This blog is officially going to be about digital media. Also, I'm going to use the dynamic views template to give you more freedom on how you want to consume the contents! :)Please feel free to post a comment, give constructive feedback and share your insights.
What does page views, uniquevisitors, return visits, clicks, fans, followers and other digital/social mediametrics really mean for your business?
It's all about businessreputation and customer satisfaction (CSAT).
The feedbackform from restaurants or fast food chains, or in any establishment that wefill-out is just like the "comment" box on social networking sitesbut only convenient and recorded in real-time. If a customer is satisfied withthe services of a business, he recommends it to a friend and this friend will check it out,just like the "page views", the "sharing" function and"tweet" in Facebook and Twitter.
In our neighborhood, thereare chicken delivery maybe in every block but there's this chicken delivery that Ionly order to because not only that their chicken is delicious and they deliverreally fast, but also their delivery guys are polite (I mentioned them inFoursquare and Facebook) because of that they earned a loyal customer. Justlike "fans" and "followers".
The essence of businessreputation and CSAT are just digitized - fans, followers, visits,clicks, etc., making it convenient and measurable for businesses.
Altimeter Group did an insightfulpresentation about the internal goals of companies they studied in terms ofintegrating social media in their process.
Highlights:
(1) Creating ROI Measurementsis the main objective
(2) Engagement data:Retweets, Comments, fans, followers,etc is important in evaluating success
(3) Brand monitoring getsthe huge share of the budget in their social campaign.
These only suggests thatbusinesses look at engagement data on what success looks like, with all theefforts put in creating ROI measurement in their campaigns, in which a hugepart of their social media campaign budget goes into brand monitoring.
If we'regoing to look at it in business metrics, it's the same as investing in business reputation andCSAT - of course a business with an excellent business reputation and highcustomer satisfaction means higher return on investment.
Old Spice is a perfect example ofhow business metrics reflect on social media metrics:
Key Points:
business metrics: Reputation and Customer Satisfaction
social media metrics: fans, followers, clicks, page views, return visits, etc.
both are the same in reaching ROI
How about your small business, how can you alignyour current branding and CSAT efforts to digital media marketing to get asatisfying ROI?
Intimidating. This is might be the word you use to describe the process of search engine optimization if you have just integrated digital in your small business. Having a website doesn't end there because SEO is a continuation process, and the good news is it doesn't need to be complicated.
Here's how:
(1) Use accurate page titles
What does it mean?
It only means that it will tell search engines what the topic of a particular page is and it should be relevant. Search engines displays this bolded and in the first line to show right away what users can expect on the page.
Best practice:
<title> tag should be placed within the <head> tag. I recommend using Firefox than Chrome and IEbecause Firefox has a lot of add-on resources that will help you with SEO.
Websites are stores in the internet world so put, at the most, three main focus on your title tag (offerings, physical location, etc.)
Application sample: Here's what I did with Leowell Gonzales Photography.
I only used one main focus that best describes the professional service and its keyword opportunity: Singapore Fashion Photographer.
Avoid these:
title that has no relation to the page
using just one title tag on all your pages
lengthy titles that are unhelpful o users
(2) Make use of the description meta tag
What does it mean?
It will only tell Google a summary of what your website is all about. It will also be used to match up with users search queries.
Best practice:
again, place your description tag within the <head> tag.
write your description to inform the searcher in mind.
include something that will interest users to click
Application sample:
I chose to put just a one-liner, so that users will not think and digest a lot of information, just "Singapore Fashion Photographer".
(3) Easy to recognize URL structure
What does it mean?
Search engines only see text, it views a website as a whole block of text. With a well-structured URL, your website pages will have a better "crawling" from search engines. Next, it will be "link-friendly" for users who want to share your website with others. Imagine you received an email from your friend to check out a website,however, the URL link is weird, you will definitely not click it.
Best practice:
use recognizable URLs
your directory structure should always indicate the type of content found at that URL.
If you find people accessing a content on your website through multiple URLs = do 301 redirect
make your website easy to navigate so that your visitors will not get lost in the way
Avoid these:
having deep subdirectories like, domain.com/dir1/dir2/dir3/%20dir4
odd capitalization of URLs.
