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Marketing Titbits – Graph Search from Facebook, Twitter’s new video sharing app, the latest social media site

1. If your business doesn’t have a Facebook presence yet, there’s another reason you might want to get started. Facebook has recently launched its much-hyped new functional calledGraph Search. More than a new “search tool”, Graph Search lets you find people and businesses by interests, location or industry.  For example, Graph Search allows you to search “best restaurants in Winchester”, Facebook will then show you recommendations based on what your friends feel is the best place to eat, based on their likes and reviews. Just make sure that your location details on your business Facebook page are up to date.
2. Although Thumb has been around since 2010, it has only recently started to become popular around the world. Thumb is a picture based social media site that helps to engage consumers and get their gut reactions to your business ideas, images, and messages. Want feedback for your new website design, or need help choosing a business card design? Upload a picture and let your fellow Thumbers instantly share their opinions.

 

3. Twitter has recently unleashed their very own video sharing app called Vine. Vine allows users to upload very short 6 second videos to their Twitter account and has already become Twitter’s most downloaded app.  So why only 6 seconds? Similar to your short snappy tweets, posts on Vine are about abbreviation, providing little snippets of people’s lives, businesses and ideas.  At present, the only platform that the Vine app is available on is the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

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Marketing Titbits – Picture Monkey, Meetup & the latest update from Google Adwords

1. Want to quickly edit a picture, but don’t have Photoshop? Picture Monkey could be the answer. This online photo editing tool provides you with the opportunity to edit your images quickly from any computer, whether you are at home or in the office. Picture monkey has various templates, frames or colour effects that you can apply to your chosen image for free. For more advanced features, including a ‘spray tan’ or ‘wrinkle remover’, you will need to sign up to the website and upgrade.
2. Are you new to the area? Want to organise a networking event with like-minded people?Meetup is slightly different from other social media websites, the sole purpose is to organise real life meetings, whether you want to start a group for Southampton Web Developers or SMEs in Winchester, Meetup can help make this happen. According to Meetup, more than 9,000 groups get together in local communities each day. It is free to sign up and you can choose specific locations and interests.

3. Google have launched a new style of campaign in AdWords, called Enhanced Campaigns. The latest update has been designed to simplify campaign management across multiple devices and encourage more SMEs to adopt mobile advertising. The focus of the change is to enable advertisers to target people at the right time, in the right place, with the right advert and call-to-action.  Essentially, the biggest and most relevant change is that Google are growing more contextually aware. If a user is on a mobile device they will see ads that you have marked as “mobile preferred”.

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Fine-tune your email marketing

Email-marketingModern marketing requires the use of a balanced blend of marketing channels, all working in harmony for the common good – to grow your business.
One channel that many small businesses mistakenly overlook is email, assuming customers view email marketing as spam or that it’s too easy for customers to unsubscribe or simply delete messages.

However, email is alive, kicking and effective. Thanks to the rise in technology and smart phones, consumers are connected to their inbox 24/7, reading emails with the same immediacy as they do text messages.  Businesses are keen to get more bang for their buck and email marketing is certainly a platform more businesses should be considering when engaging with potential customers. Not only is it relatively low cost compared to comparable channels, but it is also incredibly generous about giving your business a wealth of marketing information off the back of a campaign, vital for giving you insights into your target audience and the ROI of campaigns.

Like any marketing activity, a business should plan their approach; simply pressing ‘send’ in Outlook isn’t enough.  To get more mileage from your marketing campaigns, adopt these strategies to fine-tune the effectiveness of your emails:


Look beyond Outlook:

There are various tools and software out there that can help you create effective and engaging emails, test and send them, then manage and track the responses without any technical skills needed. Mail Chimp is one of a number of easy to use email marketing systems out there for businesses. Others include:

Virtually all will allow you to import your own HTML design or edit one of their existing templates to reflect your brand.  Mail Chimp has the advantage that it is free if you have fewer than 2000 email subscribers and send emails no more than one a month.  The software also helps you manage your subscriber lists, track campaign performance and sync your email marketing across social networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

 

Before you send your emails think about the following:

 

1. Segment your database into groups, for example, prospects, clients, past clients etc. Email software allows you to send personalised messages with custom offers. You could even send an email to one segment of your list by sorting on gender, role, post code or industry.

