WebSite Marketing Strategy

I have been invited to moderate a panel on social media next week in Chicago.  The panelists include marketing and sales professionals from Myspace, Bebo, Facebook and CafeMom.    I am super excited to attend the event and meet some of the panelists, especially since Andew Shue (co-founder of CafeMom) will be sitting on the panel. In case you don’t know, Andrew is a pretty awesome actor and was “Billy” on Melrose Place.  He is also the brother of Elizabeth Shue, an actress who gained her popularity playing Daniel’s girlfriend in the Karate Kid (and yes, like most boys my age … I did have a crush on her).

The goal of the panel is to provide brand and advertising professionals with a unique perspective on social media.  Here are some of the questions I plan on asking the panel:

1. What is your unique value proposition as it relates to social media and advertising?
2. Can you give us any specific examples of how companies have used your site in previous marketing campaigns?
3. How did you/they measure the success of such campaign(s)?
4. How can success be measured in social media (be specific)?
5. Is it possible to measure a conversation?
6. What are the benefits of using social media as part of a broader marketing campaign?
7. Can social media be used as a “real time” focus group?
8. What are the challenges and risks of social media (not being specific to any companies)?
9. What does your company do to protect an advertiser?
   Is there a lack of control for brands who participate in social media? If so, what is your best advice to deal with this?
10. There is a lot of talk in the industry about the concept of community.  What is your opinion of the term “community” and is it just a fad?
11. What is the future of social networking?

 Is there anything else that you recommend that I ask the panel? I would appreciate your feedback.

The other day, I was involved in a rather heated, yet enlightening discussion with a dude who really hates marketing; and I don’t blame him. Here is an excerpt of one of his comments:

Yes, consumers want to be heard. They also want the option to NOT be annoyed by marketing. They want the option of not having to put up with marketers exploiting a medium meant for communication and turning it into one more TV commercial. Consumers should not have to spend time and effort to block marketers. Consumers do want a choice - given their druthers, most would choose to have no marketing at all.

He was responding to a comment I made about consumers demanding to be heard online; and even as a marketer, I unequivocally agree with his assessment. In later comments, he said that he was tired of marketers like me just “talking about having conversations with consumers” and that there is way too much “talking about talking” and very little two-way communication. I agree.

A lot of marketers, including myself, talk the talk and rarely walk the walk. I often write about the need for marketers and brands to engage in “real” conversations with “real people” i.e. their customers; and I am sitting back asking myself … what in the heck I am doing to talk to my customers?

It’s one thing to write about conversational marketing (and I know that some of you hate that term); but it’s another thing to actually do it. And, I agree that many marketers still don’t “get it”; and either don’t use social media as a conversational channel or use it to spam the heck out of everyone. But there are some companies that realize the true value of conversations (Intel, Lego, Starbucks, Dell) and they are doing a really good job at it. Why? Well, that leads me to my next point.

Are conversations really the holy grail of social media?

I think I may have been wrong with this one. Anyone can have conversations. Go to a used car lot and you will be bombarded with them the moment you step on the lot.

Maybe it’s the content of the conversation that is the core. Perhaps it needs to be presented with a “real voice” and relevant to the other person. Isn’t that the true nature of human interaction?

Real voice, relevance = valuable conversations = trust = the beginning of a “real” relationship

Reflecting on my own personal experience … when my wife and I first met, our initial conversations didn’t revolve around sports, video games or politics. We talked in depth about our past experiences, lifetime goals and achievements; and relationship expectations. These topics were important and relevant to both of us; especially since we were getting to know each other. And, as the relationship blossomed and now that we are married, we talk about anything and everything. And, our conversations are still relevant because of that relationship; even though my wife doesn’t really like sports, video games and politics.

The point is that marketers need to take off their marketing hats for a second; and presents themselves as real people with real emotions and real perspectives. This level of authenticity will not only help make their jobs easier, but it will also help consumers relate to them more effectively.

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Tags: social media, conversational marketing

Timing is everything, at least that is what I have been told. It seems to be true then it comes to social bookmarking as well.

