Treat Twitter as a Brand Communication Channel

I know Twitter can seem daunting. Tweeters can be caustic about your brand in 140 characters; for companies, responding appropriately in such a small space is challenging. But connecting with these influential customers on an individual basis is a key word-of-mouth opportunity. Once you’ve secured an account for your brand and started listening, you should:

• Engage brand supporters and detractors early and often. Nothing is more powerful than reaching a customer at a crossroads with your product and making her happy. If you monitor people’s tweets about your brand, you’re able to respond quickly to them — and help solve their problems. This works with brand fans as well; brand feedback inspires them to spread their enthusiasm further.

• Provide brand content participants want to share. Use tweets to serve up content that’s timely, exclusive, and spreadable. Promotions, early product previews, and contests all make tweets happen. How to track success? Count how often you’re re-tweeted.

• Manage your brand on Twitter with dedicated staff. Twitter needs to be part of somebody’s job, not just a hobby; if you respond sporadically, that sends a worse message than being absent altogether. You need staff to listen, respond, and analyze your brand mentions. The most successful companies on Twitter have teams in place to evaluate how followers interact with them, what processes they need, and what insights should influence their marketing strategy — and to gain intelligence from what’s said about the brand overall.

• Promote your Twitter presence. While your Web site is your brand’s digital hub, the most likely tweeters are people who turn to social applications regularly. We recommend promoting your Twitter account on social network pages, communities, and blogs. By tapping into a group of social consumers first, you can make your tweets more visible. For example, Best Buy promotes its “Twelpforce” of Twitter helpers on TV and the Web, and shows its full stream of support tweets on twitter.com/twelpforce and its own site.

• Understand what tweets work. Observe what people re-tweet about your brand and how they respond to what you say. Because your goal is to engage people on Twitter, identifying which tweets resonate will help you build your presence quickly.

The success of social media campaigns

The success of social media campaigns, and utilization in general, does not, in any way, rely on some magical formula or any secret ingredients we might need to acquire from the belated witches of Salem! Yet, it is a careful mixture of simple and valuable elements which need to be present before, through and after the implementation of any social media campaign. Some elements could be very obvious, while others need some research and attention to be achieved.

• Make sure that you apply smart integration with the “right” social media channels that suit your brand image, the product/service you are trying to promote and its value. Not every social media channel will bring about the positive feedback you are waiting for!
• Take time to choose the team who will be in charge of executing your social media plan. It is not about the quantity, it is about the quality, remember that! Experience and already established online PR agents or staff members will be of a higher value to your campaign in comparison with anyone with a lot of free time to waste!
• Again, content is king! It is a must to make sure that your social media campaign’s content is not offensive, biased or easily misinterpreted. This could be easily used against you!
• Just as it is important to know your target market online, learning more about your online target audience is very important! This will not only help you know where to find them, it will also guide you in designing the campaign that will intrigue them and lead them to take actions!
• You are under the microscope; play nice! Always be aware that once your social media campaign has hit the hot topics’ list, you are now being watched. Try to be continuously involved in any conversations, posts, chats and/or forums taking place regarding your product, service or campaign.
• Be innovative and try not to imitate whenever possible. You might use the same social media channels others are utilizing but try making your benefit and reward systems varied. Your audience is not always looking to get a free coffee!
• Constantly measure the depth of your social media campaign’s fulfillment of goals and returns. The ROI should always be bigger, or at least equal to, the invested money, time, effort and resources that you are putting in the project.
• Put effort into making the overall social media campaign’s experience fun, engaging and proactive. Adding games, puzzles and teasers can be very addictive!

In a nut shell, though it might be tricky to implement each of the above steps within the right time frame, remember something: impossible is nothing!

Engage Youth Online With Social Interactivity

Youth between the ages of 18 and 35 — are a unique group of consumers. They tend to be socially fluid and highly connected, emotionally searching for their identities, and mentally fickle and creative. How can you engage these youngsters online? By applying four design approaches: social interactivity, immediacy, literacy, and individualism.

Provide the ability to communicate with others. To youth, media and content aren't resources for passive consumption. They're pieces of sharable conversations. Enabling communication and content sharing encourages youth to include content from sites in their online conversations.

Offer tools for self-expression. Youth aren't satisfied just consuming content. They want to create their own. Companies need to find ways to embrace these users' creativity and satisfy their need for self-expression.

For most companies and brands, it doesn't make sense to try to redesign an entire site to provide better youth experiences. Instead, customer experience professionals need to identify the most likely activities that youth will be doing on their sites. How can they do this? Execute a simple survey asking people what they're trying to do on the site, and then look at the responses. With more sophisticated analytics, you can also identify the most frequent paths these young users take.

Firms looking to engage younger users with social interactivity should ask two simple questions about the experiences on their sites: 1) Does it provide the ability to communicate with others? and 2) Does it offer tools for self-expression? By asking these two questions in the context of relevant user goals, brands can identify places to increase social interactivity. You can then draw on the best practices of other firms and other industries to take advantage of the opportunities.

Factors to get higher Page Ranks

In the past few days I have been interviewing lots of candidates from Search Marketing agencies as well as the potential candidates responsible for managing digital clients and providing Client Servicing and Account Management. Whenever I ask a question on Page Rank and what are the factors that determine higher page ranks I get different answers. I thought this post would help us to put some of those criteria's and thoughts in place.

Ranking plays such a large part in search engine optimization. Let’s look at just what affects ranking. Keep in mind, however, that different search engines use different ranking criteria, so the importance each of these elements plays will vary.



Location: Location doesn’t refer here to the location (as in the URL) of a web page. Instead, it refers to the location of key words and phrases on a web page. So, for example, if a user searches for “puppies,” some search engines will rank the results according to where on the page the word “puppies” appears. Obviously, the higher the word appears on the page, the higher the rank might be. So a web site that contains the word “puppies” in the title tag will likely appear higher than a web site that is about puppies but does not contain the word in the title tag. What this means is that a web site that’s not designed with SEO in mind will likely not rank where you would expect it to rank. The site www.puppies.com is a good example of this. In a Google search, it appears ranked fifth rather than first, potentially because it does not contain the key word in the title tag.



