Meter the flow of information (like Internet providers tried to do)
2. Spam more irrelevant ads at users (like all other media before them)
3. try to keep a piece of the action (like Google is doing)
Instead, they have the opportunity to make money in a whole new way. I have ideas on what that is, but I happen to know that twitter still hasn't figured that out yet, so I'm shooting for a royalty. Who knows- perhaps someone at Twitter will ask me for real some day soon. In the meantime, perhaps the Twitterverse will be able to design the model for them? How cool whould that be? I just started a Twitter group @#twitterbiz perhaps it will catch on...
If you remain relevant, and you've found content you are interested in, you are consuming media. If twitter is smart, they won't make a terrible mistake in trying to:
1. Meter the flow of information (like Internet providers tried to do)
2. Spam more irrelevant ads at users (like all other media before them)
3. try to keep a piece of the action (like Google is doing)
Instead, they have the opportunity to make money in a whole new way. I have ideas on what that is, but I happen to know that twitter still hasn't figured that out yet, so I'm shooting for a royalty. Who knows- perhaps someone at Twitter will ask me for real some day soon. In the meantime, perhaps the Twitterverse will be able to design the model for them? How cool whould that be? I just started a Twitter group @#twitterbiz perhaps it will catch on...
Separating Business from Pleasure in Social Media
I would assert that the level to which personal information and random thoughts are included in your Voice is directly proportional to the level of professionalism you want your Voice to have.
If you have 10,000 followers, do you really think they care if you're on the way to the gym? If you have 10 followers and 5 of them are friends of your From the gym, then by all means. The first couple of times, business associates may think, "Oh I get it- he's on the way to the gym. He's active, balancing business with pleasure... Cool." But after a short period of time, it's gonna be painful to follow that guy on Twitter on your phone if it keeps buzzing at work about some nonsense or another.
I have a lot of respect for all of those who have been expressing their opinions about this topic of late. I predict that this issue will not go away anytime soon. What I do think will happen is that Linkedin, Digg, Twitter, Facebook, and (shutter) Myspace will each grab their niche in the Social Media World based on the level of "access" they allow each of their users and based on the usefulness each user finds from it.
Right now, I think the two biggest social networks where people haven't figured this out yet are Facebook and Twitter. Pretty clear Linked in is business only and I don't know many using MySpace professionally. There is likely to be the same "kind" of transition as e-mail (sort of). It's like there will become a "business" persona and a "personal" persona. I've been calling this the "genre of you" Everyone needs to find there voice. I feel like right now we're in a transition phase- people will tolerate "some" personal quirkiness, but the ratio will begin to diminish as more and more people grow weary of reading about which restaurant someone is going to tonight and want to get down to business.
Facebook is encouraging the transition with their "pages" concept- allowing businesses to register a corporate profile and adding more functionality. I'm more likely to follow my friends "socially" in Facebook, and follow news and business topics in Twitter. At least that's my hunch for now.
If you have 10,000 followers, do you really think they care if you're on the way to the gym? If you have 10 followers and 5 of them are friends of your From the gym, then by all means. The first couple of times, business associates may think, "Oh I get it- he's on the way to the gym. He's active, balancing business with pleasure... Cool." But after a short period of time, it's gonna be painful to follow that guy on Twitter on your phone if it keeps buzzing at work about some nonsense or another.
I have a lot of respect for all of those who have been expressing their opinions about this topic of late. I predict that this issue will not go away anytime soon. What I do think will happen is that Linkedin, Digg, Twitter, Facebook, and (shutter) Myspace will each grab their niche in the Social Media World based on the level of "access" they allow each of their users and based on the usefulness each user finds from it.
Right now, I think the two biggest social networks where people haven't figured this out yet are Facebook and Twitter. Pretty clear Linked in is business only and I don't know many using MySpace professionally. There is likely to be the same "kind" of transition as e-mail (sort of). It's like there will become a "business" persona and a "personal" persona. I've been calling this the "genre of you" Everyone needs to find there voice. I feel like right now we're in a transition phase- people will tolerate "some" personal quirkiness, but the ratio will begin to diminish as more and more people grow weary of reading about which restaurant someone is going to tonight and want to get down to business.
