Sean Cook, CEO of ShopVisible and a participating speaker at the upcoming Digital Summit in Atlanta.
Sean Cook, CEO of Atlanta-based Shopvisible, saw a shirt he liked in a catalog on his dining room table. The retailer had a store nearby, so Cook bought the shirt.
Later that day, his wife received a discount coupon on her mobile phone for the same shirt and fowarded it to Cook’s email address. He later went online and ordered three more using the discount.
To reach today’s connected consumers, says Cook, you have to look at multiple channels and the “interconnectivity of devices.”
“We have an incredible amount of new clients coming in looking for our cross-channel capabilities (at Shopvisible),” Cook says.
Not a luxury, but a mandate
“Long term clients are embracing mobile, tablets, and social commerce as well. Given that consumers are in and out of all these channels during the day, it’s not a luxury to be in all those places, it is a mandate.”
For instance, he notes that conversion rates on mobile are not that high (at least not yet). “But you can see the impact it has on other conversions,” he adds.
Then there is the way tablets are influencing marketing. “There is a whole new language of user experience. Now, entire interfaces have to be designed for touch – how do you make it a touch-friendly experience?”
You can’t just restamp your website for tablets and mobile, Cook says. “You’re going to have to put effort into it – the mouse is not the same as your index finger or thumb.”
Strip away the clutter for touch screens
On mobile and tablets, “That often means stripping away stuff,” says Cook. “What can you pull out of the process to make it as efficient as possible?”
While Shopvisible encourages its clients to do locally specific offers, but Cook says it’s important to look at more than one data point. “I was looking for something on Amazon for a birthday my young daughter was attending and for the next three or four months, Amazon was convinced I was a Barbie enthusiast.”
So, he suggests, “Take more than one data point and make sure you continue to collect data and have an evolving set of offers for your customers.”
Participating in the Digital Summit
Cook is a frequent presenter and educator on the topic of integrated touch point commerce at conferences like Shop.org and Innovate.
Additionally, he has published articles in tier-one publications such as Forbes, 1to1 Magazine and Internet Retailer and his commentary has been included in popular retail and ecommerce publications like Website Magazine, Ecommerce Times and DMNews. In 2011, Cook was listed as a top 25 Entrepreneur to watch, by Business to Business Magazine.
He’ll join speakers from brands such as Google, AOL, The Huffington Post, Mashable, Twitter, Klout and Pandora, among others, at the upcoming Digital Summit in Atlanta May 9 and 10.
StreamSend, an email marketing service provider suggests tha three steps can successfully guide businesses in creating social marketing campaigns that add new social “fans” and build relationships with existing fans.
“Businesses can now leverage the power of social media to create profitable relationships,” said Dan Forootan, president of StreamSend Email Marketing.
“Each campaign creates a series of social contact points where customers can like or share the message, and send that message further into the social network to find more customers. Just how far it travels depends on the content value and how well the social campaign is executed. Here are the three important steps that clients report make the biggest difference for them.”
1. Craft the Message
What’s the point? Don’t take the first step until you know the destination: sales, page traffic; audience perception?
Know the audience, starting with their email address and opt-in status. Learn their preferences through two-way communications and analytics, then learn more by experimenting so you can further personalize.
Building a valued relationship depends on sending the right message at the right time to email and social audiences, based on customers’ wants and needs.
The best campaigns go light on sales, heavy on value — and the call to action is more like a way to keep the conversation going. Keep content light, fun and engaging and it will get shared.
2. Deliver with Impact
Let the nature of the message help determine which channels are most appropriate. Businesses can use email to automatically share campaigns and messages to Facebook fans, Twitter followers, Linked-In connections, Google+ and email subscribers — not to mention fan pages and blog embeds.
Keep it simple with email-social templates to avoid reinventing the wheel each campaign, while easily producing Facebook landing pages, creating engagement and delivering messages with professional-looking “Like” pages.
Viewers respond more enthusiastically and are more likely to share your messages with video. Email + video can show benefits instead of telling about them.
An imperative for email +video: have the ability to engage viewers directly from the email, rather than leaving the email to follow a link where it will play. This key feature will reveal all of their behavior for future message fine-tuning.
3. Make Measurement Count
Success can’t be measured without an established way to get metrics. Measurement can’t succeed without set benchmarks. It’s the starting line and the finish line of each campaign.
Reporting will show how campaigns drive page visits, shares, new Facebook fans and email subscribers so that it can all be tracked and the campaign success exactly measured to fine-tune future campaigns.
While consumers and marketers both say that interacting through social media has strong benefits, there is still more engagement and interaction required by both groups, according to Lithium Technologies, which sells customer experience solutions.
“There is no excuse anymore, when you consider the simplicity and sophistication with which marketers can monitor social customer experiences, engage and build communities around the brand, and clearly measure business value using tools like Lithium provides.”
“Consumers are increasingly expecting, even demanding, that brands interact with them through social media,” said Katy Keim, Lithium CMO.
