This post is based on a retweet from @eMarketer. The retweet is their Stat of the day: US social media users are 7.7% more likely than average adults to watch video/TV online. (Via RAMA)
This information also confirms that to market through social media, you can not simply ignore other video media. Some commercials, such as the Lebron/Kobe puppet commercials from Nike have found their way to YouTube. Clever subject matter and coordination of social media tools can help increase consumer awareness of a product and its features.
It is also possible with older media such as television. At times, your audience is online with a laptop while the TV is on. A potential customer can see an TV ad asking the viewer to come to a Facebook Fan Page or website, and go to it immediately on their laptop or even mobile device. The best marketing comes from the best coordinated effort.
The stream of social media tools seems never ending. Every day a new update or twist of usage comes along, to the point that it becomes difficult to know where to start. To that end, I am posting a presentation as a primer on using social media. It’s a great way to figure how to get the ball rolling.
This presentation was first shown at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis class in November 2009. My client was Eric Anderson, who was conducting a special class on communication. The presentation covers the following:
how social media formed with the internet
a chart of different kinds of social media
great starting place for building a blog or Twitter profile
analytics tools
Since the presentation there have been even newer developments. A follow up to this presentation is being planned shortly, including using rating and Q&A sites as well as new sources for blogs such as BizSugar, and the growing predominance of geolocation tools like Foursquare, so stay tuned for more ways to organize your engagement online!
The business of seeking answers online has become serious business with Google’s recent sneak-purchase of Aardvark, the online Q & A forum that matches members with the posted questions from asking members. If you have not used Aardvark before, I have included a short video explaining the basic features (with some comparing to another well known Q & A forum, Linked In Answers).
There have been two compelling posts on the deal — one from Fast Company and another set of great insights from BlackWeb20. The $50 million purchase, like many company acquisitions, is not an isolated decision. Google has made overtures to get beyond its search and, subsequently, advertising roots. It has a well known ability to add complimentary tools to its offerings — Google’s capacity to scale services is a reason why its stock price has skyrocketed through the years.
So with Google Buzz creating, well, buzz, and now Aardvark, Google has the capacity to reignite its offerings. Seeking answers online in Q & A forums is not new. I have participated in Linked In’s Q&A for years. Yahoo! Answers have been around even longer, as groups such as the Web Analytics Association have posted technical questions for years. AllBusiness.com offers a Q & A forum, and so does a myriad of other sites. Aardvark, though, combines search engine features by seeking members whose expertise or casual interest can best answer a topic. Members indicate their interest via pre-selected keywords added to their profile. The matching within Aardvark encourages timely answers, as close to real-time as possible.
Incorporating Buzz with Aardvark would remove the passive nature of Q & A forum — posting a question at one point in time, and then receiving an answer at some undetermined future point. The timeliness of the Q & A would be more relevant, giving Google a specific search advantage and a niche audience — people seeking solutions to various services. And that audience, with the right analytics perspective, can be narrowed further.
It’s also an business advantage, in some ways, through monitoring the frequency and quality of a product/service/company mentions. Frequently people ask and answer about the usage of products & services. Businesses should consider a representative search and see the responses to general questions (Participating may be possible, as long as there is no direct promotion). Aardvark works on being helpful without spam (This is also a feature of most Q & A forums). Participation can show their capacity for learning customer concerns and addressing them (The Kevin Smith-Southwest affair shows the textbook way to respond to a tough customer efficiently). The participation can help infer customer concerns about products and services.
For example, if there are a large number of queries on transmission repair, automakers can use the commentary to design an improved transmission and highlight the benefits as part of a new car introduction. The same quality of inference can be said for electronic products, home repair, purchases for pets, personal health care, and many other subjects. If Google wants to be really strategic, it should develop a mention measurement solution for small businesses in a manner similar to how keywords are examined — and infuse the solution metrics and data into Google Analytics. Now how sweet would that be?
Ok, I reached a bit on the last point. But the point remains — businesses could potentially have more information to review and act from the Google-Aardvark venture, if Google leverages its acquisition.