Frequency: The frequency with which the search term appears on the page may also affect how a page is ranked in search results. So, for example, on a page about puppies, one that uses the word five times might be ranked higher than one that uses the word only two or three times. When word frequency became a factor, some web site designers began using hidden words hundreds of times on pages, trying to artificially boost their page rankings. Most search engines now recognize this as keyword spamming and ignore or even refuse to list pages that use this technique.



Links: One of the more recent ranking factors is the type and number of links on a web page. Links that come into the site, links that lead out of the site, and links within the site are all taken into consideration. It would follow, then, that the more links you have on your page or leading to your page the higher your rank would be, right? Again, it doesn’t necessarily work that way. More accurately, the number of relevant links coming into your page, versus the number of relevant links within the page, versus the number of relevant links leading off the page will have a bearing on the rank that your page gets in the search results.



Click-throughs: One last element that might determine how your site ranks against others in a search is the number of click-throughs your site has versus click-throughs for other pages that are shown in page rankings. Because the search engine cannot monitor site traffic for every site on the Web, some monitor the number of clicks each search result receives. The rankings may then be repositioned in a future search, based on this interaction with the users.

Page ranking is a very precise science. And it differs from search engine to search engine. To create the best possible SEO for your site, it’s necessary to understand how these page rankings are made for the search engines you plan to target. Those factors can then be taken into consideration and used to your advantage when it’s time to create, change, or update the web site that you want to optimize.

Difference between WebConferencing and WebCasting

I have been using both Web conferencing as well as Webcasting for a long time now. But, sometimes when clients ask me what to use for some of thier events or a promotion of a product to a particular audience, they are confused. So I tought of putting up the comparoison and also the right usage both for Web conferencing and Web Casting. Hope you find it useful to make the decisions in the future on what to use.

Both Web conferencing and Webcasting eliminate travel costs, increase productivity, and allow people in geographically dispersed areas to meet or hear presentations in real time. They both are used for sales and marketing, communications, and online learning. Vendors in both markets continue to enrich the conferencing experience with video, search, and more user control. Sometimes this means the differences between the two conferencing tools tend to blur.

However, the two types of media conferencing have different purposes and involve different technologies for communicating information. Webcasting is a video and audio streaming presentation tool for events, while Web conferencing is a collaborative tool for interactive meetings. In five years, these technologies will converge, but this will happen only after the existing distribution and network issues are solved. In the meantime, resellers will offer both solutions as two different lines of business. If a decision seems difficult to make, the cost may be the deciding factor.

From a functionality perspective, Web Conferencing involves:

Information sharing. The presentation material typically involves slides, but spreadsheets and word processing documents are also common. The meeting leader may share the desktop or application with globally distributed participants (e.g., to demonstrate software, design products, or review creative material).

Live audio. The audio may be the traditional circuit transmission of Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) or Voice over IP (VoIP), which sends voice data in packets using IP with the Internet as the transmission medium — but either way, full duplex audio is key to the communication process. One clear advantage of VoIP is that calls do not incur a cost beyond paying for Internet access — just as users don't pay for sending individual emails.

Real-time polling and quizzes. A presenter can get a sense of the audience's background and opinions or the quality of the experience they are having in the session through polling or asking multiple-choice questions. Web conferencing products have out-of-the-box functionality that allows polling results to be shared with participants in graphical format.

Archiving. Web conferencing products record audio and synch the recording with the slides, allowing replay from the Web server. Users can control the slide movement to hear certain sections again or skip over others.

Webcasting Delivers Live Or Taped Video Events Over The Internet:

A one-to-many stream of video and audio. High-quality video with or without data slides is central to the presentation. One difference between Webcasting and Web conferencing is the use of streamed audio and video. Since most users don't have fast enough access to download large multimedia files, the client browser or plug-in can start displaying the data before the entire file has been transmitted. Conversely, if data comes more quickly than required, the excess data is saved in a buffer. If data doesn't download quickly enough, the presentation will not be smooth.

Audiences that range from 50 to 5,000. Viewers listen and watch the live or on-demand presentation through their computer speakers. They do not expect to interact online, although in some Webcasts, they may submit questions through a chat feature.

Availability of other media and additional services. A slide presentation may accompany the video and appear in a separate panel on the participant's computer screen. Depending on the Webcaster and the functionality chosen for the event, the viewer may also see the agenda, send text questions, or move to a Web site and access other material by using navigation tabs.

Recordings. A live Webcast generally is recorded for an on-demand audience that typically is larger than the live audience, which accesses the replay at a convenient later date. Some Webcasts are produced only for on-demand access from a Web site.

Media players. Webcasting uses standard technology and software that is easily accessible or already on most computers. Participants need a media player such as QuickTime, RealPlayer, or Windows Media Player; a Web browser with an Internet connection of 56K or above; and Macromedia Flash Player.

As vendors in these two conferencing markets grow their offerings, customers must understand their specific requirements to make the best purchase decision. Here are some guidelines based on use cases. In these situations, the users want:

To see the participants when having a small group discussion. The focus on documents means that Web conferencing is most appropriate for this situation, along with Webcams mounted on participants' computers or installed in the conference room. Some vendors like Raindance Communications have the "follow me" feature — whoever is speaking appears in the video section of the screen. With Web conferencing, video quality is generally poor but viewers do get some sense of who the speaker is.

The speaker to use slides and take questions at the end. If you want to see the speaker on TV interspersed with slides and the group size is more than 50, a Webcast is most appropriate. However, if a still picture of the speaker with his/her voice over the slides will suffice, use Web conferencing instead. Both formats can incorporate text or telephone Q&A at the end and allow recorded playback. The extent of playback interactivity varies with the provider but is usually more extensive with a Webcast than with Web conferencing.

To close the sale on a new product by showing results of a study. The focus is on data with supporting visuals and discussion among a small group. Web conferencing will work well with the presenter highlighting sections of data with markup tools.