Facebook is encouraging the transition with their "pages" concept- allowing businesses to register a corporate profile and adding more functionality. I'm more likely to follow my friends "socially" in Facebook, and follow news and business topics in Twitter. At least that's my hunch for now.
Finding your voice- the Genre of You
I kinda recommend reading my 5 step plan to finally understand why you should care about Twitter
You don't have to read it right away, but I recommend reading it before you move on to other things, but keep in mind that this is experiential and you should allow yourself a little time both to understand Twitter and to begin exploring it. Most Twitterers are able to figure out most of this stuff on their own very quickly, but I figured this could be useful for the:
1. Twitterphobe : Someone who still hasn't figured out why they should even bother with Twitter.
2. Twannabe : Someone who is brand new to Twitter and still hasn't found their voice yet.
3. Twit : Someone who has been tweeting away without a voice.
What is your Twitter Voice? Perhaps thus far you've been purposely remaining silent. That's fine. Perhaps you will find your voice. Your voice is your On line persona. It's the "Genre of You." If you've been Tweeting and really haven't been paying too much attention to your voice- you may be either disappointing your followers or perhaps you are just not at your stride yet. In that case, you might as well consider Tweeting as the act of sending a Tweet to a Twit.
We're probably going to have to assume that like any other Media (yes I said Media) Success will soon become measured (remember I'm pretty into analysis) in the form of attention and the number of active followers. The Social Graph is becoming far more robust and the barrier for entry is LOWER than ever- but it won't be for long.
So what is your voice? Here's an experiment for you. In both scenarios, let's assume you DON'T know either of these two "microbloggers." Which one are you more likely to choose (follow)? Remember that you don't know either of them yet.
Tweeter 1.
Ran 4x400 intervals. 2:05, 2:10, 2:15, 2:15
Just updated from GWT 1.5 to 1.6
Went to the third day concert and broke out in a nuclear fusion discusion. We are such geeks!
At the third day concert at Busch Gardens. Wow it's loud! :)
Completed iMapMyFitness Jun 13, 2009 17:31 (Regular Run). 4.07 mi.. 00:53:52
Started a new bee hive. Woohoo!
Grilling my own oysters, yumm!
NMCI just crushed my workstation! Thanks guys!
Tweeter 2
@kw***** I'm a PC kinda guy... But I do use Firefox for most everything
RT @pt*****: [company] offers special discount for [Product]- deadline extended: http://bit.ly/17UHeL
I'm at [professional association]
RT @(hometown)_News: The 10 most influential people in (hometown): http://bit.ly/YzYlM
Here it comes... Are you ready.... Can't stop this one... ♫ url to song
End Tweet
No offense to the guy that only has one follower and is following two, but if you happen upon him, you're probably less like to care what he says as compared to the guy who has 150 followers.
So let's say some Twit has thousands of followers? Am I really go to care what they have to say? They'd better keep me interested. I'm getting really fast at scanning tweets and I can tell the Twit from the Tweeter really quickly.
If I have the distinct honor of having been your first exposure to Twitter, or if you happen to like MY voice, feel free to follow me at @click2dennis Otherwise, happy tweeting peeps... or rather tweeps. Read my next post on Separating Business from Pleasure in Social Media.
You don't have to read it right away, but I recommend reading it before you move on to other things, but keep in mind that this is experiential and you should allow yourself a little time both to understand Twitter and to begin exploring it. Most Twitterers are able to figure out most of this stuff on their own very quickly, but I figured this could be useful for the:
1. Twitterphobe : Someone who still hasn't figured out why they should even bother with Twitter.
2. Twannabe : Someone who is brand new to Twitter and still hasn't found their voice yet.
3. Twit : Someone who has been tweeting away without a voice.
What is your Twitter Voice? Perhaps thus far you've been purposely remaining silent. That's fine. Perhaps you will find your voice. Your voice is your On line persona. It's the "Genre of You." If you've been Tweeting and really haven't been paying too much attention to your voice- you may be either disappointing your followers or perhaps you are just not at your stride yet. In that case, you might as well consider Tweeting as the act of sending a Tweet to a Twit.
We're probably going to have to assume that like any other Media (yes I said Media) Success will soon become measured (remember I'm pretty into analysis) in the form of attention and the number of active followers. The Social Graph is becoming far more robust and the barrier for entry is LOWER than ever- but it won't be for long.