“It’s not enough to just show up on social channels. Smart brands are taking control of social customer engagement by figuring out how to tackle meaningful activities with their social customers—things like collecting feedback and new product ideas.”
Consumers are influenced by social media and they expect a two-way dialog with brands across the social web, but rarely get it. A survey of consumer attitudes, conducted by Lithium in April and released during the Lithium Network Conference (LiNC) 2012, about social media reveals:
While 25% expect to hear back from a company when they tweet about a brand or product, only 9% have actually received a response
35% say after “liking” a brand on Facebook, they expect to hear from the company—yet 58% say that they have never received a response from company after “liking” it
Marketers need to demonstrate social media marketing ROI to the C-suite, but aren’t able to. A separate surveyof marketer attitudes around social media, conducted by Lithium and MarketingProfs in April, reveals:
74% of marketers say creating a community around their brand is a social media business objective—but only 18% of marketers say their company has an online community
86% say they actively use Facebook in their marketing efforts—but only 2.8% report that when fans “like” their brand on Facebook, it results in better quality interactions
42% say they are very concerned about demonstrating the value of social media to executive management—but only 4% say their ability to measure the overall impact of social media is excellent
31% say that customer retention is quite important, but only 4.6% of marketers say they are able to measure customer satisfaction (Net Promoter Score) extremely well
While social media marketing ROI remains elusive for most, findings indicate marketers who combine two assets well are best able to realize the full potential of social media and demonstrate the most impressive ROI:
Leading-edge technology—listening to social customers who want to be heard, building online communities to deepen social customer engagement.
A mature, strategic approach to measurement—tying social media objectives to real business outcomes like increasing revenue and driving awareness.
“There’s a clear disconnect between the value of social media and marketers’ ability to demonstrate and act on that value—but it doesn’t have to be that way,” said Keim. “There is no excuse anymore, when you consider the simplicity and sophistication with which marketers can monitor social customer experiences, engage and build communities around the brand, and clearly measure business value using tools like Lithium provides.”
While large portions of marketers are not yet truly measuring and understanding the impact of their social media efforts, a significant vanguard (35%) do say that social media marketing helps to meet primary business objectives better than most other channels.
In today’s data-driven world, companies strive to use all the information available to them to make the right decisions in improving sales, productivity, and efficiency—but new independent research challenges whether this is true in the creation and management of digital experiences, such as a company’s web sites and mobile applications.
Extractable, a leading digital design agency, commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a study on how companies across America use data to build better web experiences for their customers. The study, Data-Driven Design, looked at how companies use data, what tools they use, what hurdles they face, and what outcomes they are seeing for their websites and digital experiences.
The data-driven design process combines many quantitative and qualitative data inputs to understand users’ online behavior and hence craft more effective web and digital experiences. The study showed that 60% of firms surveyed had seen improvements in their website due to use of data. And, if the company also reported they had a repeatable design process the numbers reporting improvement grew to 71%.
Despite validating that firms using data-driven design had better website outcomes the study reported that only half (52%) of companies used a repeatable design process and that 57% used multiple data sources in their design process.
Other key findings from the study include:
Companies don’t know how or can’t apply the right tools and processes to optimize their sites. Only 28% of companies are happy with the tools and techniques they use to measure their websites today. As high as 52% believe there are other tools that could provide them with better insight.
Many firms are measuring the wrong kinds of data. Sites are often measured on metrics that don’t show business value. For example, 46% of respondents indicated they used “time on site” as a key measure. This doesn’t always indicate a positive experience—it could also mean that users are lost trying to navigate the site.
Some key data is being ignored. 37% report ignoring data that is uncovered and 34% that they gather data but do not use it. Sometimes this seems to be a factor of the ‘Highest Paid Person’s Opinion’ overriding the insights drawn from key data.
“Extractable has long been an advocate of using a data-driven design approach to create richer digital experiences for both businesses and website users,” said Simon Mathews, Chief Strategy Officer at Extractable.
“We commissioned this study to understand how companies across America were using data in their design process. The results are fascinating, both validating that using data to drive design improves a website’s experience for its users, but also uncovering that so many firms are missing out on opportunities by measuring the wrong data or not using the data they have.”
Are you a problem solving executive who knows how to motivate employees and can act with speed, agility and creativity in a changing market? If so, corporate America is looking for you, according to a survey from CareerBuilder and HeadHunter.com.
Information technology, sales, and marketing execs are tops on the want list.
The hiring landscape for executives is improving along with the rest of the labor market, according to the survey.
Thirty-one percent of employers expect to hire for executive-level positions over the next six months, up from 23 percent in October’s forecast.
The study also looks at the number of Millennials* who are in executive positions today and explores the deficits in diverse workers and women in executive roles
Executive Hiring Outlook Employers are recruiting senior leadership for a range of business functions, but certain areas will see the most focus. Of employers hiring executives, nearly a quarter (24 percent) will hire in business development, followed by information technology (23 percent), sales (22 percent), marketing (19 percent) and accounting/finance (19 percent).