A charismatic presenter who will interact with a panel. The focus is on communicating with the participants, which suggests a Webcast. High-quality video is important if there are no slides and people are the center of the event.

To depose witnesses over the Web. When law firms conduct depositions, which are witnesses' sworn testimonies outside of court, they need high security and often good quality video. Either a Webcasting or Web conferencing provider with demonstrated strong security can provide this service. If broadcast-quality video is essential, a secure Webcaster may be the best choice.

Web Conferencing Tools

Recently while working for a client, they asked me to suggest them a Webconferencing tool and also build a strategy on how to really put the tool into the use within the organization. I started doing a lot of research on what are the tools available in the market. I am now sharing those tools we can use and also a brief synsopsis on each one of them.

Adobe Connect Pro. Adobe offers a hosted and an on-premises solution with the same host and participant experience. The product has the standard pre-meeting, in-meeting, post-meeting features, but it adds learning features. The meeting-centric product handles 100 participants, and the Web event product scales up to 1,500 participants. Adobe offers per-host, per-port (simultaneous participant), or per-minute pricing with the opportunity to prebuy blocks of minutes.

Cisco WebEx. WebEx was one of the early and most popular Web conferencing vendors, particularly for sales activities. WebEx is a hosted solution only, but Cisco has added a router add-in so that firms can keep internal conferencing traffic inside the corporate network to enhance security and save on roundtrip bandwidth. Cisco's Meeting Center can handle 500 participants, its Training Center supports 1,000 participants, and its Event module can scale to 3,000 participants. Cisco offers per-host, per-port (simultaneous participant), per-minute, or per-use pricing.

IBM LotusLive. IBM offers a hosted solution through its acquisition of WebDialogs that focuses on external meetings and Web events. The product has meeting capacity for 1,000 participants. Participants do not have a download, but the host must have a Microsoft Windows plug-in to use the application-sharing feature. The product provides the most common pre-, in-, and post-meeting features including Web touring and live video. Pricing is a per-host model.

IBM Lotus Sametime. Sametime is IBM's real-time collaboration tool kit, which includes presence, instant messaging, voice integration, video, and Web conferencing. The solution is targeted at internal meetings with support for up to 250 participants. Sametime clients are available for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux. The pricing model is per user with a perpetual license.

Microsoft Live Meeting. This hosted Web conferencing offering of Microsoft is sold through Microsoft Online Services or from partners. The solution provides pre-, in-, and post meeting features, as well as some learning features like breakout rooms, testing, and material distribution. The offering supports 1,250 participants, which allows use in small meetings, Webinars, and large events. Microsoft offers a per-user model with no charge to participants joining from outside the organization. It also has a per-minute pricing model.

Microsoft Office Communications Server. Microsoft's on-premises Web conferencing solution is part of its real-time collaboration platform. The "RC2" version of this product, when linked to the Office Communicator client, offers participant video, application-sharing, and the traditional features. While the product is typically used for internal meetings, it does allow external participants to join. The offering supports 250 participants. The pricing model is per user for internal users, though external participants can join at no cost.

Hope you find this information useful in case you are also considering to implement one Webconferencing tool in your company.

In my next blog I will now touch base on some of the strategies we should look into to make the use of Web Conferencing tool as well as the implementation within the organization successful.

Should we pay bloggers to talk about our brand?

Well, the answer is YES.

Nokia sent out there phones for the review last year and asked the bloggers to review and give their feedback. The phones got a huge response, and most of the bloggers appreciated Nokia's effort of being transparent and authentic in sharing the information with the consumers. Kmart gave some bloggers a free shopping spree in exchange for a blog post about the experience — a practice which is called sponsored conversation. With appropriate protections for disclosure and authenticity, this practice will take its place alongside public relations and advertising activities in the blogosphere. Marketers should take advantage of sponsored conversation as an entrée into the online conversation. To succeed, you should get to know the bloggers you plan to work with and set expectations across your organization.

Marketers already try to influence bloggers through public relations activity. They also pay for ads on blogs. Seen in this context, sponsored conversations are an extension of existing activities. As long as bloggers don't hide who's paying them and have freedom to write whatever they want, I think paying bloggers for the conversation about your brand will fit in well with the other forms of marketing through blogs.

Marketers buy ad space on popular blogs like TechCrunch and Huffington Post just as they would on any other site; Intel recently worked with blog ad network Federated Media to have 100% of the ads on a gaming blog created by Boing Boing's bloggers. Best Buy went further, working with Six Apart's blog network to deliver not just ad units but a sponsored question-of-the-day that inspired bloggers to respond to in their personal blogs.

Ford recently offered Jessica Smith of Jessica Knows a Ford Flex car for one year; she now blogs about her family's experience with the car and participates in Ford events. (View Source)

Why and How to Pay bloggers to start the conversations:

The blogosphere can be a powerful marketing channel — even consumer bloggers know they have more influence than their peers. That's why you should start now to recruit bloggers who will act as brand ambassadors for your brand. Working with bloggers is:

Cheap and scalable. Kmart worked with Izea, a company that manages the process of reaching out to bloggers for paid conversation. The payment to each blogger was only $500 in shopping credit.

Far-reaching. The number of people reading blogs alone has grown by 50% in the past year and now one in three Indians online are doing so at least once a month.

Great for search engine optimization. Because blogs generate links and change frequently, they rank high in organic search results.

Persuasive. Blogs represent relationships with communities of readers. Through blogs, marketers can listen to, talk to, energize, and support potential fans and new customers.

How To Do Paid Conversations Effectively

The rewards of paid conversations are promising, but there are risks as well, including brand backlash if you conceal your relationship with bloggers. To participate effectively:

Mandate disclosure. Require that any sponsored content includes disclosure of the paid sponsorship and that any sponsorship network you work with has similar requirements.

Ensure freedom of authenticity. It's tough to let go, but it's best to let bloggers you work with write whatever they feel is appropriate, rather than trying to coerce them to write positively about your brand.

Partner with popular blogs that are relevant to your brand. Relevance and context are the keys to working with bloggers. Behind every blogger there is a person, and each person is different. Some will work with marketers, and some won't. Some are personal, and some are professional.

