DIGITAL SOUP http://barryflanigan.posterous.com A blog by Barry Flanigan posterous.com Wed, 02 Mar 2011 02:19:00 -0800 How to advertise effectively on Facebook – Ten Tips (from The Wall Blog) http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/how-to-advertise-effectively-on-facebook-ten http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/how-to-advertise-effectively-on-facebook-ten

 

With Facebook set to hit 600-million users worldwide and now accounting for almost a quarter of the world’s display ad impressions, 2011 could be the tipping point where most brands start to invest heavily in Facebook advertising.

I’ve come up with what I hope are some helpful insights into the essential dos and don’ts of Facebook advertising. Let me know if you find this useful. 

1. Combine micro and macro

Not only does Facebook offer huge reach for advertisers it also offers unique targeting features. Ads can be targeted by age, gender, location and even by ‘Likes’ and interest information that users have entered into their profiles. What’s more, since most people are connected to their close friends, and often their parents, the profile information tends to be highly accurate.

2. Keep it simple

In some ways Facebook advertising uses similar best practices to paid search. Using simple language in ad text, calls to action, special offers and sending traffic through to relevant landing pages are paid search techniques that work well on Facebook.

3. An opportunity to engage the brand

However, that’s about where the comparison between search and Facebook ends. If you’re expecting Facebook advertising to perform like search then it’s probably time for a re-think. Search is intent focused; people are actively searching for your website, brand, or keywords related to what you sell so they are much further down the purchase path and much more likely to convert. On the other hand, Facebook advertising hits people earlier in the purchase cycle, giving you an effective way to raise awareness and start engaging with your target audience. So it’s more like display advertising in that it won’t deliver the immediate revenues that search drives so effectively. But it will bring you new customers.

4. Don’t aim to get them immediately parting with cash

There are two ways you can use Facebook ads: promote something on Facebook or promote something off Facebook Campaigns that drive users to an external website can work extremely well if execution is good. Thinking about the best time of day to show ads, having good landing pages and measuring softer metrics like the percentage of new visitors and newsletter sign ups can yield better results than just trying to get people to part with cash straight away.

5. Maximise social recommendations

A recent UK Toluna/Econsultancy survey showed that 25% of people have made a purchase via a brand’s Facebook page. This highlights the value of a Facebook page for a brand and where promoting something on Facebook can be very interesting and ultimately beneficial to ecommerce revenue. When you see adverts for a fan page Facebook displays who of your friends also ‘Like’ the page. This ‘social recommendation’ can dramatically improve the ad’s performance.

6. Keep your creative fresh and interactive

When choosing ad creative and images it’s important to test several variations. Asking questions in ad copy has been shown to work better so test different variations of this. Also logo images tend not to work as well as interesting product or generic pictures. Test different combinations and optimise those with the best click through rates. Be aware that your ads are going to potentially get displayed to the same people over and over again. This is why we see click through rates drop off over the course of 5-7 days. So it’s important to refresh the messaging and images regularly.

7. Audience targeting like no other

This is where there’s potentially the most scope for testing and refining. Create different demographic groups based on ‘Likes’ and Interests. You can target competitors’ fans but also try to think laterally. For example, for a recent luxury brand campaign, we achieved strong results from targeting sports fans closely related to the brand such as rowing, rugby, polo and so on.

8. But don’t get too hung up on targeting

However interest/’Like’ targeting can often be too restrictive and it’s easy to get carried away with it. For example 260,000 people in the UK have “travel” as one of their interests. This is a good number and definitely worth testing against if you’re a travel advertiser. But what about the people who don’t have “travel” as one of their interests? Does this mean they don’t like travelling? We often find that widening the targeting by not using interests and focusing on age ranges, locations and genders can be a better way to advertise because you can get a more complete audience. The responder demographic and profile reports in Facebook give you excellent data to help you refine this approach.

9. Tracking identifies the sweet spot

Like any online marketing channel, tracking is crucial. Not just the overall campaign but also down to ad level and demographic group so you can find the sweet spot for your Facebook campaign. Unlike Google Adwords, for example, Facebook doesn’t come with a built-in tracking system so it’s important to use your analytics or, even better, one of the Facebook Ad API tools on the market, such as Upcast, to effectively track your conversions against spend. If you’re promoting something on Facebook then comparing new ‘Likes’ and some of those softer metrics such as active users, comments and post views against ad spend will reveal much about the value of the ad campaign and its ROI.

