New data shows relative importance of different social channels on volume and quality of Ecommerce site visits

Value/Importance: [rating=4]

Recommended link: E-commerce Monetate 2013 Quarterly report

We're alerting you to this regular research from Monetate since it gives potentially useful benchmark data for Ecommerce marketers to compare themselves against. It also highlights trends such as the impact on Ecommerce sites of increasing mobile usage and the influence of social media which we focus on in this alert.

The data is based 500 million visits amongst their clients who include Ecommerce brands such as Best Buy, Frontier Airlines, Aeropostale, The Sports Authority, and PETCO.

The focus of the Q1 2013 Ecommerce Quarterly report is social media, VP of Marketing Blair Lyon explains:

'We focused this EQ on social commerce since the data show that companies have not yet cracked the code in leveraging social media to drive e-commerce traffic. We know that social…

A Blueprint for the perfect LinkedIn Status update

This infographic from Salesforce on a 'Blueprint for the perfect LinkedIn Status update' is worth scanning whether you use LinkedIn for personal or business development. The value in using LinkedIn for engagement was shown by this LinkedIn research that found that:

50% of LinkedIn members are more likely to purchase from a company they engage with on LinkedIn'

Boosting engagement across any social media platform through engaging updates is key and their infographic provides some simple tips to do this. For more detailed advice, see our LinkedIn for marketing guide.

…

Making User-Generated Content a core feature of the online fashion-buying experience

You may know Boticca since they are active content marketers who have worked with bloggers to build a strong social media presence with 35,000 Twitter followers, more than 50,000 Facebook fans, 50,000 Pinterest followers and 3,000 Tumblr followers. They're a great example of how to engage through content and then convert that interest to sale and advocacy through permission marketing. In this example we take a look at their latest Instagram campaign since more marketers are looking to tap into it since its growth has continued since it was purchased by Facebook. They use Instagram by linking to the Gallery from the Boticca.com homepage, in a section call "The Edit", which is a selection of photographs curated by Boticca's visual merchandisers.

The photographs in the Gallery…

10 permission marketing principles and campaign examples integrating web, email and social media marketing

It is now nearly 15 years since Seth Godin launched his permission marketing mantra. Yet it remains highly relevant - I still recommend newcomers to online marketing download and read his permission marketing principles.

But how does permission marketing apply today? In this post I show examples of how digital marketers today are applying Permission marketing principles  to their email marketing and social media marketing activities today.

In his book, Godin explains the principles of using permission marketing both in the offline world and online world, but he doesn't describe in detail how to best achieve permission marketing using web and e-mail.

For each of the core principles of permission marketing, I identify, define and illustrate my principles of ‘e-permission marketing’ which show how web,social, e-mail and offline communications can be…

@BruceDaisely, the UK Twitter Director advises on Twitter marketing approaches

With over 1o million users in the UK, that's 16% of the UK population, and in excess of 140 million worldwide: Twitter is a household name. There's an appetite to use it on mobile too, with 80% accessing it on their mobile.

I was interested to hear Twitter UK Director @BruceDaisely showcase it's successes and value to companies during his presentation at Teradata Connect2013:

'Marketing in the moment' is where Twitter excels according to Daisely; communications must combine relevance, interest and intent'

He gave examples of popular UK brands on Twitter, including some surprises. Automatic Doors have over 203,000 Followers as they are currently the fastest growing brand profile in the UK, according to Socialbakers.com with Nandos ranking top in the number of Followers at over 950,000.

…

Do your social media plans allow for the latest trends?

This is a very useful SlideShare presentation from We Are Social. Useful before you step into your next round of content or social media marketing planning. It's simple and succinct with important take-aways - 10 of them in fact.

 

Here are our 7 reflections

These are our take-aways, from taking a few minutes to flick through the SlideShare, it's well worth it:

Mobile, mobile, mobile… The penetration, usage and therefore importance of mobile to your marketing is, I feel, still startling. I say it, believe it, agree with it and then each time I see more data the sheer scale shocks me. We talk about mobile and it's importance, but slide 4 really drives that home.People, portable, practical… what a great mantra to build…

New Nielsen research reviews investment and ROI from social media

Nielsen have shared some recent interesting findings from their research on Paid Social Media Advertising 2013.  500 Digital Marketing and Media Professionals were contacted by phone and email, and asked for their views and practices on social media advertising. The report concludes:

'Marketers are increasingly viewing and using paid social media advertising as an integrated tool. Social media is no longer being viewed as its own discrete medium but instead used alongside other tactics to achieve an overall, usually branding related, objective.......,

but there is a gap between how marketers would like to use the medium and the current reality. This gap is the most pronounced when it comes to measuring ROI...'

Key insights I think are worth highlighting include:

3/4 of respondents use Paid Advertising and 64% were seeking to increase spend this year.Budget spend is shifting from off-line to on-line.ROI is…

A tutorial on how to use Facebook's Power Editor

If you are a regular advertiser on Facebook you really ought to be using Power Editor to create your ads rather than the standard self serve ad tool interface. Facebook's own help pages explain why. There are a number of advantages such as placements and custom audiences that you can only access via this tool. Power Editor is easy to set up since it's a Chrome Extension.

It's not the most user friendly tool imaginable but there are plenty of online help articles and videos to help you. There's also a helpful Power Editor guide to download here.

Facebook Offers

I first wrote a simple guide to Facebook Offers last September. Since then the fees have gone up dramatically, so many will be asking what can we do to reduce costs and improve effectiveness?

One answer is to create your offer via Power Editor.…

Defining a structured approach for managing your online brand reputation

When you are running a social media campaign, or even in your day-to-day monitoring and community management, you will, of course, come across both positive and negative mentions about your brand. Most of us know by now that ignoring negative comments never pays, and that not engaging with your fans is a missed opportunity. Dell manages their brand via social, with a classic approach as outlined below:

So how should you deal with negative brand comments?

1.  Firstly, it’s important that you find those comments in the first place. You should be monitoring conversation about your brand across the web. It’s the only way to know what is really being said about your business, to stop the spread of misinformation and to…

Yes 41 feature updates - here's our top 5 from the Google I/O announcements

Modern marketers have always had to take Google+ seriously, because of Google's dominance in Search. Yet, there are other reasons too... with the proliferation of Android users on mobile (now 900 million Android activations, up on the 400 million last year); Chrome with its 750 million browser users and now the reported growth of Google+ to 343 million users - there are more and more reasons to keep a very close eye on what Google are doing. Not to mention Google Glass.

It's always been tempting to just focus on Facebook and to a lesser extent Twitter for B2C social media marketing and advertising, and given that Facebook shrugged off rumours of Facebook fatigue with large user increases in 2012 (now over 640m users) it's still tempting to do so. Google+ is the second largest social…