Don't talk and then walk away. Your relationships with bloggers should be a long-term commitment used to listen to feedback to help improve marketing in other channels such as advertising, public relations, merchandizing, and CRM.

Moving to CRM 2.0

Many organizations these days are overwhelmed with this new phenomenon: The Social Media. The Social Media which I call as Web 2.0, includes fast-growing peer-to-peer (P2P) activities like blogging, RSS, file sharing, open source software, podcasting, search engines, and user-generated content.Out of the total 50 Million Online user base — 82% of users come from the Urban Cities and out of those 81% now read blogs at least monthly, and 73% are members of a social networking site like Orkut, Facebook or LinkedIn. (Reference)

Even more amazingly, almost one-third of all youth publish a blog at least weekly, and 41% of youth visit a social networking site daily. These new technology and social changes are transforming the way all businesses operate, create products, and relate to customers.

Web 2.0 changes the game for your CRM strategy too — big time! CRM strategies are moving beyond their traditional goal of optimizing a two-way relationship between an enterprise and customer to include the simultaneous relationships that customers have among themselves. Including social networks changes the definition of CRM from the stale exchange of data to a live, vibrant network of connected individuals who share their abilities, expertise, and interests.

So, in this new world Web 2.0 your company will be able to:

Collaborate with Customers and Partners in new ways

This will result in genuine business relationships form, and the external perception of an organization changes from sterile and faceless to a collection of individuals who are ready to help

Collaborate within the enterprise to deliver more value

Online networks with even basic profiles of its individual members' experiences, locations, and interests can cut problem-solving time by enabling faster connection between a questioner and a person who has solved similar problems in the past. An internal social networking capability can also help the individuals responsible for creating relationships with customers to pull together the "right" team of individuals who will resonate with the prospect at a personal level.

What I am now describing are the new methods or new CRM landscape which all the marketers should definitely learn to navigate with.

1. Power up market research with "listening" capabilities.

Traditional: Engaging with customers begins with understanding their needs and goals, behaviors, and their value to the enterprise. This activity has traditionally been the domain of market research.

CRM 2.0: But if you redefine the role of market research to include the capabilities for actively "listening" in the Social Computing context, then you should establish customer sounding boards for researching decisions. You can monitor market buzz and measure ongoing trends and customer perceptions using solutions from BuzzMetrics and Cymfony (a division of TNS Media Intelligence).

2. Make marketing more relevant with "talking" capabilities.

Traditional: The traditional role of marketing is to support outbound communication to prospects and customers to raise awareness for products and services and establish favorable attitudes towards your brand.

CRM 2.0: However, marketing in the world of CRM 2.0 must establish a dialogue between sellers and buyers. This means developing capabilities to have conversations with your customers. Use interactive dialogue and help your brand fans spread your message more easily through social networks like Twitter and Facebook. Establish the ability to communicate continually with customers and monitor responses using blogs.

3. Boost selling with "energizing" capabilities.

Traditional: Old-school CRM thinking defines the role of sales primarily as carrying out the tasks of identifying decision-makers, making contact, and securing orders.

CRM 2.0: Next-generation CRM thinking consider the use of customer opinions to increase sales through ratings and reviews using discussion forums. Learn how to designate lead customers to energize others through brand ambassador programs. Link with and gain introductions to influential customer network members by using business-oriented social networking and contact management solutions like Linkedin and Plaxo.

4. Strengthen service with "supporting" capabilities.

Traditional: In conventional world we support users by addressing there problems and issues through different mediums like Telecon or Videoconferencing and remote access. Sometimes our support people need to personally visit the customers to resolve there issues.

CRM 2.0: In the new world of the social and connected customer, help customers to support each other. To enable customers to solve each others' problems, consider solutions that support customer forums. To enable customers to build solutions together, think about using Wikis like Confluence, Socialtext, and Wikia.

Customers who are using social technologies to seek better experiences threaten to make traditional approaches to CRM obsolete. For the most part, enterprises understand that there's no choice but to jump in and improve how they architect a differentiated customer experience and use some of the new technologies — blogs, communities, wikis, widgets, social networks, and the concepts of dynamic applications — to their own advantage. The most important question is not what technology to use; most important is determining who you're trying to reach, what you're trying to accomplish, and how you plan to change your relationships with your customers.

Hope you found my blog post useful. If you have any comments or queries do mention the same below and I would try to answer the same as soon as possible.

How to improve your B2B site experience

Tomorrow I need to go to a B2B client to present them a strategy for improving there B2B website. While doing a complete plan which includes Strategy, Web Designing, Content Strategy and Social Media I thought i'll update it in my blog as a summary of my whole analysis.

B2B site owners need a shift in mindset to turn their underperforming sites into business assets. To initiate these changes:

Start with a frank assessment of your current online and offline capabilities. To know which steps of site improvement will require the most work, start by looking at what you already have. Examine your service, communication, and product divisions and ask yourself, "How customer-centric are we? What are our strengths? What are our weaknesses?" Documenting these starting points will help you identify where you will need to seek outside help versus which aspects of Scenario Design, usability, and branding you can manage in-house.

Define clear business goals for the site. Web sites can contribute different kinds of value to your business. But if you don't know which goals are most important, you won't know how to prioritize one set of user goals over another. Set clear goals for the site — whether driving revenue, reducing service costs, or attracting new customers. If different business goals apply to drastically different user groups, ask yourself whether they can be served on the same site or if a separate site or sitelet is warranted.

Test your site against real user goals. To ensure that you have all of the right tools users need to accomplish their goals, break user tasks into their component pieces and underlying motivations. Then, conduct an expert review. Site owners should review their sites on a regular basis to ensure that task paths remain clear of clutter.

Set a strategic development plan. Sites won't go from mediocre to great in one fell swoop — nor will your site stop needing care and feeding over time. To ensure that site development projects continue to advance, be sure your plan includes milestones and measurement metrics. Metrics should cover both user goals like task completion and satisfaction feedback, as well as business goals like conversion rates, revenue increases, and service cost reductions.