2.  If you’re sending a newsletter, think about incorporating links that drive back readers to your website, where they can access the article in full. Not only does this get recipients on your website, where they can learn more about your business, but by reviewing your email statistics, it also provides you with vital information about specific areas of interest for database member. This information can be used to target marketing campaigns more accurately.

3. Make sure you test your emails. HTML designs can appear differently in different email clients. Likewise, something you may consider as eye catching, could be difficult for contacts to actually read. Most email systems will allow split testing, which is a great tool to use to identify the most effective subject line or content. If you want to increase open rates, test your subject lines. If it is your click-throughs you are looking to boost, then test design and content variations.

 

Your campaign doesn’t stop there – Review your performance:

After sending out your email messages, your next task is to measure the effectiveness of your campaign. Measuring the response rates will help you determine the kind of articles and services  your readers want.

How do you know if your campaign is effective? The first indicator is your open rate, the number of people who actually opened your email. If you use an email marketing function like Mail Chimp, you will be able to access the full list of contacts who engaged with your campaign.

Your click-through rate is the other important indicator. Click-through rates measures the percentage of people who were sent the email that actively clicked on a link with the text. The more clicks the better.

You will also need to keep track of your unsubscribe rate. If the number of contacts requesting to be removed from your list increases, you need to re-evaluate your email campaigns. Are people unsubscribing because you are bombarding them with emails too frequently? Is the email message simply too long, or are your offerings lacking in appeal?
If planned and implemented properly, email marketing provides businesses with the opportunity to engage with a large audience in a short space of time. Not only does it offer your business a cost-effective marketing tool, it also provides you with vital information to help you integrate other forms of marketing into your mix……How about using telemarketing to follow up the contacts who clicked on a link within your email?

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Marketing Titbits – Tumblr, Facebook’s conversion measurement tool & Robert Cialdini’s book ‘Influence’

1.Influence
Robert Cialdini’s book ‘Influence’, is a must read for anyone involved in marketing a business. The book explores the 6 central pillars of Influence: reciprocity, consistency and commitment, liking, social proof, authority and scarcity and outlines, through real world examples and scientific studies, how and why they work. We’ve just read it and can thoroughly recommend it. For more information click here.

2.Tumblr

Tumblr has been around for a while now; however, it’s popularity has been on the increase of late. This free online tool straddles the boundary between blogging platform and social networking website. It allows you or your business to post text, images, video and other media to your own short-form blog, which fellow users can follow. You can use it to share anything that you or your business find interesting and want to share directly with your followers. The opportunities are endless and it is another great tool for helping build your online brand.

3.Facebook conversion measurement

Facebook’s update spree continues. Last month, Facebook launched their new conversion measurement and optimisation system that allows you to measure the ROI of your Facebook ads. It enables users to identify key online conversions, such as registrations or shopping cart checkouts, which have derived from their Facebook ads. Another feature allows you to optimise your ads based on consumer popularity.  Overall, the new features are designed to help you increase the ROI of your Facebook ads, which has got to be a good thing!

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Marketing Titbits – HootSuite, UberConference and Malcolm Gladwell’s book ‘The Tipping Point’

1. HootSuite
HootSuite has been around since 2008 and has established itself as a market leading social media management programme. It is entirely free for you to create an account, but as you’d expect, they also provide a paid-for version, with enhanced features.  With the free subscription, you have the ability to add up to 5 social media streams to your account. The software enables you to manage and update your multiple social media channels, in one place, all at once. It is the perfect tool to help manage your social media interactions efficiently, saving time when posting content across your multiple social media profiles. Both the paid and free subscription services have an internal analytics function to measure how effective your social media activity is; however, the paid-for subscription’s analytics report drills down into far more than the free account. For most, the free subscription will be ample; however, for those keen to really get to grips with social media across multiple platforms, the paid-for subscription could be the way to go. Try it out here.