What do you think are the advantages of a Google-Aardvark combo (don’t go to Aardvark looking for an answer — no cheating! lol) ?
This is a retweet from avinashkaushik: The idea is a that averages mask the characteristic of your audience. Take a group of 5 people. You give everyone except the fifth person a Euro. Person number five receives 10 Euros. The average is 2.80 Euros. But that average is not the characteristic of the group — most have 1 Euro, and the fifth person’s amount distorts what each individual has.
This is the point behind the tweet, and the idea behind some of the data examined. Yes, there are average time on site, but for other qualities of a group, a mean and mode would give a more precise idea of the the group composition.
For more of this statistics in action, check out Avinash’s Tweet.
“Don’t be Mr Average. Why averages are a bad, bad thing in Digital Marketing.” http://zqi.me/aXWFHD Read. Learn. Live.
This post from the Microsoft Ad Center talks about four great starting points for low traffic — technical difficulties such as dead links, increasing the keyword coverage, improving the position of the ad, and the usage of broad match.
You can check out the retweet below for more information:
RT @adCentert: SEM Intermediate Series: Troubleshooting Low Traffic From Your Microsoft adCenter Campaigns http://bit.ly/c6M1so #PPC
Having trouble trying to communicate a data-interpreted decision with the executive team? Or maybe a small business client is really resistant to understanding the need for adding analytics to a website? Many professionals run into trouble managing the expectations of others. The difficulty can be a particular pain when the situation applies to a client, be it corporate or small. I call it “client funk”. The following are sources of quick tips that can help analytics practitioners minimize “client funk”.
Michael Bierut at Pentagram presented before 300 creative design students and graduates at Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn. The talk was sponsored by CreativeMornings, a designer forum based in New York City. His talk offered a balanced view of the client/designer relationship, stating the factors that make or break a designer’s success, as well as what makes a good (and bad) client. His intended audience are web designers, but the perspective is very sound for web analytics practitioners, and furthermore, any service providers who work intimately with a client.
For corporate environments, analytics practitioners must understand financial terms to convince managers and decision makers on analytics-related projects. To sway and convince project skeptics, three metrics must be kept in mind with every argument of a project’s merit:
1. The dollars needed for invest in the project
2. The revenue that can be generated
The third is a metric based on the prior two — return on investment (ROI).
You can also read Avinash Kaushik’s book Web Analytics 2.0. Much of his book addresses the challenges of working with various departments to create an analytics environment. For those with broader analytics application, there is another book, called Analytics at Work, by Tom Davenport and Jeanne Harris.
At the annual National Retailer Foundation expo in New York, large vendors offered model digital displays that provide more than store information. These displays offer users the ability to find retail inventory and departments quickly, with touch features similar to an iPhone (or iPad, if you will!). One display providing ability to add a selection to a mobile wallet — with a light touch of a semi-transparent display users can call the image of their selection, just like a selection on a webpage, and then move the image to a virtual wallet linked to a mobile phone. The consumer can then purchase the selection with a credit card.
And who are the leaders who displayed this technology? Adobe? Google?
Try Intel and Hewett Packard.
Yeah.
This development makes a lot of sense in some ways. HP makes plasma screen for home. The increased appearance of plasma screen in commercial environments gives a natural extension opportunity for HP.
Intel can be more of a mystery at first blush, its main product being processors. But Intel’s involvement in digital display shows an end use for Intel-powered mobile devices.
It also means:
Increased need to merge database information on offline retail products with online analytics data to give a full picture of how a business retailing is doing.
Analytic practitioners must be better aware of a business’ operation — more importance for consulting firms to have access to all sources to create solid analysis.
Increased opportunity for mobile purchases to become reality. These offering make credit card purchases on the spot possible.
Potential advantage for Omniture and other analytic tools in managing more real-time data. Increased grannuarity segmentation of data will be possible.
Increased importance of mobile web design & further refinement of app design, to ensure consumer convenience.
More competition for the management tools of data.