Online Display Advertising: Cost Based Models

Whenever I am having a meeting with the clients and present a media plan based on impression / conversion they often wonder what I mean by CPM. Clients also ask me that they have heard a lot on being Online Medium as totally measurable and ROI driven but wonder how do we really make that happen. They sometimes are so ignorant that they even ask me to suggest what will work best with different models that are available. To answer all those queries I thought of mentioning it in my blog and refer them to the same in case they ask me on this sometime again.

Evaluating display ad campaigns on a cost basis allows marketers to track the efficiency of the channel and begin some simple comparisons, such as comparing banner ads and search on their "cost per click" (CPC) or even television and banners on "cost per unique viewer."

CPM (cost per thousand impressions) has been popular since the start of online advertising. CPM remains one of the most popular cost metrics used, though these days it's rarely the only metric employed for a campaign. It allows simple comparisons between campaigns and future opportunities (many publishers use this on their public rate cards).For example, even if marketers pay for a campaign on a cost-per-click basis, they can get reporting on total impressions and simply divide their total spend by impressions and multiply by 1,000, thereby generating a similar metric across differing campaigns. Nonmarketers such as CEOs or CTOs can often more easily relate to this type of measure than to online-specific metrics, such as time spent interacting with an ad, that are less directly related to costs.

CPC is a very popular metric for marketers trying to drive direct action from an advert. More than 65% of database marketers in a recent survey say they use response rates as a key metric. However, it can also lead to advertisers paying for many clicks that are not from the target audience, such as clicks by mistake or invalid clicks from Web crawlers, and even expose them to click fraud. As a marketer, using your own ad serving tool for measuring clicks (and visitors) can help establish a standard measure, rather than trying to compare metrics from a variety of tools for each campaign.

CPV (cost per visitor) gives insight to Web site owners. CPV is where advertisers pay publishers based on how many viewers of display ads then actually visit the advertiser's Web site. These metrics are most useful for advertisers aiming at driving further interaction from consumers, rather than general brand awareness or attitude, and of course take no account of what the visitors do when they get to the Web site; they could, for example, leave immediately once they arrive on the landing page.

Some marketers now impose stricter rules on what counts as a "visit" (which is sometimes still called a "click"), such as "visitors spend at least 3 seconds on the landing page," to get over some of these problems.

CPA (cost per acquisition/conversion) gives a metric comparable across channels. CPA metrics allow marketers to measure success based on customers acquired through a campaign. Of course, "acquired" may have different meanings for different marketers: For a retailer it may simply mean a site visitor or someone who puts goods in the shop's online basket or perhaps only those who actually buy.

For brand marketers, it may be measuring those who click through to a certain area on a Web site, those who sign up for an email newsletter, or those who take some other type of direct response activity via the ad landing page like asking for more information on debt management, for example. Google has heavily promoted this as a metric, with CPA management tools included in its AdWords product and within the affiliate network (previously known as DoubleClick Performics Affiliate). Introducing some type of "quality" measurement within the definition of acquisition — so, for example, only counting those email subscribers who remain subscribers for three months — helps marketers assess success on a more valuable scale than simply volume.

CPE (cost per engagement) is emerging as a metric. CPE is a newer ad model whereby advertising is offered free, with advertisers paying only when viewers actually engage with the ad itself (thus differing from CPA, which looks at consumer activity post exposure). "Engagement" can be defined in a number of ways, such as completing a survey within the ad, entering a competition, or watching a certain amount of video. Online video ad providers pioneered this payment system in 2008.

This method is seen to push back more responsibility for ad performance onto the ad creative than other methods such as CPC, which were thought to place the bulk of the burden of performance onto the publisher. It is also a way of measuring interaction with newer types of creative — such as video ads or ads with product comparison tools within them — that may drive significant interaction but not actually click-throughs. However, as "engagement" means something different for every marketer, such metrics are not comparable across campaigns even for the same marketer, limiting their value.

Keep the Social Momentum Going

Brand building is easier when your brand has fans; connecting with your company excites them. But their enthusiasm will eventually die down if you don't respond to their expectations. Here's how to keep fans' enthusiasm alive long term:

Talk about your customers' problems. Initially, your fans may wait patiently for that next product feature or color announcement. But eventually, talking about your product — no matter what you say — will start to bore consumers. Marketers need to address their fans' problems to create the long-term value customers grow passionate about over time. Just like more boring brands, brands with lots of fans need to find out what's important to their customers and then provide a brand-sponsored solution that caters to their needs.

Turn your branding applications into media assets. Once you've connected with brand enthusiasts, your Facebook pages, communities, blogs, or videos may become attractive to compatible brands from other companies — or other divisions within your own company — that share a common audience. Procter & Gamble, which started Beinggirl.com to promote feminine care products, now helps adolescents learn about other company products like Herbal Essences shampoo on the site.

Be ready for real-time social interaction. Just developing social applications won't maximize brand enthusiasm and engagement. Better to participate actively in anything you create, since your fans will value your company's presence. Twitter is ideal for providing instant thrills to brand fans. For example, Kingfisher lets followers engage in the quiz around IPL to keep the buzz alive around the brand.

Take the brand momentum fans create offline. Marketers need a way to keep brand enthusiasm going — both online and offline. This can be as simple as giving them coupons to share with friends or hosting an event that lets them interact with your new products.

Hire vendors and agencies that have worked with all-star brands. If you're ready to develop a social application, you need to understand how online fans behave. Choose technology vendors and agencies that have experience with brands as popular as yours. Partners like OgilvyOne can develop a long-term social asset your enthusiasts will continually interact with.

Using Social Applications In Ad Campaigns

After working in an advertising agency I have realized that the majority of marketing budgets go to advertising, and there is a significant opportunity to enhance it with social tools. But social media marketing typically generates longer-term relationships, which means that it is out of sync with the quick-hit nature of most advertising.

To enhance an ad campaign with social elements, interactive marketers should know their audience’s behavior, commit to the communities for the long term, plan for transitions or community exits, and develop new campaign metrics.