10. Things move fast in Facebook Land

Facebook has recently launched a new ad format called Sponsored Stories which allows advertisers to turn people’s ‘Likes’, check-ins, status updates and so on into advertisements to their friends. It’s critical to constantly experiment with new formats and ad tactics on Facebook to get the most out of your social ad campaigns and find ever more innovative ways to stay ahead of the competition. Facebook definitely keeps us on our toes.

Grant Muckle is managing director of I Spy Labs

 

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Sat, 26 Feb 2011 13:57:26 -0800 Global Mobile OS Market share (infographic) http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/global-mobile-os-market-share-infographic http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/global-mobile-os-market-share-infographic
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Thu, 24 Feb 2011 14:27:00 -0800 DSPs and real-time bidding: six trends to keep an eye on (Econsultancy) http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/dsps-and-real-time-bidding-six-trends-to-keep http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/dsps-and-real-time-bidding-six-trends-to-keep

Six key trends from Econsultancy's recent report on Demand Side Platforms

Static algorithms and transactions, bundle-purchasing of impressions and pre-negotiated prices will soon become a thing of the past. 

Much of the display advertising market growth is driven by the recent developments in auction-based media and the increasing number of platforms facilitating real-time bidding transactions.

Impression-level bidding, predictive targeting and dynamic inventory allocation are just some of the hottest buzz phrases in the display advertising ecosystem as interest in demand-side platforms has intensified.

DSPs have created a dramatic shift in how media is bought and managed by enabling advertisers to reach a specific audience at the impression level, in real time. Before diving into this rapidly evolving marketplace, you need to have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve and how these platforms can help you. The guide includes several key questions and considerations that you should keep in mind when looking for the right DSP to suit your needs.

Advertising dollars are moving from ad networks to DSPs and other automated channels.

As Econsultancy's Online Media Report shows, the “black box” approach of traditional ad networks has been heavily criticised by advertisers and publishers alike. The potential of damaging their brands through inappropriate ad placements and pricing inefficiencies are some of the reasons behind the recent shifts of advertising budgets from ad networks to ad exchanges and DSPs.

Although emerging players such as DSPs, private exchanges and trading desks have already started to capitalise on these budget shifts, ad networks are not dead. They will continue to play an important role in the new auction-based ecosystem – either through mergers and acquisitions or vertical media partnerships.

Data capability is one of the most valuable commodities in the new RTB ecosystem.

While using data to optimise campaigns and reach the right audience is not new, data are increasingly seen as the Holy Grail of the RTB ecosystem. Spending on audience targeting is expected to significantly grow in 2011 and more data-driven campaigns will tie in with other channels, such as mobile, video and social. Providers of advanced data and analytics are in a great position to benefit from this trend.

Despite the growing number of RTB-enabled impressions, some publishers remain sceptical of the returns that DSPs provide and are reluctant to make their proprietary data available. One of the major issues in 2011 will be the availability and quality of data, rather than the technology necessary to access it.

Mobile and video advertising continues to mature.

The last few months have finally confirmed the tremendous potential of mobile and video to provide new ways of reaching and engaging with users. Despite issues around standardisation of video and mobile ad delivery and reporting, they are gradually becoming an essential component of any digital advertising strategy. After a flurry of acquisitions in 2010, consolidation is expected to continue and future innovations on top of RTB capabilities will focus on the integration of display with mobile and video.

Digital media convergence is closer than you think.

The days of managing digital media campaigns in silos are numbered. As the lines between display, search, social and other digital channels continue to blur, advertisers are increasingly adopting a more holistic approach to how media are purchased and managed. They are gradually moving from the last click attribution model to a centralised technology that allows them to evaluate and attribute the impact that each channel has on overall performance.

Those that will be able to bring together RTB, dynamic creative optimisation and advanced insights to reach granular audiences will seize a significant share of advertising budgets.

Technology is not enough.

Traditionally, the display advertising market has been technology-driven and it was considered that best-of-breed technology can guarantee success. Therefore, vendors have invested vast amounts of resources to build proprietary technology platforms.