(4) Offer quality content
What is it?
This will highly influence your website than those discussed above because interesting sites will increase recognition on their own. Contents range from blog posts, widgets, images, e-books, etc. It will also be helpful to consider that we're living in a world where information is very very easy to obtain that attention is what makes businesses survive. When making contents, anticipate the search behavior of your customer. For example, a well-informed consumer will use a different word to search than just a curious potential customer.
Best practice:
make your content fresh and unique
anticipate search behavior
create for users, not for search engines
Make your contents a priority regardless of the type of website.
Avoid these:
text dumping (copy-paste trigger happy)
duplicating and near-duplicating contents
inserting a lot of keywords (making your content colored blue)
Always think of the end-users not the search engines and give valuable contents; this has always been my guide when doing SEO.
How does this multinational company spent only $500 for its digital marketing campaign?
I always have this hanging question whenever I read about big companies having successful campaigns: Of course big companies have big budget to pull-off a great campaign, but what interest me is how could small businesses execute these types of campaigns?
I just found out that it's possible to run a successful digital marketing campaign with a small budget.
McCann bought 10 domain names with a slim misspelling of some of the local popular websites
Every time a user mistyped the URL and goes to the bought website, they will encounter an "Eye Test" set-up by McCann.
Gave out coupons
What I love about it is the thought process behind in making the campaign. With a small budget, all you need to focus is to have a one big creative idea that will define your entire digital marketing campaign. Opticana was able to formulate a well-defined objective, they identified their audience and want them to redeem coupons at their retail stores.
Have you ever considered that a simple, yet useful product information is what your customers really want from you?
With an effectively designed and disseminated product information, your customers could clearly understand how they can use your services or product in their lives, which they will likely post and start a conversation about it in Facebook or Twitter.
Insite Consulting did a very informative study on consumer's behavior in Social Media. Here are the highlights that had an impact for me:
What consumers expect from businesses:
offer product information
offer promotion
announcing events
Consumers are also willing to:
react to comments regarding on products and services
consult information about the products from their peers
I will be posting monthly updates on the progress of my project and hopefully could sustain it. To give a quick background:
client: Leowell Gonzales Photography (LGP) started: August 2011 objectives: brand awareness metrics: Google webanalytics
visits
unique visitors
time on site
Regarding the metrics, I used those key indexes because in my understanding (and I want it simple) visits represents the total number of people viewing the website, unique visitors registers the new I.P addresses visiting the website, since pageviews also registers returning visits, and time on site, whichwill tell me how "sticky" the contents are, and high "stickiness" means high possibility of conversion.
Overview:
Here's the stats comparing July and August, where August is the month I started working on LGP.
Visits up by 25%, Unique Visitors up by 37.5%
Here's what I did in this month:
optimized the meta tags
directory submission
identified target audience and did the psychographics
set-up the Facebook Fan Page
Since Leowell was still busy with his Project Management job, going back and forth from Singapore to Australia, we weren't able to finish developing the contents we needed.
Here's what I did in the month of September to present:
set-up tumblr account
set-up Slideshare
set-up account in Vimity
set-up Twitter account
joined photography and other related pages on Facebook
promoting LGP on these pages
Result:
(based on July) Visits up 782%, Unique visitors up 108%
Next steps:
Next week, things will ease up and hopefully we can finish at least 5-10 quality contents. But for the meantime here's my To do list:
make a Sales funnel
search for websites to do guest posting/ collaboration
work on increasing fanbase on Facebook and Twitter (a headache!)
I'm posting this Stanford clip as a tribute for Steve Jobs.
Here's my take on Steve Jobs and the future of Apple. (After watching hours of Steve Jobs in CNN and BBC).
Apple's Future
Steve Jobs made himself the center of Apple - the technology, design, entrepreneurial skills - and he's so important there that without him, I'm afraid, Apple will fall. Okay they were saying that Apple's "pipeline" is robust and healthy, but for how long will it hold Apple's uniqueness that separates it from the rest? 5-10 years from now, Apple will make products revolving around on Steve Jobs original creation - nothing new will be created (I hope not). I have to get a Mac because it has still Steve Jobs' "touch".