What I really feel is that Social Applications enhance traditional advertising and that is what I am going to talk in the first part of my topic.

Advertising is by far the largest part of marketing budgets, but it’s typically a time-limited spend with a specific objective, like increasing awareness. Social media, by contrast, gets less than 1/4th from the average marketer but builds brand advocates and word of mouth over the long term.


So should you use social applications in ad campaigns? Yes, but it takes skill to adapt this longer-term strategy to the quicker pace of ad creative and placement. Accounting for these differences, you can use social marketing in five different ways to enhance your ad campaigns:

1. Use communities to launch and extend campaigns.

If you’ve already built a community of brand evangelists, use them to help disseminate the message. For instance, when Vodafone recently launched its new Vodafone Zoo Zoo campaign, the company got more than 3 Lakh (0.3 Million) Facebook fans. These Facebook brand evangelists got all the new services ad as tag it “I like this,” leave a comment, or share with a friend.

2. Use campaigns to begin building your long-term channels.

Lenovo, working with the agency OgilvyOne, allocated a portion of its marketing budget for the High Security Laptops to bring its “Face Recognition Feature” campaign to the social media world. Marketers developed programs within MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter to help support people during the product launch. While these programs were created for short-term use, Lenovo continues to use them as long-term platforms to provide product for their followers.

3. Build communities around existing events — or create new ones.

Use social communities to build excitement around events that are relevant to your brand. For example, PepsiCo used major events such as the inauguration of US President Barack Obama and the Super Bowl to support its “Refresh Everything” campaign.

In December 2008, Pepsi created a YouTube channel asking people to submit April 29, 2009 a video message to President Obama, and these videos received more than 200,000 views. Pepsi also created a Facebook application, a Tumblr site, and a mobile site.

Or you can create your own events, as Tata Tea did with "Jaagore" campaign where it asked people to register and become part of the voting community and get more involved in asking people to come out and exercise there voting rights.

4. Enhance display media with social tools.

There are options to make your display mediasocial. PopularMedia’s “Influencer Ads” entice users to get friends to join them in contests or other marketing programs by incorporating the advertising content into the user’s blog, social network, Web site, or email.

Coca-Cola recently used SocialMedia.com’s WOMI product, which features a “social advertising engine” that identifies the influential friends within a social graph to generate positive word of mouth for brands or products. Result: a 33% increase in purchase intent for Coca-Cola’s cherry Coke brand in one week.

Other tools such as Facebook’s engagement ads, Media6Degrees’ behavioral targeting, Spongecell’s social calendar tools, and SocialVibe’s cause-related applications offer marketers ways to enhance their paid media campaigns.


5. Integrate your brand in external communities.

MySpace is beginning to integrate branded content into its social ecosystem. Sunkist, for example, is the exclusive sponsor of “The List” on MySpace, which is a music franchise that highlights new or popular music and hosts concerts in four different geographies. Sunkist has an online presence within this online community and sponsors exclusive content for the events. While similar to traditional sponsorships, these types of programs allow brands to integrate original content into the social world.

Why should brands in Asia care for Social Media?

There are 4 key reasons:

1. Social Media is big in Asia.

Brands cannot underestimate the size of social media in Asia. Over 450 million consumers are engaging with social media, some of whom are as dependent on it as their Western counterparts, if not more. When social media eventually goes mobile, the numbers reach over a billion, and this scale is something that brands cannot ignore.

2. Consumer opinion counts more than ever.

Consumers in Asia are talking about your brands whether you like it or not, and that opinion has a huge impact on their views of a brand and consideration to purchase. 7 of the top 10 markets that rely most on ‘recommendations from consumers’ hail from the Asia region. The internet is a platform that people listen to and learn about your brand. If you’re not participating in the discussion or feeding into it, you are likely to lose.

3. Consumers are highly connected and harder to reach then before.

The diversity of Asia needs no reminder, and this further accentuates the need to understand commonalities and differences in media repertoire as well as consumer motivations. Marketers are losing the ability to reach consumers in the way they used to as social media starts to displace aspects of traditional brand advertising. Building a corporate website and driving traffic is simply not enough, and calls for brands to re-evaluate the way they reach their audiences. Brands that understand social media by creating a web of activity that can influence and surround the target audience are most likely to be effective.

4. The Y-Generation live their lives in social media and if you’re not talking to them, someone else will.

Social media creates a huge opportunity for brand marketers where they can connect with their target audience like never before. Though the importance of this media may be in its infancy with some of the older demographic segments, there is no disputing that for the Y-Generation and future generations, social media is part and parcel of their daily lives. Brands that fail to appreciate this opportunity will risk losing an entire base of consumers in the future making social media not just a growth strategy but a defensive one too.

"Right now, the largest single group of users on the Internet today is in Asia. Half a billion Asian users. And that’s only 14% penetration. So when they get to 70% penetration which is where we are in the US and some parts of Europe, we’re talking about a couple of billion people. That’s a very, very big customer base. It’s a very diverse customer base but the internet can reach all of them once we get to that penetration level. So this is a really exciting place to be."
Vinton Cerf Vice President & Chief Internet Evangelist,
Google Inc.

"You should try to embrace as many different forms of media as possible because different audiences are in different places. But you will see an increasing amount of, especially the younger generation that’s going to hang out online and be comfortable in communities and social media. And if you don’t market to them, or if you don’t have dialogues with them (not even market to them.) ... then you’re going to lose an entire customer base."
Lee Kin Mun Founder & Blogger,
Mrbrown.com

The Digital Train is leaving - Time to get Onboard

These days marketers must find ways to make the marketing mix produce sales-ready results as the economic slowdown persists through 2009. As they scale back on high-priced tactics like trade shows, direct mail, and print, marketers will have no choice but to embrace digital channels to close the demand generation gap. Luckily, I have heard the interactive whistle blowing, as most now put online channels at the top of their list for this year. Making the digital transformation stick this time means that:

Web sites must cut sales interaction costs. Compared with online interactions, person-to-person sales calls and meetings cost much more to execute. Marketers welcome Web leverage, as I believe that corporate sites will become more important in their marketing mix. With telesales and executive events producing less traction with buyers, Web sites become the main source of online information in the product selection, purchase, and implementation process. To capitalize on this trend, marketers must upgrade online experiences and shift from an inside-out perspective that talks incessantly about features and functions to an outside-in one that focuses on helping prospects and customers accomplish buying and adoption goals.