However, it has been increasingly argued that placing a service layer on top of the technical infrastructure can truly differentiate a DSP in this crowded space. Technology can go so far; having a dedicated campaign manager who understands this dynamic decisioning model and takes into account all variables is essential. Therefore, players in the RTB ecosystem will start to create new business models and define strategies that facilitate the integration of “human interfaces”.

In a recent blog post for Econsultancy, Andy Betts provided a very useful overview of the display advertising market and impact of demand-side platforms, including some interesting predictions for 2011.

Learn more...

Econsultancy's DSPs Buyer’s Guide contains extensive insight from individuals on the front-line of the display advertising industry, as well as a diagram which explains the real-timing bidding ecosystem.    

The report contains profiles of the following DSPs: AdBuyer.com, Adnetik, DataXu, Efficient Frontier, Infectious Media, Invite Media, The Media Innovation Group (MIG), MediaMath, mexad, Rocket Fuel, SearchIgnite, StrikeAd, The Trade Desk, Triggit, Turn, XA.net.

 

Monica Savut is a Research Analyst at Econsultancy. Follow her on Twitter or connect via LinkedIn.

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Wed, 23 Feb 2011 03:39:00 -0800 Five lip biting SEO myths from Econsultancy http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/five-lip-biting-seo-myths-from-econsultancy http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/five-lip-biting-seo-myths-from-econsultancy
Original article from Mark Cook on Econsultancy:

The SEO field has some great thought leaders who work hard to share their knowledge and data with the community. Despite this, after nine years working in the field, I still see some horrible misinformation published on an alarmingly regular basis.

So, with the help of Twitter, these are the five SEO myths I would love to see buried in 2011...

1 "You need to improve your keyword density"

This one always blows my mind. It can be disproved with about 30 seconds research; simply do a search for some of the most competitive terms you can think of and what do you find? Strangely, it's not endless reams of keyword-stuffed landing pages.

Apart from the fundamental shift that happened years ago when search engines started placing more weight on link graphs rather than on-page text and meta-data, language processing is a well documented science.

In short: Never start sacrificing the quality of your content for SEO purposes.

2 "Google penalises for duplicate content"

Although we recently heard from Google about new changes that will target sites that copy others content (think scraping content farms), it is important to note that generally speaking there is no such thing as a duplicate content penalty.

If you've got some duplicate pages, or you're hosting some content from another site, it makes no sense for Google to display the exact same content twice in one search query result: If the first one wasn't helpful to the searcher, the second one won't be, so why waste valuable SERPs real estate on it?

The result is one of these pages is filtered from the index. It does not mean your site is suddenly going to be hit with mythical ranking penalties.

In short: A little duplicate content won't kill you, but maybe look at why it's there.

3 "Update your content regularly to keep it fresh and rank better"

Well, it sounds like it could be true, right? Unfortunately, all too often I see companies with staff updating their website for the sake of it, under the instruction of their "SEO expert".

While it's true that the "age" of content will affect some verticals (think about news results, which are basically chronological), for the most part, your average chartered accountant website isn't going to see a return on having someone spending 20 hours a week writing in their "latest news" section.

Sure, you could argue that by creating all this content you're doing something for the "longtail", but I can guarantee you there's better ways to spend your time.

In short: If you've got something to say, write about it. If you don't, please don't have someone doing it just for "SEO".

4 "W3C/Standards compliant code will help search engines love your site"

I like good code. There's a whole bunch of great reasons to write compliant code and make your website as accessible as possible. SEO though, is not one of them. As long as you're covering off the SEO basics so your site loads quickly and can be indexed (you're not giving technical barriers to search bots), you'll be fine.

While it may make sense at first thought, only a small percentage of websites conform to web-standards it would make it a very difficult metric to use for search engines to judge how useful the page is for the searcher.

In short: Please produce good, accessible code as standard practise. Don't recode your entire website for just for SEO purposes.

5 "PPC Spend / Adwords / Adsense affects your SEO"

Sure, big brands and big spenders might get back in the index a little quicker if they get banned than you, but it's nothing to do with PPC spend. If a big brand does get penalised, Google has no choice long-term than to reinstate them.