2. UberConference

UberConference is designed to facilitate easy, visual and effective conference calls. It is free for to sign up free to use. UberConference has tried to enhance the conference call experience for businesses by overcoming the shortcomings of other conference call platforms.  One of the main advantages of this software over its other free competitors, is that you don’t have to spend time finding and typing in long PINs. Members can just dial into the conference number and will be automatically put through depending on their phone number. Where UberConference really excels is with its visual interface, adding a visual dimension to audio conferencing, which can be accessed from any computer. Everyone on the call can see the names, pictures and social-media derived information (if enabled) of the people that are participating in the call. The service also features call recording. If you are involved in conference calls with colleagues, clients, partners or suppliers, take a look at UberConferenceto see how it could enhance your experience.

3. The Tipping Point

The Tipping Point is a book about change. Particularly pertinent at this moment in time. The book sets out to explore a new understanding of why change seems to occur on a regular but unexpected basis. It reviews a variety of examples including; ‘Why did crime drop so dramatically in New York City in the mid-1990? How does a novel written by an unknown author end up as national bestseller? Why do teens smoke in greater and greater numbers, when every single person in the country knows that cigarettes kill? Why is word-of-mouth so powerful? What makes TV shows like Sesame Street so good at teaching kids how to read?’  According to the book’s author, Malcolm Gladwell, the answer is the same for all the examples. This book’s message highlights how we as consumers follow trends and adapt on a continuous basis to be ‘up-to-date’ with what is happening around us. The book is a great read for those interested in marketing. Take a look here.

 

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#MarketingTitbits – Tagging On Instagram, Tips From Obama’s Marketing Team & YouTube 8 Years On

Instagram introduces taggingIf you are a Facebook user, you’ll be familiar with tagging. Social media picture sharing app Instagram has now introduced the feature to its platform, which enables users to tag anything or anyone that has an Instagram username, in an image.

This includes people, places, companies and brands.

The new feature potentially opens up the opportunity of free advertising for companies and brands; who will no doubt be keen to tap into this new tool to build awareness and loyalty.

For those of you unfamiliar with Instagram, find out more here. The social media app’s engagement statistic make a compelling argument for taking it seriously – every second over 8,500 photos are liked and over 1,000 comments are posted on Instagram.

 

10 marketing lessons from Barak Obama’s CTO

When Barack Obama secured his 2nd term as US President, many commentators pointed to his team’s mastery of the digital marketing arena, as a key foundation for his success.

At the recent DMA Technology Summit in London, Harper Reed, Chief Technology Officer for Obama’s 2012 campaign, outlined the winning strategy and techniques that helped Obama to extend his presidency into a 2nd term. These have been distilled into 10 key points byMarketing magazine’s Nicola Kemp, including:

1. Building a great team

2. Embracing diversity

3. Focusing on user experience

4. Facilitating community

To find out more about each point and see the full list, click here.

 

YouTube 8 Years on

On April 23rd this year, YouTube turned 8 years old. It is hard to believe even its founders foresaw its impact on society across the globe. The statistics are mind blowing:

  • In excess of  1 billion unique users each month
  • Over 4 billion hours of video viewed every month
  • 72 hours of video uploaded every minute
  • YouTube is localized in 53 countries and across 61 languages

The first, somewhat uninspiring, video uploaded to YouTube was entitled ‘Me at the zoo’ and was posted by YouTube founder Jawed Karim.

The current most viewed video in YouTube history, with an incredible 1.5 billion + views, is South Korean pop sensation Psy’s Gangnam Style video. Who knows how long it will be before Psy is knocked off top spot, what is certain is that it will happen and the video in question will make its owner a very wealthy individual!

 

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#MarketingTitbits – Looking to brush up on your technical skills? Great apps everyone is talking about right now and books on marketing!

Looking to brush up on your Photoshop skills?
If you’d like to develop your creative and technical skills in a cost-effective way, then take a look at this great website with over 1,900 video courses in a range of topics from design and photography to Adobe and Microsoft. They even let you trial it for free for 7 days to see how you get on.

It has some nice features, like unlimited access to all the courses available and the list keeps growing. It accommodates all levels of expertise, from beginner to expert. You can share courses with your friends or colleagues and perhaps most useful of all, you can access the videos on a computer, tablet or mobile device and switch between them for your convenience.

Good luck!

http://www.lynda.com/

 

Apps everyone is talking about right now

It seems there is an app for everything right now and with the app market valued earlier this year by the Wall Street Journal at $25 billion, the rate at which they come into the marketplace is only going to increase.