“Hiring trends for executive-level management mirror what we’re seeing in the labor market for all workers,” said Brent Rasmussen, president of CareerBuilder North America.
“As companies look to expand their sales force, develop new products and improve their tech infrastructure, the need for diverse, experienced leadership grows along with these initiatives.”
Demographic Profile of Executive-level Employees When asked about the demographic makeup of their executive employees, many hiring managers revealed that they are still lacking diverse leadership at their organizations.
More than one-in-five (22 percent) companies still do not have female executives, and two-in-five companies (41 percent) do not have executive-level employees in any of the following demographics: African American, Hispanic, Asian, LGBT, Disabled, etc.
However, with the emergence of digital, mobile and IT as high-growth sectors, more Millennials are climbing their way to the top. Twenty percent of employers say they have executives under the age of 30.
Qualities Employers are Looking for in Executive Candidates Prior experience in the industry is a crucial requisite for landing a top job, according to most hiring managers, but 35 percent say they’ll consider candidates who don’t have background in the industry.
Often times, prior accomplishments and leadership ability trumps industry expertise.
The following are qualities employers look for most in executive level candidates:
Proven ability in addressing problems with effective solutions (62 percent)
Adept at motivating others (54 percent)
Can act with speed and agility in a changing market (47 percent)
Is creative (43 percent)
Has emotional intelligence (38 percent)
Experience in different areas (37 percent)
Only one-in-five (20 percent) look for an MBA, comparable, or higher-level degree, when evaluating executive candidates.
Email is still the marketers top online tool, says Amanda Steinberg, founder & CEO of DailyWorth.com, but engaging in best practices will improve your results.
DailyWorth emails its financial advice to 250,000 women a day. The site has garnered publicity form
New York Times, Forbes, USA Today, and a recent 2-page spread in Cosmopolitan magazine. Prior to DailyWorth, Steinberg owned and operated multiple Website development consultancies. A graduate of Columbia University, Steinberg also contributes to ForbesWoman.com.
Steinberg is one of dozens of digital experts participating in the upcoming Digital Summit in Atlanta May 9-10. She’ll join speakers from Google, Gilt, Mashable, The Huffington Post, Twitter, Klout, and many other firms at the event, which had fewer than 100 seats left.
Steinberg will be talking about email best practices. We asked her for some of her top email marketing tips.
First, she says, “Put a lot of thought and effort into your subject line. That’s the moment you’ll capture your reader or not. Too many email marketers use generic or repetitive subject lines. Use something that gets them to open it.”
Second, “Keep your content really short. One of the things I’ve learned is that people are just getting buried in their email. So editing and honing down what you’re sending is critical. We keep them to no more than 200 words.
Third, “Keep your list 100 percent opt-in. If someone doesn’t understand they’re signing up for it, it can do more to hurt you than help you.”
Fourth, “Don’t send your emails at 7 a.m. when everyone is mass delete mode. Send it late afternoon.”
She also says that the best way to market an email newsletter is to barter, exchange and advertise with other email newsletters.
“Email is best path to more email,” she says.
DailyWorth, she says, “Delivers one piece of financial advice a day, often telling a story.” She says they measure ten metrics, open rate, click through rate, shares, likes, and comments generated.
Americans are growing more frustrated with customer service and businesses are feeling the heat as consumers tell an increasing number of people about both their positive and poor service experiences.
The 2012 American Express Global Customer Service Barometer also found that consumers who have used social media for service wield the greatest amount of influence.
They tell significantly more people about their service experiences, and say they’d spend 21% more with companies who deliver great service – compared to 13% on average.
At the TechJournal, we’ve heard from numerous social media marketing experts that customer service is a primary use of both Facebook and Twitter for many firms.
But the survey, which was conducted in the U.S. and ten other countries, also reveals a sorry state of service in general.
Nine in ten of Americans surveyed (93%) say that companies fail to exceed their service expectations. What’s more, one out of two respondents (55%) walked away from an intended purchase in the past year because of a poor customer service experience.
One in five consumers used social media for customer service
The most popular ways consumers address service inquiries continue to be speaking to a live representative (either on the phone or face-to-face), and through company website or e-mail.
That said, one in five consumers (17%) say they’ve used social media at least once in the last year to obtain a customer service response, and this relatively small group of consumers is extremely engaged and vocal.
“Delivering outstanding service creates impassioned advocates and can serve as a powerful marketing weapon for companies,” said Jim Bush, executive vice president, World Service, American Express.
“For example, consumers who have used social media for service in the last year are willing to pay a 21% premium at companies that provide great service. They also tell three times as many people about positive service experiences compared to the general population.”
“Ultimately, getting service right with these social media savvy consumers can help a business grow.”
People who use social media service spend more
People who have used social media for customer service at least once in the last year are willing to spend substantially more (21%) with companies they believe provide great service – in contrast with the general population (13% more) and those who have not used social media for customer service (11% more).
They are also far more vocal about service experiences, both good and bad. In addition, more than 80% of these consumers say they’ve bailed on a purchase because of a poor service experience, compared to 55% overall.