If you do a search for "cheap flights" you expect to see RyanAir, you expect to see EasyJet (not that I'm suggesting they've done anything wrong). Not having these brands present would reduce the quality of Google SERPs, which is its core mission to maintain.

If you get banned from Google and it takes you nine months to get back in, it's not because Google doesn't care, it's because most people don't care.

Even Matt Cutts had to answer these allegations on Google preferring Adwords/Adsense clients in organic SERPs:

"One misconception that we’ve seen in the last few weeks is the idea that Google doesn’t take as strong action on spammy content in our index if those sites are serving Google ads. To be crystal clear:

• Google absolutely takes action on sites that violate our quality guidelines regardless of whether they have ads powered by Google;
• Displaying Google ads does not help a site’s rankings in Google; and
• Buying Google ads does not increase a site’s rankings in Google’s search results.

These principles have always applied, but it’s important to affirm they still hold true.”

In short: Don't confuse an Adwords spend with the importance brand equity plays on Google's SERPs

http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/7175-5-lip-biting-seo-myths-i-still-hear-in-2011

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Mon, 21 Feb 2011 13:17:00 -0800 Anthony Rose at AOP VoD & the Rise of Connected TV event http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/anthony-rose-at-aop-vod-the-rise-of-connected http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/anthony-rose-at-aop-vod-the-rise-of-connected

http://www.ukaop.org.uk/news/anthonyroseaopforumvideo2568.html

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Mon, 21 Feb 2011 13:13:00 -0800 Why David Karp Started Tumblr: Blogs Don’t Work For Most People http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/founder-stories-why-david-karp-started-tumblr http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/founder-stories-why-david-karp-started-tumblr

http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/21/founder-stories-why-david-karp-started-tumbl...:+Techcrunch+(TechCrunch)&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

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Mon, 21 Feb 2011 10:19:58 -0800 How to become an online influencer http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/how-to-become-an-online-influencer http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/how-to-become-an-online-influencer http://mashable.com/2011/02/16/become-online-influencer/

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Sun, 20 Feb 2011 14:57:59 -0800 Is this the start of the second dotcom bubble ? http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/is-this-the-start-of-the-second-dotcom-bubble http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/is-this-the-start-of-the-second-dotcom-bubble From the guardian...ominous signs:

http://m.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/feb/20/is-this-the-start-of-the-second-...

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Sat, 19 Feb 2011 14:01:00 -0800 Apple’s 300,000+ App Store apps visualized [Infographic] http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/apples-300000-app-store-apps-visualized-infog http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/apples-300000-app-store-apps-visualized-infog
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Sat, 19 Feb 2011 13:00:00 -0800 Pitchify - a great Spotify music discovery service http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/pitchify-great-spotify-music-discovery-servic http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/pitchify-great-spotify-music-discovery-servic

Love this site..Pitchify collects reviews from two excellent webzines Pitchfork and Drowned In Sound on a daily basis, then checks if the reviewed albums are available on Spotify. Only albums that have received a rating of 8 or more (out of 10) will be included on Pitchify. Lots of albums are reviewed every day, and thousands of tracks added to Spotify every week. Pitchify tries to sort through the pile, throw away the Gagas and the Nickelbacks and present you with the very best that Spotify has to offer.

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Sat, 19 Feb 2011 04:06:00 -0800 The structure of the music industry http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/the-structure-of-the-music-industry http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/the-structure-of-the-music-industry
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Sat, 19 Feb 2011 03:25:00 -0800 Do The Math: Here’s The Percentage Cut Apple And Google Should Be Taking | paidContent http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/do-the-math-heres-the-percentage-cut-apple-an http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/do-the-math-heres-the-percentage-cut-apple-an

James McQuivey is an analyst at Forrester Research, where he serves Consumer Product Strategy professionals. James blogs here.

The most important outcome of this week’s emerging tussle between Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is that we are about to have an intense and financially difficult conversation about what a fair price is for delivering customers to developers, publishers, and producers. Economically, this is one of the most critical issues that has to be resolved for the future of electronic content. Very soon, a majority of consumer experiences (that which we used to refer to as the media) will be digital. But not until the people who will develop those experiences have unambiguous, market-clearing rules for how they can expect to profit from those experiences.

