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Archives for 2013

5 Steps to Generate Revenue with Big Data

cloud big dataAccording to a new white paper from Gigya, “Harnessing Big Data to Grow Revenue,” there is a significant gap between collecting data from social media and using that data to create targeted brand marketing campaigns. Gigya explains that by using social logins on brand websites, companies can close this gap and generate new revenue.

In simplest terms, social logins enable website visitors to log into that site (or mobile application) using their preferred social media profile usernames and passwords. Rather than remembering a separate password for the brand’s site or application, the user logs in with his Facebook account or Twitter account.

In its white paper, Gigya explains that, “users who log in to a website using an existing social identity are essentially granting that website permission to access their first-party social data such as full name, interests, education, social connections, email address, location, and more.” It’s a huge opportunity that most companies are missing.

However, collecting user data through social logins is just the first step to actually generate revenue with that data. Gigya offers five steps to successfully collect and use that data:

  1. Use a “dynamic-schema, secure, cloud-based solution” to store and manage all of the social and behavioral data that is collected.
  2. Implement social logins whenever possible.
  3. Use automated data capture to ensure data collected is accurate since social profiles change frequently.
  4. Increase user engagement to collect more data through social plugins on brand websites, commenting, sharing, and so on.
  5. Integrate the collected data into third-party marketing platforms, such as email marketing, advertising, web analytics, and recommendation tools, to personalize marketing campaigns.

I would add that another important step is to hire talent that understands how to extract meaningful and actionable information from the data that is collected. This is an area where most companies are faltering. Collecting, storing, and integrating data into various systems and tools is the easy part. The hard part is figuring out what the data actually means.

Data can be extracted and manipulated to tell just about any store an analyst wants, but hiring a person or team of people who understand data and marketing can be challenging. In other words, great marketing data scientists are few and far between in 2013, but the importance of the role to a company shouldn’t be undervalued. After all, effective data evaluation can make the difference between revenue generation and revenue losses.

What do you think about the big data gap? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: Dave532

Taking a Servant Attitude to B2B Social Media Engagement

I invited David Geer, a technology writer, journalist and editor, to write a post for us today about the approach to take to B2B social media engagement.

Over to you, David…

servant attitude - butlerA good servant is comfortable putting the needs of others first. Is this how you position your business when engaging other businesses through social media?

When applying a servant attitude to B2B social media engagement, businesses must brand themselves in such a way that their entire identity, their entire voice says, “We are HERE TO SERVE YOU”. The core to any business is its people. Like people, businesses respond to a thorough, empathetic understanding of what their needs are and how to meet them.

To understand the needs of the business, study the business. To learn how to communicate that knowledge in an empathetic and other-centered way, find a good role model and strive to be like that business or that business’s communicators.

B2B Idol

Many young people who watch American Idol want to see and hear a rising star separate from the pack to become the singer they wish they could be. They are looking for a role model, someone to strive to mirror on their way to achieving their own success.

To find your B2B Idol, simply look to the business on social media that understands and relates to your business and its needs the most. Examine their social media content. What is it about their posts that you respond to as a potential business client? Perhaps the posts are more personal and less corporate in their language.

Perhaps the business knows and speaks your language, the keywords and terms of your industry. Do they express how you feel about a critical pain point? Do they invite you to participate in an open-ended, no-strings conversation? Do they reserve discussion of their solution until it comes up naturally in the conversation?

Elements of Social Media Content That Demonstrate a Servant Attitude

When a business reaches out to you with a servant attitude, social media content will already begin to serve your business in some manner. You should feel heard, understood, welcomed and comforted. The content should be all about you. The writer should express an intimate knowledge of your business and its needs.

A business with a servant attitude will make it clear they want to listen, empathize and respond as they engage you in a conversation via social media. They will build that conversation and grow a relationship, staying that course regardless of your purchasing decisions because the relationship is everything. Serving you is everything.

Because they are interested in serving you, they may sell to you as a by-product of the relationship. The moment the sale becomes more important than the relationship, the aura, the atmosphere that makes sales possible disappears.

Successful Social Media with a Servant Heart

American Express OPEN’s Facebook page engages small businesses with a number of opportunities that demonstrate that American Express OPEN is interested and listening. With links to pages such as “Share Your Story”, where small businesses can tell their success stories, and discussions about important topics such as the cost of product, the charge card company is creating an atmosphere for learning and sharing about how to grow a business.

The result is not only a service to small business customers but also a conversation that reveals business customer needs that American Express OPEN can help to meet.