Service Topic
Consumers Who Haven’t Used Social Media for Customer Service
General Population
Consumers Who Have Used Social Media for Customer Service
Additional amount consumers are willing to
spend for excellent service
11% more
13% more
21% more
Have not completed an intended purchase
because of a poor customer service
experience in the past year
49%
55%
83%
Number of people consumers will tell about
good customer service experiences
9 people
15 people
42 people
Number of people consumers will tell about
bad customer service experiences
17 people
24 people
53 people
Consumers who have used social media for customer service do it for a number of reasons. The “Social Top 5” activities for these Americans are:
1) Seeking an actual response from a company about a service issue – 50%
2) Praising a company for a great service experience – 48%
3) Sharing information about your service experience with a wider audience – 47%
4) Venting frustration about a poor service experience – 46%
5) Asking other users how to have better service experiences – 43%
However, these consumers feel companies are getting better at social media service: 60% of this group feels companies have improved their response times through social media over the past year.
Eyes on the Prize
Social media is not the only way people are spreading the word about their customer service experiences.
The general population will tell significantly more people about their customer service experiences than in 2011, highlighting the importance for businesses of treating every customer interaction as an opportunity to build customer loyalty and a positive brand image.
Americans will tell an average of 15 people about positive experiences – up 67% from 9 last year.
Americans will tell an average of 24 people about poor experiences – up 50% from 16 in 2011.
More than three in five Americans (61%) feel companies have not increased their focus on providing better service, and of this group, 32% feel businesses are paying less attention to providing good customer service – an increase from 2011 (26%).
This dissatisfaction with the state of customer service overall helps ensure companies that deliver great experiences are recognized – and rewarded.
Two in three Americans (66%) said they would spend an average of 13% more with a company that provides excellent customer service – matching 2011 and up from 9% more in 2010.
“Companies must keep their eyes on the prize when it comes to customer service,” said Bush.
“Outstanding service means exceeding customers’ expectations as you seek to meet their needs. Companies that do this consistently understand that exceptional service is a real competitive advantage.”
Getting a handle on marketing analytics, online reputation and website performance can be more than a handful for small businesses. In addition to the learning curve – what should you pay attention to – it’s downright time consuming.
Today, Yahoo! Small Business has launched a new free tool, Yahoo! Marketing Dashboard, that may help you manage it all in one spot. It’s part of Yahoo’s move toward providing business services and data.
We’re going to give it a look and will report back to you on what we think.
Here’s what Yahoo has to say about it:
The dashboard helps entrepreneurs discover new marketing opportunities to grow their businesses, while getting a clear picture of their marketing results, online reputations, and website performance, all in one place.
“This dashboard will give small businesses a clear understanding of the effectiveness of their online marketing campaigns, especially those created in partnership with Constant Contact.”
Designed specifically with the small business owner in mind, the Yahoo! Marketing Dashboard provides a clear, consolidated picture of a business’s marketing results and reputation, making it easier to discover new insights and develop new ideas for growth.
The tool also enables small businesses to easily analyze website metrics and maintain accurate and comprehensive business listings across the Web.
With all these key business metrics accessible in one location, small business owners with limited resources can spend more time focusing on their core businesses and less time buried in multiple interfaces and spreadsheets.
Some of the key features included in the free Yahoo! Marketing Dashboard include:
Search engine and directory listings: Enables monitoring and provides recommendations on new listing opportunities, covering over 100sites (including Yelp, Yahoo! Local, and more)
Online reputation management: Pulls information from up to 8,000 sources (including Facebook and Twitter)
Site traffic analysis: Enables users to understand key website performance metrics (including Google Analytics)
Small business-focused news and advice: Provided from Yahoo! Small Business Advisor
Campaign tracking: Provides email marketing, SEO, and SEM campaign tracking (must subscribe to these services)
Support: 24/7 in-house free customer support
Additionally, business owners can opt for paid premium services within the Yahoo! Marketing Dashboard that enable them to enhance their marketing and analysis. For example:
Local Visibility Pro: Small businesses can increase their online visibility by submitting their business information to over 100 search engines and directories
Reputation Management Pro: Users get more comprehensive data, plus the ability to track their competitors, receive email alerts, and share positive customer comments via social channels or email
Integrated campaign tracking: Small businesses can also attract new customers by taking advantage of marketing services from featured, best-in-class third party marketing vendors, including Constant Contact and OrangeSoda, and display and monitor results from campaigns with those vendors from within the Yahoo! Marketing Dashboard
“We created the Yahoo! Marketing Dashboard to help small business owners who feel overwhelmed by online marketing options and monitoring a wide range of sites and so cial networks to keep up with customer feedback,” said Shannon Parker Hane, director of product marketing, Yahoo! Small Business.
“Now, within a single tool customers can conveniently evaluate their marketing options, campaign results and online reputation without having to search across the Web for information.”
Have something you want to sell on Pinterest? A new site, Pin2Sell.com, allows anyone with a PayPal account to create purchasable products and post them directly on Pinterest.