So what is your voice? Here's an experiment for you. In both scenarios, let's assume you DON'T know either of these two "microbloggers." Which one are you more likely to choose (follow)? Remember that you don't know either of them yet.
Tweeter 1.
Ran 4x400 intervals. 2:05, 2:10, 2:15, 2:15
Just updated from GWT 1.5 to 1.6
Went to the third day concert and broke out in a nuclear fusion discusion. We are such geeks!
At the third day concert at Busch Gardens. Wow it's loud! :)
Completed iMapMyFitness Jun 13, 2009 17:31 (Regular Run). 4.07 mi.. 00:53:52
Started a new bee hive. Woohoo!
Grilling my own oysters, yumm!
NMCI just crushed my workstation! Thanks guys!
Tweeter 2
@kw***** I'm a PC kinda guy... But I do use Firefox for most everything
RT @pt*****: [company] offers special discount for [Product]- deadline extended: http://bit.ly/17UHeL
I'm at [professional association]
RT @(hometown)_News: The 10 most influential people in (hometown): http://bit.ly/YzYlM
Here it comes... Are you ready.... Can't stop this one... ♫ url to song
End Tweet
No offense to the guy that only has one follower and is following two, but if you happen upon him, you're probably less like to care what he says as compared to the guy who has 150 followers.
So let's say some Twit has thousands of followers? Am I really go to care what they have to say? They'd better keep me interested. I'm getting really fast at scanning tweets and I can tell the Twit from the Tweeter really quickly.
If I have the distinct honor of having been your first exposure to Twitter, or if you happen to like MY voice, feel free to follow me at @click2dennis Otherwise, happy tweeting peeps... or rather tweeps. Read my next post on Separating Business from Pleasure in Social Media.
5 step plan to finally understand why you should care about Twitter
Twitter is all over the news these days. The media blitz over the past several weeks has been astounding-verging on the annoying for those of us who still watch TV News. So if I were to ask ten people in my neighborhood if they use Twitter, most are likely to say they have an account, but still don’t get it.
First things first, if you don't have an account yet...There's no way to "get it" until you get it. Go to Twitter and sign up. Then, do these things and you will get it. There's no sense in telling you about what it is without showing you how to use it along the way. Twitter is a new social network. It's a group of users. Some are like you and some are not. You'll have a chance to get to know a bunch more people if you really want to.
Ok but what do you DO with it? Well you learn from it. You find information about things you're interested in and you get to chime in if you have anything interesting to say. If you DON'T have anything to say right away, don't say anything.
1. It’s not stalking it’s walking around together. Don’t worry about how many people are following you at first. This actually gets in the way of your initial understanding of Twitter’s value. You’re likely to “find your voice” in time. Think of the “what are you doing?” box as a “thought bubble.” If your thoughts are random and weird, there’s likely to be lots of people who would be interested in reading your random and weird thoughts. You’ll find them soon enough.
2. Mobile use is optional. Once you begin to truly “consume” content, then you can think mobile. In the meantime, learn using the regular web interface.
3. The “hash” structure opens up a whole new world. Explore it. In the standard view, look to the right. You’re likely to see at least a few “Trending Topics” with a # sign in front of a few words. You can think of the # sign as a “group builder.” Click on a trending topic that you think you might be interested in. If you want to say something to the group, type a thought and add the same #group to your post. Then, click refresh. Now you’ve just published your first group tweet. So why are there some trends without the hash symbol? Well that’s because you can search for any word and are likely to find something. The hash structure pulls together the whole topic into a group.
4. Search for stuff you’re interested in. You’re likely to find conversations about it. If you find a group you like, Click the save this search button. Now you have started a list of saved searches.
5. Twitter can be a “custom news channel” so if you have a favorite news anchor, search for their name, read some of their recent Tweets and see if you like their “voice” on Twitter.
There’s more to come on related topics like “how to respond” and “how to retweet” (and why you should) in future posts, but for now, happy twittering.
If I have the distinct honor of having been close enough in time to your first exposure to Twitter, or if you happen to like MY voice, feel free to follow me at @click2dennis Otherside, happy tweeting peeps... or rather tweeps. Read my next post on Separating Business from Pleasure in Social Media.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
So much new so little time
SEO requires easy access to meaningful information. As Craig has said, a few may know as much about Search as we do, but we're not aware of anyone who knows more. That requires remaining ever vigilant about all things new and challenging.