Course of Action/Next Steps

To build B2B social media communications with a servant attitude, start by:

A. Listening to B2B customers through a number of avenues including their website, media releases and social media

B. Formulating an understanding of their critical pain points

C. Clarifying keywords and phrases to use in a discussion of pain points

D. Continuing to listen as you begin to engage customers

Thanks David!

David Geer understands what your enterprise wants to say and how to say it. Get to know David through http://www.linkedin.com/in/daviddgeer.

Getting Lost in Cyberspace: Giving Your Social Media Permanence?

stabilityIt’s taken some time, but most companies now have at least some sort of social media presence and, particularly in recruitment, there’s a tangible cost to not having a social media presence. Of course, having social media is one thing, but using it properly is something completely different and it’s here that poor application of what is useful web capital starts to creep in.

Like all media of communication, all forms of social media has some very particular strengths and some massive weaknesses which, if you don’t latch on to, could put you in trouble. Blog articles are often a particular pitfall for businesses because it’s very easy for serious and important information to get lost. It’s easy to assume that a well written blog article with good SEO will convey what you need it to, but it’s not always the case.

For example, you quite often see blog articles announcing the next recruitment drive with details on how and where to apply which, quite often, includes a postal address for CVs. Obviously this does a job for the first few days; it might draw in a few hits who spot it on the front page or click a link from Facebook.

After that, however, it starts to get lost in cyberspace. New articles supersede it, the marketing focus gets lost and all of a sudden your important article is three pages back in a blog feed accessible only by a very specific search or from a tiny link on your front page.

This is just one example of where the content of your social media needs to match its form. The nature of blog articles is that they’re transient, they usually get written quickly, they draw you in readers with clever headlines and quick paragraphing and, much like an essay, it gets absorbed and passes on ideas.

This is perfect for little tips and tricks, political ideas, how-to guides or up to the minute updates, but if you’re doing something like recruitment, you need permanence that a blog article (or a Facebook status, for that matter) just can’t give you.

So, give the serious things the space they deserve: a recruitment drive is a big deal so by all means support it with a headline-grabbing article that pops up on an aggregator, go for the Facebook statuses and Twitter hashtags but make sure that they all link back to one definite, permanent and easily accessible page which won’t get lost online.

Content Marketing Really Can Drive Leads

keyboard content marketingIn a survey of U.S. marketing agencies conducted by RSW/US, content in various forms ranked as the most effective tactic to drive new leads. In fact, the ranking of marketing tactics based on their lead generation success among agencies is very different from how the list may have looked just five years ago.

The shift from traditional marketing tactics to new media marketing tactics such as social media and content marketing is significant even though many corporate executives continue to undervalue these newer, digital marketing opportunities. However, agencies not only understand the potential of new media marketing, but also, they understand that new media marketing can drive real leads. That’s a bridge most other corporate executives have yet to cross because tracking the return on investment of new media marketing tactics is still far from perfect.

With that said, take a look at the ranking of marketing tactics from agency respondents to the survey, which were published by eMarketer. Notice that the first six tactics on the list include some form of long-form or short-form content creation, publishing, and distribution:

  1. Client case studies = 62.6%
  2. Content marketing through agency website = 62.6%
  3. Agency blog = 58.2%
  4. Social media such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, etc. = 57.1%
  5. Press releases and publicity = 50.6%
  6. Targeted direct mail to qualified list = 41.8%
  7. Community and civic work = 33.0%
  8. Referrals program = 30.8%
  9. Email lead capture program = 29.7%
  10. Advertising = 19.8%

Marketing agencies are business-to-business organizations serving companies in every industry. Therefore, it stands to reason that the tactics ranked above can work equally well for other business-to-business companies.

It’s not surprising that agencies ranked LinkedIn (a social network for professionals) as the best social network for lead generation. However, an even more interesting finding in the study shows that more agencies believe that online video is the most effective marketing tactic for lead generation. Agencies ranked Vimeo (23%) and YouTube (20%) as the most effective sites for generating new business—above social media standards like LinkedIn (19%), Facebook (19%), Twitter (17%), and Google+ (19%). Clearly, online video represents a potential opportunity for agencies and business-to-business companies overall.

Furthermore, Google+ is underutilized by agencies with just 8% of agencies using it for lead generation, which is significantly fewer than the the number of agencies using LinkedIn (21%), Facebook (21%), and Twitter (20%). With its importance to search and its growing user audience, Google+ presents another big opportunity for agencies and business-to-business companies.

Image: Jeff Hire

Online Newsroom Essentials: Press Releases

shape-upEver remember handing out a bulging folder packed with all your company’s details, press releases, and bios, called a ‘press kit’? Well the good news is, no-one has to lug around those heavy folders any more.