Created by Chicago-based Clique Studios, an interactive and eCommerce agency based in Chicago, the service is completely free and enables users to sell items without signing up for any additional services.
With over 10 million users, Pinterest’s base is intensely loyal, spending 88 minutes bookmarking every day. They are also social, driving more third-party traffic than Google, LinkedIn and YouTube combined.
Here at the Techjournal we’ve seen many social networks launch in the last five years and none vaulted into the top ranks as fast as Pinterest. It’s clear focus on visuals let it grab a significant set of people interested in food, fashion, infographics and photos.
So, we suspect Pinsell is going to do well.
The perfect place for social commerce
“It just seems like the perfect place for social commerce,” said Ted Novak. “Pin2Sell makes it incredibly easy and integrated. Just take a picture, enter the price and your PayPal account, and your Pin can be purchased by anybody who is interested in it.”
A growing market, social commerce is expected to reach $30 billion in annual sales by 2015. Etsy, a peer-to-peer site for vintage and handmade products, reported $62.8 million in goods sold and 1.35 billion pageviews in March 2012 alone.
“As an eCommerce agency, we see the trends on social commerce and the loyalty that exists on Pinterest. It just seemed like there needed to be a solution, so we came up with Pin2Sell,” says Derek Nelson, Clique’s creative director.
“When testing, our test pins would be up for less than a minute, and almost each one was re-pinned by a complete stranger by the time we deleted them.”
Pin2Sell is available now for free at Pin2Sell.com.
One of the first things you notice checking your website analytics is that you likely have a high bounce rate. That means that huge percentage of your visitors didn’t convert. “Many people leave after seeing just one page,” says Kevin Lee, CEO of Didit. “That means they didn’t take the action you wanted them to.”
That action might be to subscribe to a newsletter, sign up for a webinar or event, or buy a product.
Big data offers new possibilities
With all the big data on Internet users available today, Lee says, it’s possible to retarget users after they leave your site. “It’s a way to follow them around the web by taking advantage of technologies available now. The whole concept of retargeting is to get additional bites of the apple from people who visited but didn’t convert. You work hard to get people to your site and spend money and time to get them there through paid search and social media campaigns.”
But, not everyone is ready to take action when they come to your site. “Getting those extra bites of the apple can be useful for getting them to take the action you want,” says Lee.
Lee is an industry pioneer in search engine marketing and digital marketing since 1995 has authored hundreds of ClickZ columns and his most recent of three books Search Engine Advertising is widely praised. He leads the evolution of Didit’s proprietary Maestro search and auction- based display campaign optimization technology.
Lee pioneered the area of holistic search-display campaign management and Didit offers Maestro as managed technology. Didit’s growth earned Didit Inc. 500 & Deloitte fast 500 recognition. Kevin has spoken at over 450 conferences sharing best practices. In addition, Kevin served on the Board of Directors of SEMPO (9 years). Kevin is also active in cause marketing as a founder of We-Care.com.
Lee earned his MBA from Yale School of Management in 1992, and was recognized as an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year finalist in 2008 and 2009. He’s one of dozens of top thought leaders in the digital arena participating in the upcoming Digital Summit in Atlanta May 9-10. Fewer than 100 seats remain for the event, which also features speakers from Google, Klout, Twitter, Huffington Post, Mashable and Gilt, among many others.
It takes time
Lee says that trying to segment your site’s visitors into categories that identify those for specific retargeting efforts can be handled manually, “Although that may not be your best choice.” He notes that there are a lot of third party vendors who do segmentation and many marketing agencies can do it as well.
Segmenting means that you may decide that someone visiting your “Contact us” page is more important for retargeting than someone just hitting “any old page.”
So, you would create a tagging code, similar to a web tracking code, except that it applies only to that specific “Contact us” page. “Only people visiting that page would be targeted with a specific message.”
The reason Lee suggests using third party vendors, he says, is that segmenting users and retargeting them “Takes a lot of hours. Do you want to learn it on your time? Vendors doing it won’t be doing it for the first time and you won’t be their first client. So, rather than going through a learning curve, it’s sometimes better to engage a professional with the tools and expertise at his fingertips.”
Some retargeting might take the products a visitor looked at and mash them up in a banner with some call to action.
Don’t creep them out
You do have to use retargeting with some sensitivity regarding privacy issues. “One had to understand the responsibility of a marketer not to be creepy. It can be done so that it seems serendipitous – wow, what a cooincidence I was just at that site. But if you bump it up too high it can seem creepy.”
For instance, Lee says, “There is the element of shared computers. I would be creeped out if I sat down to use a home computer and saw an ad come up saying, “Are you still looking for a divorce attorney?” (Not that he is, this is just an example).
“That breaks through a privacy barrier” the user probably won’t appreciate. “You have to think through each case and whether or not it is appropriate.”
In many cases, people are willing to opt in to having ads personalized for them. And in B2B campaigns it’s not so much of a problem, he adds.
His company Didit is using opt-in personalized ads in its own marketing campaigns. There may be more specific places people can do that in the future.