Dots
So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — for me the dots represent circumstances in our lives that are already plotted out before we were born and Steve Jobs is saying that you have to be courageous, don't settle, and don't let anyone stop you on the things that you love to do. I guess it also means that let's stop comparing our dots to other people, or we will be disheartened and become cowards. We have our own dots to connect, so keep on moving.
The Fun Theory, for those who haven't seen it, was the digital marketing campaign of Volkswagen.
You may be screaming in my face now, yes I know that it's Volkswagen we're talking about and they have a huge pile of cash to make every campaign successful. But will a campaign like this applies in your small business?
I can feel you when you're thinking how you could do something like "The Fun Theory" if you only have a $1k budget, which can't even pay an agency. Let us try to find a solution to that, but we'll watch the video first and think why you like the campaign:
Volkswagen: The Fun Theory
Volkswagen created a campaign to generate interest in a technology focused on minimizing environmental impact
The campaign centered around the fun theory, which basically made eco-friendly activities fun. This was demonstrated through three offline events that were documented online using a website.
Volkswagen advertised on varied traditional channels but built an online campaign alongside these channels and is now the highest-selling eco-car in Sweden.(www.immap.com.ph)
Change in the playing field
It's about understanding and accepting that there's a drastic change on how consumers perceive brands. The campaign started out as an idea and aligned it with their business goals, which you can also do.
All the information is in the internet, and giving more information about your services or products to your customers will turn them off.
What Volkswagen did, they involve people making its brand engaging. Gone were the days when companies just "shout" their products and the people will just passively absorb it.
In small businesses where the budget is limited, understanding that there's a change in how people perceive brands will give you a direction on how you plan your marketing campaign. Think that people want to get involved and engage with your business like a human being so they will be loyal to your brand.
Highlights:
there's a major change in how consumers perceive brands
involve people by using digital channels in your marketing
make your brand engaging by using social media in your marketing
Let me finish with this saying:Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I might remember. Involve me and I will understand - Lao Tse.
Are you still giving away flyers and posting expensive banners on highly saturated advertising spots like everyone else? Have you ever wondered if you could still find a channel that you can effectively convert potential customers?
'Dumb' Phones to 'Smart' Phones: the technology advancement
Let's try to view it this way. Back in gradeschool, the only way I could get music was through a visit to a shop. I am an Eraserheads fan(local band), and when I go to my favorite music shop I go directly to the stand with label 'E' and find the EP there. When I want a dose of my favorite band, or just a catchy song, I just type it in Google, in Grooveshark, download it in Itunes or watch it in Youtube, Vimeo or Dailymotion. Notice how many options I have without living my house.
My grandfather used to live in the United States because he was a war veteran, and when we want to talk to him over the phone, we have to schedule it so that all my relatives will be there to talk to him. Since it was so expensive, we have talk time-limits! Now, when I want to talk to my dad back home, I could simply message him in Facebook and tell him to have a video call with me in Skype. Not only I can hear his voice, I could see him.
with the smartphones and tablets we can consume contents fast and convenient,
Bye Information age, hello Attention age
There's nothing new about the internet and it's ability to give us information, but what's new is how this information gets into the right person and relevant. Access to information is getting more abundant and could be created and shared instantly, but attention becomes more precious.
Getting information anywhere, anytime on whatever device, a new media is created - and this new media is a huge opportunity for large or small businesses. With this new media, businesses can now reach the right customers, understand them better, and measurable.
Integrate traditional marketing and digital marketing
In conclusion, you should need to integrate digital marketing in your marketing efforts because of tech advancement and the convenience it brings, the online population is growing really fast. With digital marketing, you could locate the customers that are looking for you and understand them with the tools that provide a lot of valuable data - did I mention that it's cheaper?
Korean kid was surprised to see my son. Looks like a "duel" is about to happen.
[Oct.03]
What to do in a national holiday? (and it fell on Monday, yoohoo!) We went to a public park just blocks away and relaxed. Some Korean kids were surprised when they saw my son, probably it was their first time to see a foreign kid. lol.
I like the floor, it's rubber
Weather was good, the playground is clean and safe, and the environment is great for kids.
