Is that really the case?
This headline from Business Insider has to be the most misleading of the year for me. It’s certainly engaging, but what's it based upon? When Andy Lloyd Gordon shared it through Twitter yesterday I couldn’t resist clicking to see what this claim was based on.
The report by Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester Research showed that less than 1 percent of the online transactions amongst US customers could be traced to a social media post.
The article states:
"Social tactics are not meaningful sales drivers.
While the hype around social networks as a driver of influence in eCommerce continues to capture the attention of online executives, the truth is that social continues to struggle and registers as a barely negligible source of sales for either new or repeat buyers.
In fact, fewer than 1% of transactions for both new and repeat shoppers could…
14th November 2012: Pinterest launches business pages
Importance: [rating=4]
Recommended link: Pinterest blog post about new business pages
Well it had to happen… Following Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Twitter Business pages, Pinterest have now launched their own business accounts. For now the main benefit it will give you is a verified account, the layout of the boards is identical.
It’s a quick job to convert to a business page, here’s how.
What is the process for getting setup as a Business on Pinterest?
This is the order in which I upgraded our Pinterest page to a business account.
Step 1. Verify your site . To do this go the Account Settings page and choose “Verify”. You will then be able to download an HTML file which you upload to the root folder of your site and this then proves it is connected to your…
Facebook responds to brand backlash...
Last week I explained the changes to the Facebook algorithm which resulted in a huge drop in organic reach for brand pages.
Facebook has responded with a small tweak, just rolled out in the last day or so, which will enable fans to choose to see all a brand's notifications to their wall. AllFacebook.com have more on how Facebook's new notifications work.
Once brands realise this is now out of beta be prepared for a slew of notifications instructing fans to tick the Show in News Feed option. So my advice would be to "get in early".
And given that just posting a request to Fans to get Notifications on Facebook is probably likely to get to a measly 10% of your fanbase, you probably have no choice but to make it a Promoted Post.
On the…
How Facebook's push for more ad revenue is causing challenges for advertisers
Facebook marketers have been having a pretty torrid time the last few weeks. Organic reach on posts from brand pages has been slashed in Facebook's drive to extract as much cash from commercial sources that it can. Even consumers can pay to have their status updates promoted nowadays.
The result has been a big increase in revenue for Facebook that's above their target, but the company is still struggling to keep shareholders happy amidst a sliding stock price. And all is not well with brands. There have been numerous grumbles across the blogosphere in recent weeks as the kind of reach levels brands previously enjoyed free of charge are only now attainable with some hefty advertising spend. This sudden change has caught many brands unawares and has been a bumpy ride for many used to enjoying free promotion…
Facebook improves options for international marketing through “Global Pages”
Value: [rating=1] or [rating=4] for brands marketing to local country audiences
Recommended link: Facebook announcement on managing Global Company Pages
Until this month brands wanting to use Facebook company pages to communicate with their customers in different countries have had a challenge. The challenge has been the resource needed to manage different company pages in different countries in a way that provides consistency and management for their communications. Each country has required separate administrators and reporting has also been separate unless third-party tools were used.
In October 2012, Facebook launched “Global Pages” as a solution for managing company pages in different countries. This is how Facebook describe the new approach:
“With this new structure, Facebook users will be directed to the best version of a Page based on the country those users are in, enabling them to see localized cover photos, profile photos, Page apps, milestones,…
Will social media become a broadcast channel?
We've reviewed the implications of previous reports by GlobalWebIndex; they're a really good source to inform your approach.
In their latest report, GlobalWebIndex revealed that 517 million individuals have created an account on Twitter, half actively used the platform in the past month, and half of those users had posted a tweet. On Facebook, 22 percent of the 845 million users that had visited Facebook in the past month did not make a single contribution.
We can also see the growing importance of Google+ and how social networks are often accessed on mobile or tablet.
Overall, the report suggests that consumers are moving focus in their use of social media, from publishing to the world and communicating with friends or peers, to digesting content from trusted…
Tips and examples for an effective Google+ content strategy
The overall aim of brands using social networking is to create engaged communities around compelling content that educates, entertains, inspires and/or angers.
The key, then, is to use content to generate interest and ultimately Likes, Retweets, +1s, comments and shares for the content that’s being published. By generating interest for specific posts, users can produce a viral effect where that interest is then multiplied as a result of others throughout someone’s social graph being exposed to and then (hopefully) interacting with that content themselves. And so the cycle continues as their social graphs become exposed to the content.
Creating impactful content on Google+
Custom Circles
One of the unique aspects of Google+ is the intuitive nature of the interface and the ability to easily filter and segment people and companies into custom Circles. By focusing in on specific Circles, users…
Are you part of the Google Authorship Program?
You may not be using Google Authorship yet, but will almost certainly have noticed photos of authors appearing more and more as you search. You may also have read SEOs discussing the benefits of "rel=author" which is the markup contained within HTML on webpages to link the page to the users Google+ page:
<a href="[Google+_profile_url]?rel=author">Google</a>
We believe, the Google Authorship program is a must for any regularly updated content site, whether you run your own blog or your company has a blog with multiple contributors. In this post I'll review why it's important to online marketing and show you how to get "enrolled".
The Authorship program allows Author information and news, webpages and blogs to be associated with authors. It will also change the look of any items you have in search results too as per the example below:
…
Haphazard social media adoption is putting your brand at risk
A report earlier this year from Altimeter raises some interesting questions around how well brands are prepared to control social media as it proliferates throughout the organisation. It's an interesting and important question, since unlike any other marketing tactic, social media isn't actually about marketing first and foremost, it's about customers and their adoption of technology is changing the landscape for marketers every day. This change means that multiple stake-holders within an organisation are motivated to leverage social media, whether it's sales, customer service, product development or marketing, leading to a silo'd, poor customer experience.
Varied risks, the same solution: orientate around the consumer
Research and recommendations from Altimeter are heavily based around large, enterprise clients (Adobe, Avaya, Cisco, Hallmark, etc.) with an equally very heavy weighting towards B2B. It's easy to dismiss the insight if that's not your brand. However, the…
An example of a test using Facebook's new paid offers
Facebook Offers was launched earlier this year, allowing retailers to send deals to their Facebook fans' newsfeeds. Until recently it's been a free service. I wasn't even aware of it until I saw an ad for the new paid-for service in my newsfeed this week and decided to give it a go. Here is what I discovered.
The ad is pretty self explanatory. Users claim the offers by clicking on the ad in their News Feeds and redeem the vouchers to get discounts.
How to create a Facebook Offer
Creating the ad is really simple. As well as the option to update your status or post a photo/video, you now have the option to post an Offer or Event (or various other content such as a poll). You can choose to set up a…