Businesses in the U.S. and the U.K. are embracing the use of Twitter and Facebook – particularly for customer service – but find that measuring success is a challenge.
Sword Ciboodle, a global provider of customer solutions, and customer experience advisory thinkJar, released the results of a research survey targeting US and UK companies with medium- to large-sized contact centers on their use of social media specifically for customer service.
More than half of companies using Facebook, Twitter
The analysis covers topics such as the longevity and maturity of the social customer service practice, the integration of social channels with traditional channels, and the decision and selection criteria used to determine social customer service programs.
More than half of the companies surveyed are using Twitter (59 percent) and Facebook (60 percent) with 85 percent of those using one using both.
While social channels are widely used, participants showed that justification and validation of social customer service is proving to be a challenge.
Those findings jibe with what digital marketing experts who attend TechMedia’s events have been telling me: customer service is the number one business use for Twitter and Facebook, but determining ROI can be difficult.
Differences in how social channels are used, and factors such as an organization’s size, industry and geography play an important role. Companies are wrestling with integration of data, as well as finding the right balance between social customer service and more “traditional” channels, the survey suggests.
Size matters. For example, 40 percent of respondents in companies with 1000 or more contact center agents say that their social customer service initiatives have been in place for at least two years.
In contrast, 53 percent of companies with smaller contact centers say that current programs were implemented within the past year to two years.
The reasons behind the move of all companies, regardless of size, to social customer service is customer driven, with 56 percent of respondents implementing social customer service due to customer request, compared with 40 percent that put the programs in place to keep up with competitors.
“What’s important for every organization to realize is, while social channels are constantly evolving, they are not new anymore,” said Mitch Lieberman, vice president of Market Strategy at Sword Ciboodle.
“The most successful customer service program will happen for businesses who incorporate social into their overall customer engagement practices, and really keep pace with the way their customers are communicating with them in all areas.”
To download a full copy of the research “We Are Social: The State of Social Customer Service”, which includes full survey research findings and conclusions, visit: www.sword-ciboodle.com/socialcustomerservice.
Hydra, which sells software-as-a-service tools for digital marketers, is inviting professionals in digital marketing to answer a five-minute survey on the “State of Search Integration.”
Hydra’s annual “State of Search Integration – 2012“, research aims to gain intelligence and insight on the digital marketing industry, find out how organisations are managing the discipline and to what extent the integration across different channels of search – Natural Search, Paid Search and Social Media, has shifted.
Hydra invites digital marketers and practitioners in this field to participate by submitting their responses to the five minutesurvey, currently open for completion until Friday 11 May 2012.
Together with receiving the full findings, respondents will also be entered into a draw for three months free use of Hydra’s One Platform.
Some key findings to emerge from Hydra’s 2011 survey revealed:
55% of digital marketers did not know which words or expressions being used in the market were worth spending money on when it came to gaining optimum returns campaign-wise
One third of digital marketers felt that less than 50% of their needs were being met by their current tool set
In firms where multiple digital marketing teams existed, 35% of respondents stated their teams interacted rarely or not at all. In effect, teams on different channels predominantly operated as separate entities
Measuring performance for terms at a granular level and discovering new high value keywords proved challenging for most marketers
Teams sharing terms between disciplines displayed greater confidence in dealing with them when compared to their peers working in isolation
The Obama campaign is outpacing the GOP with digital display ads 10-1.
Political campaigns are increasingly using social media marketing to get their messages out and engage with supporters, according to a new report from digital measurement service comScore.
The report, Digital Politico: 5 Ways Digital Media is Shaping the 2012 Presidential Election, examines key trends shaping the current election cycle in areas such as social media, digital advertising, and paid search.
“Digital media has emerged over the past few election cycles as a formidable platform for political campaigns, providing the ability to efficiently target campaign messages and reach key voting constituencies at a fraction of the cost of traditional media,” said Andrew Lipsman, VP of Industry Analysis at comScore.
“Political blogs, online advertising and online fundraising have helped shape the past few elections, but 2012 will almost certainly be remembered as the ‘social media election’ given how central Facebook and Twitter have become to the current digital battleground.”
Key findings highlighted in the Digital Politico report include:
Digital Advertising Plays an Increasingly Prominent Role in Campaigns
While TV and radio ads still dominate campaign expenditures, digital advertising has grown in use with each succeeding campaign cycle. In the past six months, the Obama campaign has outpaced Republicans’ digital display ad presence by a ratio of 10 to 1, leading with the highest share of voice in online display ad impressions (86 percent) in February compared to Republican candidates.
Social Media Delivers Valuable Amplified Exposure for Campaigns
Through social media, some candidates’ campaigns have been able to deliver earned media impressions that are similar in scale – and in some cases much larger – than the number of impressions delivered by their paid display ad campaigns. An analysis of Facebook earned impressions and total paid display ad impressions in January 2012 reveals that Ron Paul managed to more than double his paid media exposure with earned impressions, reflecting the efficiency of social media. In contrast, Mitt Romney received only half as many earned impressions as paid impressions while Rick Santorum almost matched his paid total.