I asked him: "what are you looking at?"
ah okay
I didn't know that he could jump that high
Back home, I hope they do something about our public parks. Going there gives you a feeling that it's unsafe - from dogs roaming around, and the facilities might just break.
Ex deals or work for free, that's how I started. It's a cliche but you really have to work hard to earn those "stripes" and companies only trust those who have experience and can deliver results from their investment. If you're just starting in digital marketing, or in any other field, this is the fastest way to get a client. And I'm telling you that the best part about it is that there's no pressure in your learning experience. You have all the time in the world to configure, analyze, and reflect in refining your skills.
few months ago… In the middle of August while I was browsing mindlessly on my Facebook stream, a thought came up telling me to look for something to practice.I caught Leowell Gonzales’ photo, checked his page and found a lot of awesome pictures. This guy has a talent, and he’s doing photography out of passion since he’s a Product Manager by profession (there's the story that people would love to hear).
I zoned out going back and forth on his website and blog, actively looking for opportunities on how I can help him. With the help of Firefox’s SEO quake, I viewed his source code for the meta data, checked his keywords, inbound and outbound links (link juice!), keyword density, page rank, cache date, the landing pages and some competitors - the whole nine-yards. It was a mine field, and I know I can offer something value for his venture.
After doing a quick site analysis, I shot an email to Leowell, outlining what I can do for him - he liked the idea and agreed for a collaboration.
Big Mac - it's my comfort food, and yes indeed "It's built to satisfy" me. A Korean Big Mac tastes sweeter, maybe because they want to pattern it with the famous bulgoggi burger. Koreans prefer a sweeter taste on their patties and of course it should have a blend of spiciness. The taste of the fries was consistent back home. The damage was around 200 pesos for the Big Mac.
Just a thought, they only have 11% VAT compared to the 12% back home but then I couldn't feel the benefits of paying VAT in the Philippines.
Upon careful deliberation, I checked-out Content Rules and it’s awesome! Three things about this book: Useful, Relevant, Friendly.
So why do I need a guide in writing contents? The thought came up when I was in the process of doing an on-page optimization and researching for keywords of Perspective Builders and Leowell Gonzales Photography. Every time I think for the “next step” it always revolved around creating contents!
Like the book said, contents with value is a way for businesses to reach out with their customers - effectively reach them that is. Contents are like “ambassadors” of a business, it shows if they’re experts in their industry or they offer quality products. It kind of hit me that customer-focused contents are a way that businesses survive.
So let’s say you’re done with on-page optimization, added some widgets, polished your Facebook Page and Twitter, made calculations on how effective your keywords are and composed your paid-search ads - after all of these suddenly we realize that we need to do something proactive, an action that reaches out letting your audience know that you can solve their problems. A bit of highlight, in my own words, on Content Rules:
contents should have a story, personality and true emotion
Insights is what sophisticated readers want to know
contents should solve a problem or share a story
I will leave it at that and I am hoping my content writing skills will develop in time.
Today I’m planning to get a good read about content development in Amazon . It is so convenient because you don’t need to go physically in bookstores, just one click in the Ipad and it gets wired in less than three minutes! I like their user-generated recommendation, helps my decision faster. I am considering buying these titles (tentative) for my ‘knowledge armory’:
Digital Impact: The Two Secrets to Online Marketing Success
Content Rules: How to create killer blogs….
Likeable Social Media: How to Delight customers….
But isn’t it enough that I have my daily dosage of digital marketing articles on Editions, Google Reader and Flipboards? Contents from Mashable, Digitalbuzz, IMedia Connection, Search Engine Journal, and Social media examiner? What the heck, I get a 10% discount if I purchase it, anyway. *kaching*
I recently gave thought on my social media stream of posts showing photographs of lunch food, from juicy steaks to cupcakes. There were many times I was forced to deviate from my lunch budget because I saw an inviting photo of a pasta streaming and it just so happened that there was a similar restaurant nearby serving it! *Kaching*.