The question comes down to this: Is 30 percent a fair price for Apple to charge? I do not employ the word “fair” the way my children often do. I am not whining about Apple’s right to charge whatever it wants. Apple may do whatever is best for shareholders in the short- and long-run. I argued yesterday that Apple’s recent decision does not serve its shareholders in the long run. Google announced One Pass yesterday – hastily, I might add – in order to signal to Apple and its shareholders that monopoly power rarely lasts forever. But none of that questions the ultimate morality of Apple’s decision or its rights.

I use the word “fair” to refer to a state of economic efficiency.

A fair price is one that maximizes not just individual revenue, but total revenue across all players. Such revenue maximization cannot be achieved without simultaneously satisfying the largest possible number of consumers with the greatest possible amount of innovation.

It is on that basis that I declare Apple’s 30 percent pricing unfair. How do we know what a fair price is? In an efficient market, fair prices land somewhere close to the cost of delivering services. This happens thanks to competition: As long as there is excess profit in the system, a rational competitor will lower prices to attract more customers until margins are thin enough to survive on but not amply so.

Right now there is no competition in this market. Apple owns more than 90 percent of the tablet PC business and is therefore immune to the effects of competition, at least for now. But as we’ve seen in the phone business, it only took Android a few years to catch up and I expect the same to happen in tablets. When it does, Apple will have to reevalute its 30 percent price. But will it land on Google’s 10 percent?

In the short run, maybe, though I don’t expect Apple to counter price directly, it’s just not in keeping with the company’s style. More to my point, however, in the long run, even Google’s 10 percent is too much to ask of experience providers.

Some will disagree with me, vehemently. They’ll raise examples like newsstand sales of magazines, where the publisher only gets a minority of the newsstand price. Or any physical retail business, where a 70 percent cut of the sales price would seem like a boon from on high. But none of those examples are relevant.

In the world of retail – including physical media distribution on CD, DVD or even in movie theaters – margins are slim for everyone in the supply chain. The producer, distributor, wholesaler, and retailer. Because everyone has physical costs to bear in a competitive market, they all offer their services at just above their own costs.

In the app world, however, the biggest incremental cost of a content experience is its creation. Once it is created and properly formatted for delivery – costs both born by the publisher or producer – the distribution of the digital asset is nearly free. Managing the customer relationship, maintaining secure login and credit authorization processes, delivering the bits to the device – these are all negligible costs that the platform operator bears as a service to the market. Any claim that these costs are burdensome is exaggerated.

Arguably, the biggest cost an app platform developer endured was building the device and creating the developer tools. These companies deserve to recoup that investment. And they do: Apple charges a fabulous premium for all of its devices. Plus, it expects the user to pick up the last mile of distribution costs. In other words, Apple paid for its investment already, many times over, and only has small residual expenses left to cover. This is why Apple’s stock is so popular. The device owner pays for all of Apple’s investments. Any cash Apple gets from developers is just gravy.

Again, there is nothing morally wrong with this. Apple can do this all it wants (though eventually, someone will call a Senator or two and the FTC will get involved; it’s just inevitable, even if there is ultimately no finding of fault).

So if we can’t compare Apple’s 30 percent or Google’s 10 percent (or Amazon’s 30 percent Kindle bounty, by the way) to other media or retail distribution businesses, what can we compare it to? The most direct analog is the credit card processing business. It’s similarly structured: One entity acts as a secure platform on which millions of consumers can transact with thousands of businesses. What do these companies charge? From just below 2 percent to as much as 5 percent for low-volume, high risk merchants. How do they justify this charge? Easily: They have to have a large physical and labor infrastructure to manage the process. Some of this infrastructure is paid for by partners and customers (your annual fee or the cost for a merchant to buy a credit card reader), but most is not.

This system works well. In fact, it works too well and we overuse it, a problem the last recession hopefully curtailed at least for a while.

Seen in this light, you can better understand why I argue that the long-term resting point for these kinds of platform fees is going to end up below 10 percent. It won’t happen until after 2012, when there’s enough competition among platforms and enough people going around the platforms altogether using HTML (expect Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) to be among the first). That competitive pressure will lower prices and encourage more innovation. Apple will still have billions in the bank and its shareholders will still be very happy. But the happiness of other companies (measured in revenues) will also have risen and so will the enjoyment level of the end customers who will have better content experiences at more efficient, market-clearing prices.