Social Media Facilitates Online Fundraising
An analysis of the donation rate among Barack Obama’s total social audience on Facebook, which includes fans and their friends, compared to donors who were not among these segments showed that fans and friends donated at a rate 2.5 times that of the non-fans. However, despite their higher likelihood of giving, fans and friends of fans actually donated less per person on average than the other non-fan donor segment, reflecting their younger age profile.
Political Sites & Blogs Reach Across Aisle, But Still Engage Partisan Visitors More Heavily
An analysis of the political affiliation of visitors to selected political blogs and sites generally shows higher percentages of visitors who are aligned with the sites’ political leanings. While these sites simultaneously attract visitors from both sides of the political spectrum, visitors who tended to side with the site’s partisan leanings exhibited higher engagement in terms of share of time spent on the site. For instance, while TalkingPointsMemo.com shows a notable percentage of Republican visitors to the site, Democrats account for the vast majority of time spent on the site at 70 percent.
Paid Search Use by Candidates Ramps Up Leading Into 2012
While the leading Republican candidates did minimal paid search advertising throughout 2011, they ramped up their paid search activity significantly toward the end of the year and coming into 2012.
In the last six months, more than 60 percent of click-throughs to BarackObama.com came from paid search ads – the highest among the candidates. Search engine click-throughs to RickSantorum.com were also driven by a similarly high percentage at 56 percent.
Kyle Lacy - Principal, Marketing Research and Education, ExactTarge
By Allan Maurer
Today’s world of digital marketing is not a nine-to-five job. “It doesn’t matter when you’re working, it matters when the customer is buying and using your product,” says Kyle Lacy, principal for marketing reserch and education at ExactTarget, which sells interactive marketing solutions.
“If you’re a retailer and you are not following and using social media on a Saturday, one of the biggest retail days of the week, do you have an issue? In my mind you do. If I’m having a bad experience and tweeting about it in your store but I don’t get an answer until Monday, you missed an opportunity.”
Lacy is the author of two critically acclaimed books, Twitter Marketing for Dummies (2nd ed) and Branding Yourself (2nd ed). Prior to ExactTarget, Kyle co-founded a marketing technology company, helping over 350 clients build and deliver digital marketing experiences. He is one of dozens of top speakers at the upcoming Digital Summit in Atlanta May 9-10.
At the event he’ll focus on stories about clients who used email, social, and mobile channels to attract new customers, build community, and increase sales performance.
The rise of media where people can send a live message to millions in a split second has destroyed the traditional idea of marketing communications, Lacy says.
Branding Yourself
In his book, “Branding Yourself,” Lacy explains how business owners and employees can tell a story that applies specifically to the business or owner “So people remember you for what you’re good at.”
Lacy says, “We all have stories that are unique to us and no one else can tell that story.” To tell it, he adds, “You need to understand what you do best.”
He recommends starting by writing a one-sentence pitch. “What do you do best and and want people to remember? If someone asks us what ExactTarget does, they not going to remember we’re an interactive marketing hub, so we tell a story about how a specific client uses us to generate more business.”
To be effective, you have to make your story personal and memorable. “It’s like those old sales videos where they tell you if you see a bass plaque on the customers wall, be sure to talk about fishing. It’s the same idea.
We discussed the way marketers are using Twitter, which some reports say is not a particularly good channel for sales.
“How you use Twitter depends upon your company and your strategy,” Lee says. “It can be used for lead generation and our research shows it does drive traffic. The question is whether social drives traffic to lead generation opportunities such as webinars and such. “It’s a quick communication channel we’re seeing more and more companies use for customer service or education. It’s valuable if your customer is using it.”
Millennial shoppers, those ages 18-34, now represent the highest percentage of Americans who do not have enough money to cover their basic needs according to WSL/Strategic Retail, the leading authority on shopper behavior and retail trends.
The finding, which noted that nearly 25% of this young adult market say they are not able to make ends meet – as compared to 17% of adults ages 35-54, and only 13% of those age 55 and over – was revealed as part of the Company’s How America Shops MegaTrends report, Moving On 2012.
“The young adult market has always been known for being the most fashion forward, first to respond to trends and first to adopt to new retail channels,” said Candace Corlett, President of WSL/Strategic Retail. “But they’re also the group that’s been hit hardest by the economic recession which has left them struggling to find jobs and pay down student loan debt.”
Wendy Liebmann, CEO of the Company said, “This decline in Millennial spending power presents a significant challenge to brands and retailers who have long considered young adults to be the ‘golden ticket’ to sales growth. Businesses must begin rethinking their strategy to lure these shoppers to buy. At the same time, they must reevaluate the power of this generation to support new brands and stores.”
The How America Shops® MegaTrends report, Moving On 2012, found that:
80% of Millennials believe it’s important to get the lowest price on most things I buy.
60% are likely to choose a lower priced brand over their usual, if they can save money.
57% of this demographic make a point to search online for discounts before shopping.