Do you know where your ‘friends’ on any of the social bookmarking sites. For many sites such as Digg, they say you have 24 hours for your post to get noticed, after that forget it. For Digg, it can often be as short as 12 hours.

If your in the UK and many of your followers are in the US, when would be the most appropriate time to submit your post. Social bookmarking can be tricky. You can submit a post and get zero response one day and then next day get a flood for a different post.

Timing can be important, both in what time you submit and on which day. Some days do seem to perform better than others depending on the genre and your target audience. It is only by trial and error that you can determine the times and days that produce the best results for your genre.

As a general rule, social bookmarking across the board is more active between 10am and 3pm US Eastern Time and between 8pm and 11pm. Weekdays appear to be active than weekends. Different genres will produce different active periods and it seems that weekends are more likely to see page one activity for topics that generally don’t get a look in during week days.

There is no hard and fast rule for submitting to social bookmarking sites, however, if you can find an ideal time then make the most of it.

Blog content is becoming more important as time goes by. Internet users are now either looking for answers or looking for entertainment. If you can provide either one or both then you will gain a strong following of loyal readers. Of course, you need to attract those readers in the first place and the best way to do this is with a great title. In fact, see if can turn your title into a great headline.

Titles need to be written so in such a way that they catch a prospective readers attention and then brings them onto your website to read your blog content. Titles can be witty, or in the traditional ‘how to’ or numbered as in 7 Great Ways to…..Look at some of these titles and tell me if you would follow them up:

Facebook Gets A New Face Lift

Google Gets The Giggles

Microsoft Gets Harder

Yahoo! Says BooHoo

What about our parent site, Brick Marketing.

Brick Marketing Turns To Stone

These are more headline type titles but they can be very effective in drawing in new readers. If you follow the headlines with some great blog content then your readers are going to want to come back for more.

What about keywords, I hear you say. It is still possible to include keywords in your headlines, it just takes some clever word use. Often, the company or business name is included in your list of keywords anyway. The headlines from above could have keywords placed either side of them. For example if search engines is one of your keywords:

Search Engines: Google Gets The Giggles

The headline still works - perhaps better as it now has a category in the title. Blog content is important. Your title sells the content. If you think back to newspapers, headlines, particularly sensational, sold newspapers. Your headline needs to sell your blog. Your blog content seals the sale.

Two old saying contradict each other - First impressions count and Never judge a book by its cover. When it comes to blog design, your landing page is not just the cover, it essentially a snapshot of the whole blog so First Impressions Will Count. Avoid these six blog design mistakes and you may keep your visitor long enough for them to read the content.

Avoid the overuse of Flash: in fact, if possible don’t use it at all. Flash graphics can look great in a blog design but they can also be turnoffs as well. If you need to use flash graphics, place them below the fold so the visitor at least gets a feel for your blog before the flash scares them away.

Avoid auto play video and audio files. These slow down the load speed of your blog and can often be a huge turn off for your visitors. Give them the option of playing the file if they wish.

Avoid placing badges and banners everywhere. A nice clean look to a blog is the ultimate aim. You can still have banners and badges, the key is to balance how many and where they are place. Having too many can be counter productive as the visitor can be confused as to which button the need to press when the time arises.

Avoid fancy fonts and/or fonts that are too big or too small. This is a simple equation. If I cannot read your site, I am gone. Be sensible with font colors and sizes.

Avoid the use of ‘click here’ links. When providing a link, use anchor text that makes sense to the user. you should also avoid simple home page links. If you are discussing someone else’s article, link using good keywords and using the articles URL.

Finally, tell me where I am! I don’t know how many times I have clicked on a couple of links only to find the page I have landed on has no indication as to who they are.

If you can avoid those six blog design mistakes you may find your traffic staying a little longer and your conversions, if you have them, increasing. Your blog design is selling you and your brand.

Feedburner is about to lose its identity, or at least, its look and feel as it migrates across to a typical Google look and feel including using your Google details to log in.

According to the Feedburner blog, you wont see many changes to start with but you will be managing your feeds through your Google account (if you have one). The blog also reports:

Following on the footsteps of this account migration, FeedBurner will start to look and feel more like a set of Google services, and we will be completing much tighter integration into other Google services such as Google AdSense.