To help point you in the right direction of the ones worth knowing about, we found this interesting article about 15 apps that everyone is talking about right now. From Park Me, an app that helps users find places to park nearby, to Tempo, a ‘smart calendar’ app that helps you organise your day better and the likes of Candy Crush and Vine in-between.

http://www.businessinsider.com/apps-everyone-is-talking-about-right-now-2013-7

 

Top 10 marketing books of all time

Like the app market, the sales, marketing and business book market is saturated with publications of varying degrees of usefulness. Life is too short to waste it reading poor books, so we always try to pass on recommendations of books worth spending your precious time on.

With this in mind, if you’re looking to read up on your marketing this summer and want some books for light reading on the beach, we’ve found this useful article on the top 10 marketing books of all time. Have a read and let us know what you think!

http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/top-10-marketing-books-of-all-time_1.html

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#MarketingTitbits – Facebook campaigns by Ikea, ‘Brick by Brick’ and tips on being social media savvy from Richard Branson.

1. Six awesome examples of Facebook campaigns by Ikea
Ikea is the world’s largest furniture retailer, amassing sales last year of £186 billion, selling ready to assemble furniture in 38 countries around the world. Unsurprisingly, Ikea has managed to attain a pretty impressive social media fan base over the years with millions of Facebook fans and hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers, particularly impressive for a furniture retailer!

We found this great article, which showcases six inspirational examples of Facebook campaigns from Ikea. To have a look click here.

 

2. What can your company learn from Lego?

Founded in 1932, Lego is one of the oldest plastic toys in the world. Today, Lego is an iconic brand and one of the most successful and popular toys of all time, with 80 Lego bricks for every one man, woman and child on the plant today!

David Robertson’s new book, Brick by Brick, tells the story of the family owned company from Denmark, about how they grew steadily for years until the 1990s, when they struggled to compete with new technologies. The book follows Lego through the harder times, when in 2003 they nearly went bankrupt, with the company seeing its biggest loss in history. However, Lego managed to save itself and companies of all sizes can learn a lot from David Robertson’s account of the journey.

http://www.robertsoninnovation.com/brick-by-brick/

3. Richard Branson on being social media savvy

Sir Richard Branson is perhaps the most familiar current British entrepreneur on the world stage. He is the founder and chairman of the Virgin Group and began his very first business venture at the ripe old age of 16. However, to achieve his success he has had to keep up with the times, something that he has done incredibly successfully.

Despite being 63 years old, there are many things that we can learn about being social media savvy from Richard Branson and he regularly shares his advice and business experience with anyone and everyone who is willing to take it.

We have found this article that highlights Richard Branson’s main points around how to harness social media and we think it is really worth a read. If you would like to read more thenclick here.

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#MarketingTitbits – Stella Artois gifting app, some humorous Twitter accounts and 35 books that everyone should read..

  1. Stella Artois launches social media gifting app

Stella Artois, the Belgium larger company who have been brewing larger since 1926, have been notorious for their advertising for years.  Their distinctive European cinematic style shows that their marketing is well thought out and inspiring, they have even used notable directors for their television campaigns, such as Jonathan Glazer.

This year Stella Artois released a new app which lets users send gifts to their friends. Users can buy a voucher code and send it to their friend who can then use it at participating bars and pubs to buy one pint of Stella Artois.

To read the full article from Marketing Week then click here.

2. 10 branded Twitter accounts that raise a laugh

Twitter is now the second most popular social networking site in the world with 500million users and nearly all of the top brands have a Twitter account. However, some brands that are on Twitter still haven’t mastered the art of engaging with customers in conversation on Twitter! If you’re in need of some inspiration on how to create conversations with your customers on Twitter, then have a look at this article we found from Econsultancy, they’ve highlighted some of the brands on Twitter that have a sense of humour and like a laugh.

3. 35 books everyone should read at least once in their lifetime

Oscar Wilde once said “If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.” For that reason we thought we’d share with you a list of 35 books that everyone should read in their lifetime – at least once.

From a heart wrenching lecture from a dying American professor to the classic To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, we think this article is well worth a read, not to mention the books on the list. To have a look click here.

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