#3 IMU: Social Media and Building Community (GF201)
OK- obvioucly, these are in backwards order... Here comes number 3...
#2 IMU: SEO Crash Course to Get Found (GF102)
Here is presentation two of Inbound Marketing University
#1 IMU: How to Blog Effectively for Business (GF101)
Here's a link to presentation one of Inbound Marketing University
That's Bad- that's REALLY Bad
So here I am working away on building out a seminar series for sebb.com and I had a notable business experience. During this experience (still happening now as it turns out), I was promted to send the following "feedback"
"I just filled out the form to start a trial and it threw an error message and lost my entry when I clicked back. that's not good consideringI'm considering hiring you to handle form submissions."
So this is a problem all to often unheard these days. I kinda feel a little nutty for not completely abandoning this company's site forever. Had my experience been completely as a result of a search for "registration forms" or "seminar forms" or something like that, I assure you- I would have. That's where reputation and good branding come in. I'm actually willing to consider a few other things.
1. Well Craig told me about this and he's already spoken with someone so it must just be a glitch.
2. My laptop has only been out of the box a few days. Maybe I have my security settings too high?
3. I'm very technically saavy. Many of my target audience may not be.
4. I hate filling out forms twice.
5. I really liked the instant feedback from the login and password section- I've seen much worse.
6. It's supposed to be turn key.
7. I'm using IE8 on a really nice, new XP machine (Yes we downgraded to XP) Nothing obscure- really people?
Ok so now in the time I took to write this, All I've gotten back so far is a very generic e-mail referencing an eight digit case number with the words "that's bad" apparantly as a title for the case. Turns out, that was the subject of my e-mail.
So- the only thing keeping this bad experience from being a reputation management issue is that I didn't use a company name. Most people are not so kind these days.
In today's inbound marketing university (#imu) Chris Brogan talked about being genuine and human in your communication. I really shouldn't be an eight digit number to a B2B company especially when I'm a "lead."
"I just filled out the form to start a trial and it threw an error message and lost my entry when I clicked back. that's not good consideringI'm considering hiring you to handle form submissions."
So this is a problem all to often unheard these days. I kinda feel a little nutty for not completely abandoning this company's site forever. Had my experience been completely as a result of a search for "registration forms" or "seminar forms" or something like that, I assure you- I would have. That's where reputation and good branding come in. I'm actually willing to consider a few other things.
1. Well Craig told me about this and he's already spoken with someone so it must just be a glitch.
2. My laptop has only been out of the box a few days. Maybe I have my security settings too high?
3. I'm very technically saavy. Many of my target audience may not be.
4. I hate filling out forms twice.
5. I really liked the instant feedback from the login and password section- I've seen much worse.
6. It's supposed to be turn key.
7. I'm using IE8 on a really nice, new XP machine (Yes we downgraded to XP) Nothing obscure- really people?
Ok so now in the time I took to write this, All I've gotten back so far is a very generic e-mail referencing an eight digit case number with the words "that's bad" apparantly as a title for the case. Turns out, that was the subject of my e-mail.
So- the only thing keeping this bad experience from being a reputation management issue is that I didn't use a company name. Most people are not so kind these days.
In today's inbound marketing university (#imu) Chris Brogan talked about being genuine and human in your communication. I really shouldn't be an eight digit number to a B2B company especially when I'm a "lead."
Building VALUE
I'm sure that Chris Brogan and I have met before. In fact, I may have had him in my rolodex at one point or another. According to his admission today, he may actually remember me better than I remember him. Didn't catch the "tool" he mentioned but to me it doesn't really matter that much. The point is that it can be measured and that's cool. I retweeted someone today on Twitter. A few days? weeks? months? ago I figured out what that meant. Another woman's idea...Oops gotta find her name... Oh- right @Karyd who also got a glamour facebook user name on Saturday. I also noticed that she made a comment about working on the weekend. Yet one more kindred spirit. She seems to be a bit farther ahead than me. That seems to be a pretty big status thing now. There are even services that help you get more followers. Hmm... I guess it's Media now! Well that can only mean one thing of course. COMMERCE. Ok so here we go. Twitter doesn't have a business model- but I do! I can help you find more followers on Twitter. Keep in mind though that the quality quotiant is absolutely going to be the key. If I could predict the future, I'm going to have to guess that the quality of tweets will become some sort of metric. Not sure who will write it, but I'd bet Stephen Turner, phd could figure out the algorythm in about ten minutes. Google is already quality scoring paid search landing pages. Twitter will be next. Again- Someone's going to have to measure it. Stephen rightly scolded me (privately) for just now figuring out the syntax. Ok guys- so like lots of us, we all know less about some things than others. It is now absolutely critical that you have a team of people who are always out in front or at least a few pioneers running around pushing stuff around.
