and is it something we should be doing?
Social media optimisation or SMO isn't a new term or a new approach, far from it. As the Wikipedia definition of SMO explains, it's been around since 2006 when the search engine marketer Danny Sullivan first used it and Rohit Bhargava developed his 5 rules of SMO which are featured at the end of this post with my suggestions on how to scope SMO activities more broadly.
With many companies now having social media marketing in place, SMO is a logical next step to improve the effectiveness of social media marketing. So I thought it would be interesting to see marketers views on SMO - is it a narrow view about optimising integration with a website, is it mainly related to SEO or is it a broader view?
What do you understand by SMO?
These are the results of the poll - thank you to…
Our interview with Claire Rollinson of AlchemyWorx
I've been in touch with Claire Rollinson for a while swapping ideas on Email marketing via the social networks and through IDM Digital courses. Initially Claire worked out as a marketing comms manager at different charities and more recently as head of campaign management at specialist Email marketing agency Alchemy Worx. This gives her great experience of campaigns across a range of sectors and brands.
As always, in our interview series, I encourage the marketers I interview to share tips which prompt the question "Can we try that? Should we be doing this? Should we use this tool?". I hope you find Claire's recommendations useful. As she suggests, getting email marketing right is important because "every single message you send can have an incremental – and if you do…
Online Customer Experience and Branding - an example of integrating the website and social presence
Today, with so many prospects and customers interacting with you online, I believe your brand really is greatly influenced by the Online Customer Experience you develop. But I think many don't see how a website can support and especially enhance their brand. In this posts I'll share an approach I use with businesses and I hope you can adapt this model for your own business or your clients - it's classic brand marketing.
Brand value mapping
The first stage is to understand where a brand is right now. I was recently discussing this approach with my class for marketing students in Derby. As a starting point we did a brand mapping activity for different companies. The areas highlighted in red are the key review areas for your online brand.
…
Mobile growth predictions to support your mobile marketing strategy
Research value: [rating=5]
Our commentary: I'm sure you noticed the tremendous growth in 2010 of use of smartphones, tablets and the popularity of mobile apps. If you're creating a business case for investment in mobile phones we hope this alert about future predictions of mobile usage will be useful to highlight some data to suppport your arguments.
What's most interesting to us is how the trend to smartphone and tablet usage results in a lot more use of mobile networks. This is highlighted by this graphic.
Another point is that we don't seem to be near saturation. These statistics on mobile growth by region show sustained growth across all markets:
Don't…
What does your email signature say about your brand?
A signature is like a snapshot of your personality. Do you know when you sign your name in a personal or professional communication unknowingly you disclose much more about yourself, than you want to.
In this post I surface some recent examples of the email signatures in customer service and offer thoughts about the personality of those behind them and the brands they represent.
As a security conscious citizen I rarely disclose my signature for others to see. So increasingly I have become surprised when I see what seem like genuine signatures being used within customer service communications, particularly email. It also strikes me as odd that companies continue to 'sign off' their emails as if it is a traditional letter. Don't get me wrong - of course your email needs a footer and further contact information but when is it appropriate to add…
Facebook is today launching Places Deals in the UK and Europe, I posted on Facebook Deals in early November launching the the USA with Gap and Starbucks, amongst others. Well, as of this week it's in the UK. Facebook users will be able to get discounts and targeted deals in shops and eateries by checking in on Facebook Places using their smartphone. European partners include Starbucks, Yo Sushi, O2, Argos, Debenhams, and Alton Towers. All making offers based on Check-Ins.
To remind you, the concept is simple enough "€“ users look for the yellow icon when they Check In using Places. You then click on the deal to claim it, and simply show it to the cashier to cash in. Deals that a user claims will also be shared on your Facebook News Feed, which will allow your friends to reap the same benefits should they want to.…
This report contains useful perspectives from a range of engagement specialists which are useful to review. There are also statistics from over 1,000 client and agency side respondents.
Here are the main results from the research:
Email newsletters (72%), presence on social networks (48%) and micro-blogging (46%) are the tactics most likely to result in a tangible improvement to companies"€Ÿ online customer engagement.
Significantly more companies than last year are planning to increase investment in usergenerated content (+13%), on-site branded communities/forums (+9%) and rich on-page interactive experiences (+8%).
The vast majority of company respondents (73%) are planning to invest in the mobile channel in 2011. This compares to 60% who said they planned mobile investment at the same stage a year ago.
The vast majority of company respondents (73%) are planning to invest in the mobile channel in 2011. This compares to 60% who said they planned investment at the same stage last year. Less…
Approachs to increase the value of your email messages Part 1 Emotional value
Subscribers give you an address, attention and access to the inner sanctum that is their inbox. And they expect something in return. Some kind of value from your emails.
This value ensures you don't outstay your welcome in that inbox and drives responses, whether direct (e.g. sales) or indirect (e.g. awareness).
No surprise, then, to find email marketing experts regularly admonishing senders to increase the value of their messages. It's one of the ways I highlighted to ensure email success in 2011.
Your options for increasing value?
For many experts, the answer lies in using technology to increase the functional "transactional" value of an email. Which largely means better targeting through integration of web analytics, customer databases and email systems...supporting segmentation, personalized offers/content, one-to-one trigger messages etc.
That's quite a mouthful and quite a challenge for those without the resources.
But it's not…
An update on Facebook statistics at the start of 2011
Here's an interesting graphic I thought I'd share, though I know we a probably not needing reminder of the beast that is Facebook - and our obsession with it.
The infographic itself is also a simple example of shareable marketing for onlineschools.org at the same time. Cool!
If you ever need to check out the latest statistics on Facebook for a presentation, then there's Facebook's own statistics page. Three we think are important as a sign of marketing tactics as we go into 11 are:
Community - the average Facebook user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events
Mobile - 200 million active Facebook users who are twice as active as non-mobile users
Widgets - 2 million websites have integrated Facebook, growing at 10,000 day and 250 million people per month engage with Facebook through external websites
…
A tool to compare marketing automation systems
Value: [rating=3]
A marketing automation research tool, courtesy of Software Advice.
Our commentary : If you're selecting a provider for a marketing automation, CRM or other Ebusiness system then you may find these Software Advice sites useful for an overview of the options.
They have a series of usable step-by-step guides and this widget which is shareable to other sites - a nice example of viral marketing.
Marketing implications : Take care with using this widget though since it has a strong US focus and some of the well-known marketing suppliers such as Eloqua or Marketo are missing. They do have a slightly broader list of Marketing Automation suppliers but again a US focus.
Remember that many email service provider solutions can now provide marketing automation or integration with existing customer management systems and they'll often be more capable as email broadcast platforms. To see a…