Digital channels must stretch the B2B marketing mix. In flush economic times, marketers abandon online channels that don't create immediate results and return to what's comfortable — trade shows, PR, and print. Tight budgets require stretching dollars further as marketers use email, Web-based events, online demos, and blogs to replace conventional tactics and create more engaging buyer experiences. Of the all digital tactics that figure more prominently in the 2009 marketing mix, 11 are digital approaches that create more targetable, measurable, and engaging interactions.

Web 2.0 tools must move from experimental to routine. Emerging Web 2.0 tools like microblogs, virtual trade shows, and wikis — as well as long-established tactics like print ads, trade shows, and industry analyst firms — won't figure prominently in the marketing mix this year. Watch virtual trade shows in this space because business buyers — facing cuts in corporate travel — listed these online environments second to support forums as key sources of information they will tap in the coming months to inform purchase decisions.

Use Online Data to Inform Multiple Campaigns

For many businesses, a great number of conversions happen in the real world, not online. Use what you learn online through your marketing and post-Web analytics strategy to inform offline campaigns.

What works well in e-mail might also work with direct mail. Successful online video spots can be expanded into television ads. Do you get a lot of clicks on a particular banner ad? That eye-catching ad might make a good billboard or print advertisement.

Search is one of the most measureable marketing channels available, giving you invaluable insight into your customers’ wants and needs. However, the sheer amount of data you can capture from search campaigns can sometimes be a pitfall for marketers who are overwhelmed by information overload. This is where goal-setting is so vital to the success of search analytics.

Paid search is perhaps the best online source to shape offline campaigns because it can help uncover the keywords and benefits that resonate most strongly with your target audiences. But it doesn’t stop there. By keeping an eye on the origin of your clicks, you can even discover new audiences and sources for leads. Your ads might be getting clicks from a corner of the Web you never considered a part of your target audience.

By exploring these sources you can then dig deeper and find the portals where that particular audience spends their time on the Web, even offline, thereby opening new channels of exposure for your brand.

One of the biggest advantages of today’s online tools is the power to integrate multiple layers of data. By taking advantage of these systems you will find not only the channels that offer the best return on investment for your business, but entirely new areas of expansion and profit.

SEO Steps on Link Building

Most of the times when I talk to the client on doing SEM, I give them three main SEM options on which we can work to improve the rankings as well as drive more traffic. The 1st option is SEO (Search Engine Optimization), 2nd option is Paid Search (PPC) and 3rd option is LINK BUILDING. When we go into the detail and start explaining this to the client, most of the times the toughest to explain is Link Building.

Much has changed in the world of link building. Older strategies like directory submissions, pressreleases, and of course buying text links are no longer as effective as they once were. What hasn’t changed is that a successful link-building campaign is the key to a winning search engine optimization strategy. Let’s review a six-step plan to start a successful link-building campaign for new websites.

1. Invest In General Directories:

Submitting a site to a directory nets a website its first “authority” links. It is also the fastest way for search engines to find and index pages. Submit to the following directories in order of importance: DMOZ, free; Yahoo Directory, $299 annually;Best of the Web, $99.95 annually; Business.com, $299 annually; GoGuides, $69.95; and JoeAnt, $39.99.When submitting to directories always get listed in more than one category and don’t forget about regional categories. Not sure if this investment is worth it? Check the search engine results pages (SERPs) for keywords and see if competitor pages have links from these directories. If they do, make the investment.And if they don’t, this may be what pushes a site ahead of its competition in search results.

2. Submit to Niche Directories:

Submitting a site to directories that focus on a specific industry can provide more value than general directory submissions. Most niche directories are typically more flexible (allowing anchor text to be used), are more topically relevant and often authoritative. You will get valuable links from sources that are sometimes overlooked by your competitors.

3. Create Social Media Profiles:

It’s absolutely essential to build a profile on social media sites for your company name, brand and as an individual. This will allow you to promote content to a large audience which can lead to many incoming links. While most social media sites do not pass on Google PageRank, some do. Even if you don’t have the time to build out these social profiles, at least reserve your name(s). Don’t forget sites like Meetup.com, for example, which passes on Google PageRank and links to your site with the anchor text of your choice.

4. SERP Link Building:


This stage of link building takes time and patience. Do a Google search for your top keywords and see what websites are ranking in the top 50 or 100 positions. These are all potential link targets. Start with the top results and move down the list, because these links tend to have the highest Google PageRank. To get them to link to you, see if the website has a “Links” or “Resources” section and request a link. Also consider expanding to noncompeting but related sites to request links from their pages that complement your content. Offer to guest
blog or contribute an article and you’ll build a longterm link partner.

5. Create a Blog:

Create a blog and after it is up and running with a few actual posts, submit it to the top blog directories (search ‘blog directories’ at WebsiteMagazine.com for a few resources). If you don’t link to your own domain or subdomains within posts, the incoming links won’t count and the effort will be wasted. If you don’t have time to write content for your blog, consider hiring freelance writers to write for you. Promote your blog posts within your social media profiles and watch the links increase over time.

6. Write Articles Targeting Social Media:

This takes the most creativity and hard work but is certainly doable. In order to be successful, it helps to build up your social media profiles and have an active friend network. The key is to create content that appeals to a social media-centric audience. The result is many more links to your website. This is a trial and error process; don’t expect every article to be a huge success. Keep trying new articles topics and link baiting techniques. When one takes off, it will make up for the others that didn’t get much traction.

The key to the six-step plan is systematically repeating the process. If you can manage to master any one of these forms of link building, you’ll be well on your way to the top of the SERPs.

Happy SEOing!

Important steps to succeed in Online Marketing

“I want to market my business on the Web, but how do I get traffic to my site?” one client asked recently. “And if I want to sell my product or service using e-mail marketing, who do I send the e-mails to?”