Social Media Marketing is the bleeding edge of inbound marketing. The trick is to stop the bleeding now. Don't wait another day. Do you realize how much blood you can lose in one day? Well. Actually we don't. How bad is it? How much do we stand to gain. We're just now getting to the part where we have a number like this one I found today in hubspot. You are saving approximately $75,000 per month from your organic search traffic. (real number obfuscated intentionally) THAT'S the number I want to know! Ok so then tell me how much money I MADE for organic search. Well that's a bit more complex but in many cases, it's the flow meter that help determine whether to turn the faucet up or down.
So great- we gotta figure out the value of all this stuff. For a guy like Chris Brogan and also for a guy like me, we're setting value on personal interaction. That may start to seem virtually obscene, but it's a far better value than paying for eyeballs again.
Media Evolution
So now here we are on the verge of stardom. We're all building our virtual repuations based upon what we've learned in the last ten minutes. Strangely, I'll predict it's those of us who really understand what all marketers Really REALLY want that will be truly successful. So? What to all marketers really REALLY want? Value. defined as: a way to engage in conversation with real people who may happen to be genuinely interested in my brand (product, cause, ideas) and might be interested in buying something from me soon.
Social Media Marketing is the bleeding edge of inbound marketing. The trick is to stop the bleeding now. Don't wait another day. Do you realize how much blood you can lose in one day? Well. Actually we don't. How bad is it? How much do we stand to gain. We're just now getting to the part where we have a number like this one I found today in hubspot. You are saving approximately $75,000 per month from your organic search traffic. (real number obfuscated intentionally) THAT'S the number I want to know! Ok so then tell me how much money I MADE for organic search. Well that's a bit more complex but in many cases, it's the flow meter that help determine whether to turn the faucet up or down.
So great- we gotta figure out the value of all this stuff. For a guy like Chris Brogan and also for a guy like me, we're setting value on personal interaction. That may start to seem virtually obscene, but it's a far better value than paying for eyeballs again.
Media Evolution
So now here we are on the verge of stardom. We're all building our virtual repuations based upon what we've learned in the last ten minutes. Strangely, I'll predict it's those of us who really understand what all marketers Really REALLY want that will be truly successful. So? What to all marketers really REALLY want? Value. defined as: a way to engage in conversation with real people who may happen to be genuinely interested in my brand (product, cause, ideas) and might be interested in buying something from me soon.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Time for me to blog
I'm participating in a very interesting Online Webinar series called the Inbound Marketing University hosted by Hubspot. They're hitting the highlights on all sorts of topics including Blogging, SEO, and Social Media Marketing. Interestingly, the info was interesting and helpful and yet help reinforce that indeed fewer people understand this space that I realized. During the definition of blogging, Mack failed to point out that blogging is short for "web log" and that it is designed to be fairly continuous. I think even he took that for granted.
It is however, critically important to dedicate time to blogging. Time is a very valuable commodity these days and that means if someone plans to start a blog, they really need to follow through. I believe this is part of why Twitter has become such a phenomenon. It's a very low risk "micro blog" and the most you're really able to do is add a short url and sometimes a photo. Full blown blogs require design, planning, topic ideas, and a commitment of time.
I can easily think of a short list of current and former colleagues who are purposefully NOT blogging because they can't commit the time. I wonder if there is a correlation between those willing to blog versus those willing to get married? Do would be bloggers have commitment issues? If they don't, they should. I recently made the "commitment" to blog at least every Monday.