The Digital Switchover

Since the digital age is upon us, press kits as we know them have changed immensely, moving into an online format now known as a ‘newsroom’. The beauty of this new format is that, not only can you file as much as you want in there and it will never get any heavier, but you can also keep it organised and updated with the click of a mouse, and it is the most efficient and simple way for press to get as much info as they need on your company.

It sounds like a dream come true for both PR and companies alike; however it hasn’t quite gone as planned. Without the physical boundaries you would assume the online newsrooms would be overflowing with useful content, but instead many companies are still neglecting to maintain their newsrooms, leaving them sparse and far from the resource they should be.

How does your newsroom shape up?

The following article is the second in a series which aims to highlight areas in which a newsroom should be optimised in order for it to be useful and interesting to your journalist contacts, with some examples of excellent newsroom best practices from some of the world’s largest corporate websites to demonstrate how online newsrooms should function.

Newsroom Essential: Press Releases

Unlike the days of the physical press kit when you needed to be wary of how much paper you were using and had the physical boundaries of the folder, you don’t need to be stringent when it comes to the press releases. Yes, you should still be conscious that you aren’t letting the best and most attractive releases get hidden under less relevant ones, but you don’t need to limit yourself to only putting out only the most important news.

Offering up a range of press releases about what your company has been involved in and any changes you have made might not always make headlines, but it still gives press contacts background information on your company’s development. There may come a time when a major advance happens within your business that has been the result of many smaller changes, and the press releases give a backlog of information on the smaller events leading to the main finale.

So to enable journalists to look at both new and old press releases at their own leisure, archives within categories (if applicable) are a great way to keep the older news out of the spotlight but make it easily searchable and accessible when needed. As most journalists will most likely be looking to your press releases for information on recent events, then do keep up to date press releases in a more prominent position, but make it clear there is the option to view older ones if they wish.

coca-cola-press-releases-sCoca-Cola are a fine example of an excellent system for finding press releases, whether it be by particular keywords and topics, or by date, they make it really easy for you to pinpoint what you need and even offer you some inspiration in the form of their ‘top news’ category.

Don’t get bogged down in the ‘traditional’ press release format either. Online press releases both require and allow you to be a little more creative. Offering both HTML and printer friendly versions of press releases online is a must, but there is also the option to get more creative with the format. Social media releases are a popular alternative to the traditional press release, and can include images, videos, links and more, meaning they are fast growing in popularity among media communities.

Like this article? Read the first article in this series, Online Newsroom Essentials: Media Contacts and keep an eye out for the next article in the series on including media coverage.

Is it Time to Kill off Your Content?

ghost-townIn the past, marketing always had something of a natural lifespan. Posters would be taken down, flyers would find their way to the bins and even the TV ad would start to become wearing. Content lifespan fitted quite naturally with the length of a recruitment campaign or a sales drive and even if things didn’t align perfectly, most marketing initiatives died a natural death.

The birth of the internet, however, means this isn’t the case any more. The vast memory reserves of our modern servers mean that the internet is a veritable dumping ground for old content, much of which is now superseded, inaccurate or just plain wrong! Is it time you killed off some content?

Old Web Pages

Your corporate web capital is too valuable to be lost in a maze of old pages, broken links and dead information. Every three months or so you should be testing your web layout as an outsider and making sure that trails make sense.

This is particularly important during big recruitment drives; graduates will be after serious swathes of information on different roles and positions and, ultimately, the big link to your application system. This should all be accessible without coming across a page stating last year’s vacancies or links to old departments; not only is it counter-productive to applicants, you could be at risk of giving away more information than you need to.

Expired Blog Copy

Blog articles are the essay of the twenty-first century, they should be to the point and succinct but are very often speculative; they’re a fine place to discuss market movements or new developments. At the time, this is great, but don’t leave yourself open to error once the news moves on!

You should also be wary of any SEO objectives your web team might have before cutting old web copy. Blogs are great places to target keywords and cutting articles might be seriously detrimental to your marketing team’s strategy! Don’t do it without prior permission.

Recycled Information

Pages frequently go out of date, but that doesn’t always mean you have to axe information altogether. Sensitive editing of keywords, particular phrases and dates often means you can use the same basic frameworks more than once.

Again, you’ll need to consult your SEO team on this as duplicating pages can harm your website’s potential. Equally, you shouldn’t be too quick to copy and paste information; it will be spotted by discerning readers and might look careless if it’s not properly re-edited to suit the tone of a different format.

Developing a model to update content systematically is important and keeping track of your online presence is essential. If you don’t know what content is still lurking in the depths of the internet, you don’t know what applicants, clients or customers could find!