I was recently listening to an interesting talk by Dave Wieneke where he looked at the way brands need to change how they engage with consumers. One of the nuggets he shared, looked at the relative importance of company Facebook page visits against their main website visits. So I dug into the original data - 2011 research from Webtrends and Adgregate (PDF) and it tells a very interesting story I thought was worth summarising.
For many companies now, particularly those with non-transactional sites, visitor figures are in decline, while their Facebook visitors are growing.
I thought I would share this here, since it prompts important questions of how serious companies are about creating a strategy to engage their audiences through Facebook and whether they are allocating the right level of resources between website management and Facebook, either too much or too little.
It also…
Are we too fond of shiny new technologies?
I read this great post by Seth Godin, it coincidentally arrived as an alert in my inbox within minutes of my talking to a college about a guy (who knows a guy) wanting to run a campaign using a 'new type of QR code'.
Don't get me wrong, I love the marketing opportunities from QR codes and blogged around the topic several months ago and although the concept is seriously interesting for marketers, I still don't see a common QR code reader making it easy enough for the consumer to adopt, which in turn doesn't make it viable technology to leverage for marketing. At least in my opinion, and as things stand today.
The idea of another type of QR code only adds complexity - it is also possibly damaging to a brand experience through user…
and approaches to tackle them
Hi! I manage the LinkedIn Web Managers group of which Dave Chaffey is also a member. When Dave saw the recent thread we had running about the current challenges for web and digital marketing managers, he suggested I do a guest post on Smart Insights, so we can “share the pain” and help with planning issues that need prioritising.
So here we are. These are the main themes that we identified in our discussion. How do they compare to your challenges?
1 Managing the pace of change
The main theme is that everything is changing so fast. People who have worked in web for years and consider themselves pretty knowledgeable are having to think about their jobs in completely new ways. For some, it’s almost like last year they were a ‘web manager’…
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July 21, 2011
Apple's Lion Operating System is the shape (or feel) of things to come...
Apple are making a big deal out of the multi-touch gestures that allow you to manipulate the interface in their new desktop OS (Lion) released this week. Lessons they’ve learnt from the iPad are rapidly impacting their other devices and software. Something Microsoft has perhaps been a bit slow doing following the success of their Xbox Kinect. Still I suspect it won’t be too much longer before a motion sensor approach to interaction is established for the desktop.
All these steps towards more ‘natural’, less mediated, methods of control and experience got me thinking. How do we develop this physicality further? Can we capture taste, weight and texture in the digital environment?
Clearly these things are physically impossible on the simple web pages…
5 questions you should be asking about your SEO agency
At some-point most business have explored outsourcing "SEO", although recently more businesses I speak to are bringing it back in house. A recent guide from Hub Spot sparked this blog post as they have created a short guide to identifying a "Bad SEO Service" you may be interested in. You can check it out here.
While their guide is good, I think it can be distilled down even further & I would even say you should even question whether you need an SEO agency at all!
Identifying a poor SEO Agency:
Here are the questions prompted by the guide:
Q1. Do you they make unrealistic promises - "Guaranteed number one spots". Against which phrases?
Q2. Are they delivering HUGE keyword lists rather than telling you the ones to focus on. The 80-20 rule holds…
New UK rate card salary survey for digital marketing
I've been a big fan of the Econsultancy agency rate card survey and have pointed many people towards it when I have questions about salaries. But their last survey was in 2008. So it was good to see an alternative published last week by New Media Age.
This is published as part of a Digital Professional Supplement which you can read in full here. It is based on responses from 2,000 people working on digital media in the UK.
It'a useful since it has sections for both client-side/brand and agency jobs (click to enlarge):
Average company salaries for digital marketing roles in UK 2011
Average agency salaries for digital marketing roles in UK 2011
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Our recommendations on the best jobs boards sites (agency independent) to post/get jobs for digital marketing specialists
I recently received a mail similar to ones I receive quite regularly saying about the difficulty of filling posts for new specialist positions - you can see the outline job specifications at the end if this post - they're for a conversion exec and content editor. My suggestion was to place ads in one of several services enabling you to post a job independent of the costly route of using an agency.
As far as I know, these services have the benefit that these are independent of agencies so can be more cost-effective since they attract a one-off fee and allow you to reach more potential candidates. Of course they don't provide the filtering process and a network of potential job seekers.
Of course knowledge about "Jobs boards" can help for both finding new team members…
Eight classic quotes showing how tough it is to trendspot
I've just been scanning a useful thread started by Adam Cranfield on the excellent Linked In Web Managers group about the challenges web managers need to deal with today and I was struck by the relentless page of change and the need to test and innovate. One contributor, Karen, pointed out that this is why we love what we do (mostly, the relentless Google updates can get to you sometimes).
One contributor used a brilliant quote to illustrate this from the future Alvin Toffler, who said that:
"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."
Leonel, who posted this said:
"I try to unlearn as much as possible and now I'm relearning a lot of things that supposedly knew in depth, stripped of preconceptions trying to take each issue as…
It's always useful to be able to compare the way your marketing budget split to others for different marketing approaches. Particularly if changes in allocation are highlighted and ideally if the budgets are for similar companies. A new international survey from Econsultancy and SAS helps with this.
With permission, this post includes a summary of the main findings of the report: Marketing Budgets 2011 and charts of the budget mix.
Summary of marketing budgets report
The main insights from the report for me are:
Marketing budgets overall are up, in digital 72% of companies are investing more and 26% in offline channels - great news and indicative of a more upbeat feeling for the future, maybe?
On average, digital budgets are being increased by 35% over last year, so a big increase.
The continuing growth of investment into social channels is a big theme 75% companies investing more, though interestingly it's the area that companies…
We"€™ve seen a lot of changes on the internet landscape and how people interact with content within it, mobile and tablet PC's being obvious examples. On top of that there's changing web standards, influenced by that changing technology. Things like HTML5 and CSS3 - as Mashable note, "more and more users are now able to take advantage of the latest and greatest features on the web".
It"€™s tougher for SME's to stay on top or ahead of the game, but not impossible. It's also important than businesses do in order to remain competitive. Here's Mashable's 2010/2011 for design trends for SME's - summarised below:
Drop the Flash - More and more sites and web developers are moving away from Flash-only solutions in lieu of video, animation and navigation.What does your audience need and value? Flash is not even accessible on most mobile devices, though great for rich applications,…