There are a lot of reasons behind ‘foodtography’ but definitely people share gustatory-stimulating food photos because of special occasions and document it or it’s a self creation. Perhaps by sharing to everyone the food that is about to be enjoyed , makes it something “official”, sealing the deal. Also with the help of photoblogging apps, like Instagram, taking pictures of our lunch will be convenient and fun. Check-ins on Foursquare and Google+ are also fueling this trend.
So what can we take away from this?
A huge opportunity for brands. Notice on your Facebook stream that foodtography mostly involves only the food on the picture, people are almost never included. Restaurants or coffee chains should focus on compelling ‘food presentation’ so that their customers will shoot-and-share it. Second: the word-of-mouth marketing from customers/diners mentioning the brand when sharing it, what could be more effective than that! So the next time you are about to savor an ‘artsy’ presented meal with your special someone, get an angle, a suitable lighting, then shoot-and-share it like a professional food photographer.
I'm immersing myself in the world of digital media marketing and social media, which I will be sharing my insights and tell stories here. This is my journey in learning, and slowly mastering the complex, yet exciting, world of digital marketing.
To achieve this, I need to attain the 10,000 hour rule.
M.Gladwell’s Outliers said that to be the best in something you need to log 10,000 hours on that something.
Look at it this way:
(some time decades ago) A young highschool boy sneaks out every day from their house before dawn to go to his school's library - there he program codes. His parents' were always bewildered why he's always hard to wake up, groggy and all. He continued programming codes passionately, overcame challenges that when the tech trend came - he was prepared and a master. He founded Microsoft.
This is the story of why I now have two new adorable babies in my shoe cabinet despite an agreement between hubby and I that we (which actually means I) should wait out till our upcoming Seoul trip to shop. Ready?
Last Sunday, my sweetie and I went downtown to meet a few friends that we haven't seen for quite a time now. We were going to meet a friend and her kids over pizza, and another set of friends for pasta and risotto. Yummy right? So since it was a Sunday, the only day I don't work, and since we only planned on feasting with friends (no shopping remember?), I brought nothing but a small green clutch with my favorite lipstick, phone, a few bills and a card (just in case) all inside. Pizza was great, as well as our company. You can say everything was going really really great, even when the twins (our friend's sons) were running amok and blowing bubbles in their coke. Hours of hearty conversation and greasy cheesy pizza passed before the twins got a bit bored and restless. You know how kids get impatient right? So my poor friend had no choice but to end our little party and head home. That was around 7pm and hubby and I had half an hour left to ourselves before our next appointment.
To pass time and avoid the chilling wind, we decided to talk a walk and window shop along Hapsongdong's stretch of underground shopping. As how typical window shopping goes, we neither went nor attempted to go inside any of the shops, that is until I saw a chic shoe store branded "BINIBINI" with a certain "MARIO" designing the shoes. Naturally, I got curious and intrigued, and wowed by the prospect of a Filipino-made shoe amidst the sea of Korean, Chinese and Western shoes in South Korea. So we went in and I tried a couple of pairs on, upon the insistence of the nice saleslady. I won't deny that I was tempted to buy. Who wouldn't? But let me tell you. I did not. I held on to our no shopping agreement!
An ovation?
Not! Because right after we went out of that shoe store we discovered that my clutch was missing. What's worse is that neither of us could remember where we put it, left it nor could we remember the last time we really saw it. Infinitely stupid and careless, considering bare necessities are in that clutch. So we went back to pizza hut, with hopes of finding the clutch. To no avail. It wasn't there. So we had to retraced our steps while desperately ringing my phone over and over. What felt like an hour passed. We were about to give up when OMG! somebody answered my phone! Thanking the gods, I answered as best I could in my amateurish Korean, found out that I left my clutch in the same chic Binibini shoe store (What?!) and rushed over. We thanked the nice lady profusely and guess what?
Hubby coolly declared that I should buy shoes. We were thankful right? And so I did. Nude pumps and yellow peep toe heels! Yehey! 'Course I had to grin sheepishly when my husband joked about leaving his wallet at Parkland.
Anyway, the rest of the evening was more appreciated and happier. We all feel more grateful after we ALMOST but did not lose something valuable. Yes? So the carbonara was creamier, the seafood risotto spicier, and the company, well priceless.