Slowly and surely the internet is getting smaller. It wont be long and you will be able to log into Google; manage your Feedburner feeds, slide across to several different social sites before returning to your home page to check your gMail.

At least your Feedburner feeds wont change - although then again, reading more on their blog:

If you are a feed advertiser, don’t worry: we have some happy surprises coming for you as well, and if you are an advertiser who is not yet a feed advertiser, you too shall be blessed with good fortune.

Sounds a little confusing, particularly the last phrase. That is Feedburner and Google for you. So long as everything passes seamlessly everyone will be happy. From past web experiences, I doubt the seamless part. Happy feed burning.

I came across this excellent resource (thanks Beth) this morning on several methodologies to measure social media.

Rachel Happe, who blogs over at the Social Organization put together this quite awesome list of metrics used to measure social media in the enterprise. This list goes beyond the common metrics used to measure the effectiveness (or not) of marketing activities. One metric that is not on the list – and I think we all struggle with this - is the ability to measure conversations. I mean, really, how do you attach a metric to a two-way dialogue? There are some really cool tools available that monitor conversations and brand mentions online though. Some even use algorithms that rate these conversations based on where they are taking place. Expensive but might be worth the investment.

Tags: measuring social media, social media metrics

Marketing used to be about getting your name out there, getting known and talked about. Guess What? Blog marketing is no different. What has changed is how you go about it.

Traditional marketing consultants often have difficulties when it comes to online marketing, particularly when it comes to blog marketing. In the past, marketing consultants would look around the local environment to determine how and where they could advertise their clients business.

Is the online world really that different? To be honest, no it probably isn’t. We still look around, find appropriate sites and try to get some form of advertising going. Those scenarios are advertising more than marketing. The old methods of marketing often involved seeking out publishers and trying to convince them to talk about your products or your brands. Radio was a very popular means of delivering these messages.

This is where the online world takes a major detour. Whilst the online world is quickly gathering its own version of ‘traditional media’, it is no longer a marketing experts job to talk people into discussing products or brands. Blog marketing now is about first, producing content that everyone finds useful.

From that point on, a blog marketing expert will ‘introduce’ the blog to the various social sites. The hope is that over a period of time of form of organic discussion takes place where the blog in question is referenced, hopefully as an authority on a particular subject.

If your blog is being talked about or if you are receiving visitors based on recommendations, you will know that your blog marketing strategies have been successful.

If you use WordPress and have a presence on Facebook then you may like this little blog plugin - Facebook Dashboard Widget - that enables you to stay in touch with your Facebook friends.

The blog plugin is quick and easy to install running under WordPress 2.5 and utilizing the dashboards widgets feature, will add an RSS feed for each of your friends.

….this plugin will process your Friends status updates RSS feed and/or your Facebook notifications feed, and add a widget for each to your WordPress admin dashboard. So now you can keep up with whats going on in your friends lives from anywhere without needing to access Facebook!

Now there is no reason not to stay in touch with your Facebook friends - at least not if you install this blog plugin.

Podcasts are very popular and can easily be added to your blog content with five simple steps. Since a podcast can be downloaded and listened to at any time, it makes sense to offer it as a subscription option as well.

Five Steps To Podcast Success

Plan your podcast: is it going to be a recording of your blog post or are you going to do special one of posts like problem solving or how to’s. Part of your planning is to script what you are going to record.

Record your podcast: recording is fairly simple and straightforward. There are many free and paid software packages available - it is simply a matter of following their instructions.

Upload to a server: upload to either your website server or to a podcast hosting service. If you plan on doing regular podcasts then using a podcasting host will be money well spent. Podcasts can put a drain on your bandwidth and storage space.

Create a podcast feed: create a podcast feed using either a dedicated service or Feedburner. If you use Feedburner for your RSS feeds then using them for your podcasts is quite sensible. They also provide reasonable tracking statistics as well.

Promote: that is it. Promote your podcast, on your site, through social media and in emails.

Podcasting is not difficult and can become a valuable addition to your blog content. The next step is to learn how to promote your own products within a podcast - thats for another post I think.