Most of all, this development will aid the main battlecry of many analytics practitioners, that analytics unlocks value for companies. Many professionals have become evangelists for analytics within their firms, explaining the importance of metrics to varied departments. The growth of display functionality can only strengthen the case that analytics is essential for consumer satisfaction and profitable operations.
Okay, you’ve probably overheard this talk at some cocktail party somewhere during 2009 — Is the new Star Trek movie as good as the past Star Trek movies? But you probably never heard a debate about whether Spock and Kirk are the best examples of how to approach analytics. You have? Well you’re well ahead of many folks, then.
Spock epitomizes a rational, logical character that constant tries to suppress human emotion, an archetype woven into many of the ST storylines. In the 2009 movie, the rational demeanor comes to a particular head as he and Kirk, a more impulsive character, butt heads. Both men come to a point where working together balances the personalities and their downsides.
Analytics specialist must strive for a Kirk-Spock balance. Spock is proof that analysis is essential, while Kirk shows that a sensibility of a given situation is important to get to an ACTIONABLE result. Web analyst can refine their sensibility by being a student of their given industry. If one is in an auto industry, for example, he or she can continue monitoring articles on consumer taste in vehicles. The insights can later help support examination of, says, visitor engagement-related data and guide the analyst to which metrics would best provide actionable insight for a given request.
An analyst will never have all the answers in play — and seeking so can be an opportunity cost. However, analysts should use analysis to increase efficiency and reduce risk, and use intuition to imagine a result beyond the data received.
I now return you to the mother of all debates — Kirk vs. Picard….
While in California during a surprise visit to a friend, I got a surprise of my own. Spotted at The Shops at Mission Viejo, a mall in the Los Angeles suburb of Mission Viejo, is one of the first two Microsoft retail stores; The second store is located in Scottsdale Arizona. Despite my best attention to news and recalling drips of information and rumor, I had not seen much fanfare on a Microsoft grand opening, so I walked in and took a quick look around.
Now one can make a strong argument that the Microsoft store bears a lot of resemblance to a typical Apple store. A number of Window-based computers abound, with expert helpers and user training sessions, all at the ready. So on first glance, it just seems as though there is not a real difference beyod the product itself.
One interesting arrangement is a table size tablet with touch capability. Cameras allow touch response similar to the hand gestures seen in movies such as Minority Report, Matrix Reloaded, and Star Trek. In the video above, gamers move defense satellites against alien probes, with play similar to Missile Command.
Microsoft has a long build out, when compared to Apple, which now has 180 stores worldwide. But it is a wise move from a business standpoint. First, Apple has proven that combining a great retail consumer experience with compelling electronics (iPhone, iPod) alongside equally compelling computers (iMac, MacBook) has provided a strong revenue base and consumer buzz. The result? A stock price that exceeded the $200 mark for the first time in 2009. Of course Microsoft has also introduced consumer products, like Zune and Xbox, and still has the lions share of computer software share and retail space.
But adding retail stores allows Microsoft to continue its appeal to customers and manage its image, as industry interest has shifted from an aw-shucks-it’s-just-software focus to developing a number of products that must enhance customers’ entertainment and utility.
The introduction of the Google Nexus smartphone also confirms that the big three of software and computing must have a gadget that is potential gateway to other services and product offerings.
Running a retail channel is not easy, as sales must justify the overhead and staffing. Witness the Warner Bros Studio stores, which like Disney, provided clothing and merchandising with themes based on beloved characters like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, as well as then-new characters from the WB network. Started in 1991, Warner closed its stores ten years later.
Do you think Microsoft’s entry into retail outlets is a wise move?
A review of Avinash Kaushik’s book Web Analytic 2.0 is available at the Small Business Trends blog. Small Business Trends is one of the largest business blogs online, with 250,000 monthly visitors receiving tips and insights from many expert practitioners. This book review is the first of many reviews from Zimana founder Pierre DeBois. These reviews will include analytics books as well as other books well suited for small business.
RT @smallbiztrends: Who is getting ready to head out for #InfusionCon this week? Please look me up -- perhaps we can do an interview of you. 2 days ago
