Why marketers aren’t giving social media marketing the credit it deserves

Despite how important social media has become to marketers, Adobe are suggesting that it still isn’t being recognized for driving website traffic, engagement and conversions like it should be. The solution, Adobe suggest, might be as simple as making adjustments to how its contributions are captured and measured. In short, some attribution modelling might help you see social media marketing in a whole new light. Remember that you don't need a paid service like Adobe Sitecatalyst to apply attribution thinking;  you can demonstrate the value of social media marketing through Google's new Social Reports (tutorial) which helps show assisted conversions influenced by social media. Because social marketing is still so new, and let's not forget that, best practices for measuring the effectiveness of social efforts are still evolving. We've written before about ROI of social media, the IAB also developed…

A reminder about the importance of Google's 2012 Venice update and Google+ Local for local business services

Did you notice how, earlier in the year, the results Google produced for local queries changed dramatically to give even more prominence to local search? We thought it was worth a reminder, because quite a few companies we've spoken to weren't aware of this and it's really important as a potential source of leads if you have a local business. The update was quite hidden in Google's February announcement of 40 search quality updates, which maybe explains why it didn't have prominence. The relevant part of this update explaining the differences to local search is:  “Improvements to ranking for local search results. [launch codename “Venice”]. This improvement improves the triggering of Local Universal results by relying more on the ranking of our main search results as a signal. "Improved local results. We launched a new system…

Showing how Facebook apps can increase engagement - will we see these due in Google+ soon?

A new report from social media software vendor Wildfire (recently acquired by Google) uses some of their latest data to offer a few useful tips for Facebook marketers. You can dig into the case studies in the report right here. We're sharing it, since it's not just about Facebook Page Likes, it's about deeper engagement with a social media application hosted by Wildfire such as competition and quizzes and includes examples. Can we expect these types of applications in Google+ soon? It defines three levels of engagement with the app: joiners who participate (83%); sharers who simply share (15%) and advocates who share and advocates who share and then encourage others to participate (1.5%). So this gives some figures to benchmark against and help build…

An interesting compilation for email marketers working in B2C, B2B, Event, Charity or Ecommerce marketing

All email marketers like to know how their open and click rates compare, although it's really the conversion rates and value generated per email that's important (and more difficult to measure). Here's a great piece of new research from email service provider Adestra that dissects engagement with email across sectors that I thought was worth summarising here. I'd recommend downloading a copy of the full report if you work in email marketing, lots of "food for thought".

Which subject line length works best?

The report starts by looking at engagement with the email based on length. The research, based on nearly a billion emails shows that short or long tend to work best.

Less than…

Key issues and 11 questions to consider when selecting a social listening tool

To help with social media monitoring, it's possible to track and trace, in real-time, any digital communication if it’s in the public domain. Social media have, of course, created an explosion of trackable online and public dialogue. Herein lays an amazing opportunity to gain an endless amount of market and consumer insight and intelligence. But herein also lays considerable new challenges for marketers.

The technology is not the issue

In response to the anticipated market opportunity for monitoring and analysing what consumers are saying on social media there has is a plethora of software tools developed that can perform these tasks. A colleague dedicated over a year to the creation of a taxonomy and guide summing up the main features, functions and benefits of  250 different social media monitoring tools. Despite the…

8 practices and examples that show how savvy companies are using Pinterest to engage and sell

Now it’s even easier to get started on Pinterest,. Previously you had to be invited to join, but now Pinterest have opened up membership to all and so “pinners” are likely to rise so now could be the time to get onboard and see what it’s all about and how it can work for you. More and more businesses are signing up with varying levels of success. Both B2C and B2B are giving it a go, although not all businesses seem not to be using Pinterest to its full potential because their isn't a planned approach leading to sale. In this post I’ll look at examples of eight key practices to make Pinterest support online and offline sales. Recommended…

How to cope with unexpected opportunities and problems

I'm part-way through "The Black Swan", where the author explores the "impact of the highly improbable". There are lots of uplifting messages about our ignorance, wilful self-delusion and inability to make any meaningful predictions about the future. Anyway, it got me thinking about the related topics of complexity, the unexpected and the unpredictable in email campaigns. The main problem with dealing with the unexpected (apart from the obvious one*) is the issue of timing. When something goes wrong that needs corrective action, then that action typically needs to be taken fast. Equally, the quicker you react to an unexpected opportunity, the better you can exploit it. This need for fast action often conflicts with the reality of campaign planning and execution in email marketing, which can take days, weeks, even months, depending on your organizational setup and…

Smoothing the way to digital enlightenment

Working in digital marketing is without doubt one of the most rewarding ways in which you can spend your days. The rate at which new products and services are churned out means that apart from having to spend a large part of your working week just keeping up, the new and emerging trends and strategies mean you can never rest on your laurels. That being said working as a freelancer in digital marketing doesn’t come without its share of problems, after all why should we be any different from the rest of the world. Simply getting across the importance of an online strategy is the start of the journey with any new client and following a process that makes it easy for others can be a challenge, but one that’s ultimately worth taking.

A rocky road

In my…

Showing how great content generates more backlinks AND social shares

Value: [rating=4] Recommended link: SEOmoz post by DanZarrella Dan Zarrella, the “social media scientist” who works for Hubspot these days, has created a lot of interesting analysis over the years which is great for giving practical ideas of how to improve social media communications - the infographic at the bottom of this post on what is effective in Facebook is one example. He recently wrote a guest post on SEOmoz I thought was worth sharing since it gives some evidence to help answer the often-asked question - “(How) does Social media marketing support SEO?” Of course, the number (and especially quality) of inbound links is vital to effective SEO in competitive markets, so this research looks at the correlation of sharing on the social networks with number of backlinks for content share. The results show some positive correlation: …

The answer depends on your perspective...

We know that the Olympics has been a raving success on so many levels, more so than many of us imagined. So, almost a week after the main event (the Paralympics are still to come), I wondered about the digital success story - what were the take-aways from the London 2012 Olympics for marketers, that we can learn and share on Smart Insights? I came across this wrap-up from the Head of New Media at London 2012, Alex Balfour. You can see the Slideshare presentation embedded here… London 2012.com olympic games digital round up 13 august 2012 from Alex Balfour

What can digital marketers learn from London 2012?

The data from London 2012 appears…