Here is one online marketing methodology that has been proven effective for many different types of businesses.

The primary concept is that online marketing works best when you e-mail to people who already know you.

Therefore, successful online marketers build their “house file” or “e-list” (lists of prospects and their e-mail addresses) using the process outlined below, and then sell to those people via e-mail marketing:

1. Build a Web site that positions you as an expert or guru in your field (see steps 2 and 3 below). This is the “base of operations” for your online marketing campaign.
   
   
2. This Web site should include a home page, an “About the Company” page, your bio, and a page with brief descriptions of your products and services (each product or service description can link to a longer document on the individual item).
   
   
3. You should also have an “Articles Page” where you post articles you have written on your area of specialty, and where visitors can read and download these articles for free.
   
   
4. Write a short special report or white paper on your area of expertise, and make this available to people who visit your site. They can download it for free as a PDF, but in exchange, they have to register and give you their e-mail address (and any other information you want to capture).
   
   
5. Consider also offering a monthly online newsletter, or “e-zine.” People who visit your site can subscribe free if they register and give you their e-mail address. You may want to give the visitor the option of checking a box that reads: “I give you and other companies you select permission to send me e-mail about products, services, news, and offers that may be of interest to me.”
   
   
6. The more “content” (useful information) on your site, the better. More people will be attracted to your site, and they will spend more time on it. They will also tell others about your site. You can even add a feature that allows your visitors to e-mail your articles to their friends — a good idea since it spreads the word about you and your site.
   
   
7. The model is to drive traffic to your site where you get them to sign up for either your free report or free e-zine. Once they register, you have their e-mail address and can now market to them via e-mail as often as you like at no extra cost.
   
   
8. The bulk of your online leads, sales, and profits will come from repeat e-mail marketing to this “house” e-list of prospects. Therefore your goal is to build a large e-list of qualified prospects as quickly and inexpensively as you can.
   
   
9. There are a number of online marketing options, which can drive traffic to your site. These include: free publicity; e-mail marketing; banner advertising; co-registrations; affiliate marketing; search engine optimization; direct mail; and e-zine advertising. (I will cover all of these topics in upcoming columns.)
   
   
10. The key to success is to try a lot of different tactics in small and inexpensive tests, throw out the ones that don’t work, and do more of the ones that are effective.
    

Another question that comes up is frequency: How often can you send promotional e-mail offers to your house e-list?

Every time you send an e-mail to your house file, a small percentage of the list will “unsubscribe,” meaning they ask to be taken off your list. The number of people who unsubscribe is called the “opt-out rate.”

Start increasing the frequency of promotional e-mail to your house file. As soon as the opt-out rate spikes upward, stop. You have now reached your maximum frequency.

Many marketers have discovered that the frequency of e-mail promotion to the house file can be much higher than previously thought. Some are successfully e-mailing different offers to their house e-list as often as two times a day or even more.

This is good news for marketers, since the more frequently you can e-mail offers to your list, the more money you can make.

How to approach Social Media Marketing

I've been creating and executing social media marketing strategies for the past one year for clients. The crowds are interesting - in the days when monies being cut to save jobs - is growing from all sorts of organizations. I hear some very common questions from a wide groups of interested parties, and would like to clarify how to approach social media.

We need to start by recognizing that social media marketing is not free.

BusinessWeek, in their excellent February article called Debunking Six Social Media Myths, exposed this brilliantly as Myth #1, and stated that $50,000 is a beginning point for a two- to three-month social media campaign. In my experience, I believe that's about right. In spite of the free tools out there, every brand needs a strategic approach to social media in order to gain any traction.

In my experience, a strategic approach to social media success takes five phases:

Phase 1 - Discovery

In this phase, we explore three variables:

1. People: Who are your prospects and customers, and how do they feel about your brand, service and products? Are they talking about you online? If so, what is your online reputation? (Positive, negative, neutral?)
2. Competition: What are your competitors doing online? Where can we leapfrog them? What is their online reputation?
3. Spiders: How easy is it for you to be found by an average searcher who may be searching for your products online? (Keywords, site optimization, Search Engine Optimization [SEO], etc. come into play here.)

Phase 2 - Strategy

In this phase, we explore the opportunities and establish the objectives of a social media plan - based on the lessons we've learned in the Discovery phase. Questions include:

• What do you want your prospects and customers to think of you, and how do you want them to experience you, once you've begun your dialogue?
• How is this different from their current perception?
• How might we further pay off your brand promise, and distinguish your customer experience from competitors?
• and many more

This Phase is usually highly collaborative; and involves key players from around an organization, not just the marketing folks.

Phase 3 - Skills

Once we have developed a Strategy, we?ll review an organization's internal resources to identify gaps. Whose skills need building? How might we best train participants? And to what extent would it be wise to train the employee base about what to expect?

(Hint: I always recommend getting everyone up to speed on any social media program - when I was at ISHIR, GSK out to be one of the most valuable things we did in support of, and preparation for, one of the most interesting, Digital Marketing I've ever managed.)

In my experience, getting your employees up to speed on social media marketing usually requires a couple of training sessions held on-site. These are generally in-depth training sessions tailored to select audiences in the company ? e.g. your marketing and PR teams, your customer service folks, your executives and the entire organization.

Phase 4 - Execution

As we prepare to implement our strategy, we determine which tools to use, how they interface with your existing infrastructure, and ensure the processes and platforms are properly tied together. We explore the following:

• Are your systems all operating together as desired?
• Is there a crisis communications plan in place? Do participants know what it is?
• Are your company policies updated for blogging, texting and IM and other social media tools?
• Are your employees aware of your policies? If not, do we need to train them?
• Will your CRM system interface with your social media tools? How will you move people into your sales process? etc.

Phase 5 - Maintenance

After the launch, Maintenance becomes key. In this phase, I make myself available for whatever comes up; checking in weekly with the team, make suggestions on content, make reminders for activities, and generally ensure the organization is thriving online.

Any experienced social media expert will have a stepped approach and methodology to launching an organization safely into the social realm.