That’s why Google’s announcement is so important. Because it signals the eventual arrival of this future and provides frazzled content companies with some hope that they can someday return their focus to generating the best content. That’s why they’ll sign up for One Pass, even if they dislike Google as much as they now distrust Apple.

Related Stories

 

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Fri, 11 Feb 2011 02:25:00 -0800 Six top tips for integrating social media into B2B selling | Econsultancy http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/six-top-tips-for-integrating-social-media-int http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/six-top-tips-for-integrating-social-media-int

Posted 11 February 2011 09:53am by Kim Tasso with 0 comments

Social media is now a proven and important element of most digital marketing campaigns and the majority of marketing practitioners will be comfortable with how it integrates into their existing communication programmes.

However, there is still a dearth of information on how social media integrates with and supports selling and engagement activities.

During 2010 I worked closely with Peter Abraham of Econsultancy to research the subject, and we focused on one of the most complex high value service markets, that of professional services (lawyers, accountants/consultants and surveyors).

 

Whereas in many companies it is common for marketing to be separated from sales, the problem is exacerbated within the professions as often the marketing and business development professionals are often not allowed to get involved in direct selling as this is undertaken by the lawyers, accountants and surveyors themselves.

 

Furthermore, these professionals are often unsophisticated and reluctant in their approach to selling and relationship management. However, the professions are well known for leveraging the close personal relationships that they develop with their commercial clients and for the long sales cycle.

 

We developed a series of best practice guidelines for how lawyers, accountants and surveyors could integrate various social media tools (and LinkedIn and Twitter turned out to be the most popular) depending on whether they were social media newbies, average users or “star” performers.

 

We also provided guidance for various stages of the sales cycle and the relationship management process and pulled all the elements into a preliminary model which is presented in the White Paper "The use of social media in relationship development in the professions (Lawyers, accountants and surveyors)".

 

Six of the main strategic lessons learned:

  • Understand the sales and relationship development processes used by the organisation, teams and individuals before you attempt to see how social media might support them.
  • Develop standard policies and procedures to ensure that you protect against inadvertent problems with client confidentiality, brand and reputation management, disclosure of valuable know-how and the ownership of critical contacts and network.
  • Assess which vertical markets externally and which professionals internally are most enthusiastic about social media, and work with your champions in a pilot project. 

    This allows you to bring the early adopters (and potential mavericks) under the umbrella of the organisation’s criteria for effective use. Particularly cautious firms might explore social media by using an internal tool such as Yammer for internal communications campaigns.

  • Look at existing marketing, sales and account plans and try to develop some measures by which social media activity, when incorporated into other traditional activities, can be assessed.
  • Provide introductory training on appropriate social media tools, which may involve working alongside the professionals as they perform their day job and delivering new layers of complexity in bite sized pieces.
  • Monitor activity and results carefully, be patient, provide regular support and encouragement, promote successes (however small or anecdotal) and allow social media use to develop in line with experience and update the best practice guidelines and systems regularly.

 

Six of the top operational tool tips were:

  • Using social media as a method to learn more about markets, organisations and individuals. A targeted form of market listening in order to gain insight into trends, needs and opportunities and map client-side relationships.
  • Using location based social media, particularly those providing information on different aspects of individual’s preferences, habits and places frequented, to learn about and connect with different members of the decision making unit.
  • Consider how to integrate social media contacts and connections with traditional “centralised” databases, sales automation and CRM systems.
  • Ensure that corporate and personal brands (business and self profiles) are aligned and that consistent key messages about specific strengths and expertise are promoted through all channels.
  • Using the traditional networking advice of “Giver’s Gain” and using social media to add value to every interaction with existing and potential clients through a careful shared content strategy.
  • Use status updates, particularly on professional and business networks such as LinkedIn, on a regular basis to ensure that you remain “on the radar” of a large number of contacts with ease – and provide hooks to prompt interaction.

Learn more...

The use of social media in relationship development in the professions (Lawyers, accountants and surveyors is free to registered users (bronze Econsultancy members and higher). Inside, it contains the latest market trends, best practices, statistics, useful resources and case studies relating to social media and the professional services industry.