It is however, critically important to dedicate time to blogging. Time is a very valuable commodity these days and that means if someone plans to start a blog, they really need to follow through. I believe this is part of why Twitter has become such a phenomenon. It's a very low risk "micro blog" and the most you're really able to do is add a short url and sometimes a photo. Full blown blogs require design, planning, topic ideas, and a commitment of time.
I can easily think of a short list of current and former colleagues who are purposefully NOT blogging because they can't commit the time. I wonder if there is a correlation between those willing to blog versus those willing to get married? Do would be bloggers have commitment issues? If they don't, they should. I recently made the "commitment" to blog at least every Monday.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Walking around together
These days, it seems like there are way too many missed opportunities as we are socializing on the Net. I believe that even Social Media experts don't even fully understand all the possibilities available. For instance, I consider myself to be pretty Socially Saavy if not an outright expert and I'm still not totally confident I understand Digg. I even worked for a Social Media company for several months and things were changing so fast, the list of social networks they integrated with was out of date before marketing could issue a new Powerpoint Slide. In that case, the whole company seemed stiffled by the growth potential. When I started, we "could" launch a campaign in 4 weeks. Then it was 8 weeks with a "rush" charge...By the time I left, we needed a full 12 weeks to launch a campaign. Any idea why I left? :)
Nevertheless, the ideas around Social Media Marketing abound and much has been said about the "Social Graph." In fact, the Social Graph is the very thing that many marketers seem to think is the holy grail of product marketing in the future. The idea itself is inherantly complex. The benefit of understanding it is enourmous.
The term Social Graph seems to have been coined by Facebook to define their own social network. The concept however, is far more powerful when understood from a commerce perspective. The idea of a graph is basically a visual representation of a math model. In the case of the social graph, it's a way to understand how various "nodes" (let's call them- Oh I don't know, how about PEOPLE) interact with one another online.
So the idea is that if I like cycling and I just bought a new bike, there are some people in my social networks who will care and others who won't. If a company is selling bikes and they just sold one to me, there's a pretty good chance they'd want to know about anyone in my social network who would care that I just bought a bike.
I know alot more about this topic than I have time to blog about so if you want to know more, reach out to me or perhaps I'll get a chance to blog more about it soon. In the meantime, the point is- pay attention to social media. Register yourself and your company in as many ways as you can. even if you don't see the point right now, it's likely you'll be glad you did later. I've had a linked in profile for about 4 years and have been at 100 percent complete for over 2 years. I'm now glad I did. However, apparantly I somehow managed to send out too many invitations to connect with colleagues who didn't remember me and they declined my invitations (still considered RUDE in social networking) and now I have to know someone's e-mail address to send them an invitation. Anyone know how to fix that?
So as we are all walking around together in thing called Social Media, let's encourage one another as we venture to learn together what is possible. Perhaps soon we'll all be up and RUNNING together.
Nevertheless, the ideas around Social Media Marketing abound and much has been said about the "Social Graph." In fact, the Social Graph is the very thing that many marketers seem to think is the holy grail of product marketing in the future. The idea itself is inherantly complex. The benefit of understanding it is enourmous.
The term Social Graph seems to have been coined by Facebook to define their own social network. The concept however, is far more powerful when understood from a commerce perspective. The idea of a graph is basically a visual representation of a math model. In the case of the social graph, it's a way to understand how various "nodes" (let's call them- Oh I don't know, how about PEOPLE) interact with one another online.
So the idea is that if I like cycling and I just bought a new bike, there are some people in my social networks who will care and others who won't. If a company is selling bikes and they just sold one to me, there's a pretty good chance they'd want to know about anyone in my social network who would care that I just bought a bike.
I know alot more about this topic than I have time to blog about so if you want to know more, reach out to me or perhaps I'll get a chance to blog more about it soon. In the meantime, the point is- pay attention to social media. Register yourself and your company in as many ways as you can. even if you don't see the point right now, it's likely you'll be glad you did later. I've had a linked in profile for about 4 years and have been at 100 percent complete for over 2 years. I'm now glad I did. However, apparantly I somehow managed to send out too many invitations to connect with colleagues who didn't remember me and they declined my invitations (still considered RUDE in social networking) and now I have to know someone's e-mail address to send them an invitation. Anyone know how to fix that?
So as we are all walking around together in thing called Social Media, let's encourage one another as we venture to learn together what is possible. Perhaps soon we'll all be up and RUNNING together.
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