Other social media resources, from Econsultancy's vast content includes the Social Media and Online PR Report, produced in association with bigmouthmedia, which is the most comprehensive study of its kind around the strategies, tactics and websites companies are using to harness social media for marketing, sales, customer service and other business objectives. Econsultancy has also released a specialist 90-page guide, How to create amazing Facebook Pages, which will provide you with all the detail you need to build - or overhaul - a Facebook Page.

Kim Tasso is Managing Director at Practical Marketing Consultancy Ltd and a guest blogger on Econsultancy. 

http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/7141-six-top-tips-for-integrating-social-medi...

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Mon, 31 Jan 2011 02:44:00 -0800 Starbucks, Mazda and Argos sign up for Facebook Deals - Brand Republic News http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/starbucks-mazda-and-argos-sign-up-for-faceboo http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/starbucks-mazda-and-argos-sign-up-for-faceboo

Starbucks, Mazda and Argos sign up for Facebook Deals

By Ed Owen, marketingmagazine.co.uk, 31 January 2011, 09:40AM

The UK version of Facebook Deals launches today (31 January), offering Facebook users who "check in" using the Facebook Places feature on their mobile app, access to special offers and other deals.

Facebook Deals: UK version launches today

Facebook Deals: UK version launches today

People using the Facebook app already have the opportunity to check in to show friends where they are, and restaurants and shops are already popular check-in spots.

Once checked in, users will now gain access to deals offered by third parties.

Starbucks will give away 30,000 cups of coffee to people who check-in today.

Debenhams will give away 1,000 sets of mascara and makeovers.

Mazda will give away 5 cars for 5 months, and those who check-in will get a 20% discount on certain models. Those who check in at Alton Towers on 18 February will gain free access.

Argos and Benetton will have deals linked to charitable donations. YoSushi will give away 1,000 free plates and O2 have also signed-up, and will offer Playstations on Saturday.

 

Theme park Alton Towers will be offering free entry to all users who check-in on Friday 18th February; there will also be 100 free rooms at the park’s two themed hotels available for the first 100 people who check in.

Joanna Shields, vice-president of Facebook for Europe, the Middle East and Africa said: "For the first time in history we can make these deals at scale, at real time and for free."

Gap, Starbucks, McDonald's and H&M are some of the brands to have partnered with Facebook for the US launch of Facebook Deals, each offering something to users who check in at their stores.

 

The Facebook Deals service initially launched in November in the US, but for iPhone users only. Facebook released an update for Android users on Friday.

 

The service will roll out in the UK, France, Italy, Spain and Germany today.

Facebook Deals combines the mass-buying potential of Groupon with the location-based gaming of Foursquare, and the Facebook launch should prove a major challenge to both services.

Facebook has yet to announce whether it will enter into mobile payments services, but redemptions of Facebook offers will be only be fully trackable once mobile payments systems launch through Orange and O2 later this year.

Deals and loyalty schemes have been highlighted as effective ways to drive the use of mobile payments.

Apple is believed to be moving into mobile payments with the launches of both the iPhone 5 and iPad 2.

Dan Rose, vice-president of platforms and product marketing for Facebook, said last week that it was investing equally in both its own digital space and developing tools for third parties.

This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk

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Mon, 31 Jan 2011 02:13:20 -0800 Digital payments: the next generation http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/digital-payments-the-next-generation http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/digital-payments-the-next-generation Digital payments: the next generation
THE LATEST ON DIGITAL FROM MUSICWEEK.COM | 26 JANUARY 2011
http://pulsene.ws/Vgca

Facebook, Apple and Android are all moving to change the e-commerce landscape and reshape how content is bought digitally. Read more


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Wed, 26 Jan 2011 08:33:31 -0800 BYO Channel launches iPhone app for personalised music http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/byo-channel-launches-iphone-app-for-personali http://barryflanigan.posterous.com/byo-channel-launches-iphone-app-for-personali
MusicAlly (@MusicAlly)
26/01/2011 16:07
BYO Channel launches iPhone app for personalised music: We’ve not covered BYO Channel’s website before, but now ... http://bit.ly/fW9T1G

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Techcrunch Crunchies Winners....Twitter Takes Best Startup Of 2010 http://t.co/qDnL4YR 

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