63% are now sticking to only those brands and stores they know they can afford.
The findings gain significance when compared with results of the 2010 MegaTrends study, showing a full 10% increase in those who now make getting the lowest price a priority – even over long-held brand loyalty.
Freelancer.com, an outsourcing and crowdsourcing marketplace, today announced its 50 fastest growing online job categories for the first quarter of 2012 with the release of the Freelancer Fast 50.
CEO Matt Barrie, said the Freelancer.com Fast 50 pulls data from over 3.3 million users and 1.5 million projects creating the most comprehensive insight into online job trends.
“We have seen a huge increase in outsourcing on the whole, with businesses rethinking their strategies moving into the New Year,” Barrie said.
Over 170,000 jobs were posted in the first quarter of 2012, up from 130,000 in the previous quarter. “Projects are up over 30% compared to the previous quarter. The huge growth in outsourcing is made up of a wide range of different types of projects being completed in countries all across the globe,” Barrie said.
“In a difficult global economic climate, businesses are looking to optimize their cost base and are therefore looking to online freelancers as a profit driver. This has seen significant job growth on the Freelancer.com marketplace despite challenging broader economic conditions,” Barrie said.
TOP TRENDS FOR Q1 2012:
● Outsourcing surges with a rise in business process outsourcing: Outsourcing of backoffice and non-core functionality has seen a dramatic rise in the last quarter with Business
Process Outsourcing (BPO) showing the highest growth of any job category in Q1 of 2012.
BPO (up by 303% to 5,150 jobs) performed the strongest, with Data Processing (up 187% to 18,349 jobs) and Data Entry (up 111% to 30,837 jobs) also very strong performers for the quarter.
SMEs are also turning to online freelancers as a cost-effective means of providing around-theclock customer support. This is underlined by strong growth in Customer Support jobs (up by 89% to 1,173 jobs).
Huge increase in VA jobs as businesses focus on core activities: Virtual Assistant jobs (up by 144% to 3205 jobs) have seen a surge in this quarter. SMEs, who traditionally do office administration in-house, are outsourcing these tasks as a result of the comparatively low cost of off-shore labour. This allows them to focus on core business activities and remain competitive, which is critical for survival in a challenging economic climate.
● Mobile app development grows as smart phones show no sign of slowing: Android (up by 26% to 2,863 jobs), iPhone (up by 27% to 4,318 jobs) and iPad (up by 19% to 1,828 jobs), with “post-PC device” sales outstripping that of personal computers and a slew of new models hitting the market, the number of jobs in these areas has seen a steady increase. The demand for mobile developers has been insatiable and will continue to grow as more businesses seek to offer their products and services on these platforms.
● Open Standards will own the Web: HTML5 (up 48% to 2,160 jobs) continues its ascent as the de-facto Web 2.0 standard. The continued growth of “post-PC” devices and their support of next generation open web standards such as HTML5 has seen many businesses invest in Web 2.0 technologies such as jQuery (up 39% to 2,324 jobs). This has been to the detriment of older and proprietary technologies such as Flash (down 1% to 2,697 jobs). The continued high growth of post-PC devices, and iOS’s lack of support for Flash, has forced many companies to switch to supported open standards.
● Losers: SEO (up by 8% to 10,152 jobs) has remained comparatively stagnant. Despite a stronger recovery for SEO in late 2011, Google’s constant fight against low quality link building has had a major impact on the SEO industry – causing significant pain recently for ecommerce and blog sites by delisting major link networks.
Google’s latest revision of its Panda algorithm punishes “over optimized” sites and articles but even seems to hurt some totally legitimate sites. We noticed it here at the TechJournal and we use only straight-forward SEO practices.
This data was extracted from 172,936 jobs posted on Freelancer.com in Q1 2012. The
Freelancer.com Freelancer Fast 50 is the leading gauge of online hiring trends.
According to the report, it takes a minimum of 25 hours per week to see worthwhile results from social media efforts – insight that has long eluded small businesses and nonprofits struggling to find the right market mix in today’s digital economy.
Now available at www.DitchDigitalDabbling.com, the report aggregates responses from small businesses and nonprofits in many sectors including women-owned, minority-owned, and socially responsible.
Only five media tools rated very effective
A joint research project by Message Medium and Ventureneer, the Ditch Digital Dabbling survey definitively outlines the online marketing tactics that work best and highlights new revelations, including the fact that “Power Users” rate only 5 social media tools as very effective.
“While many small businesses and nonprofits market online, very few have a firm grasp of the strategies, tactics, and tools to do it well in spite of the overload of how-to information,” explained Message Medium president Maisha Walker. “Rather than adding to the noise, we wanted to share real-world insights and success stories, gleaned from their peers who were facing similar challenges.”
By showing which online marketing and social media strategies have and haven’t worked, the survey results act as a research-driven road-map to saving small businesses time and money when putting together their own marketing plans.
“The survey confirms that you can’t get the best results from online marketing programs unless you know how to effectively measure whether you’re achieving your goals or not,” commented Ventureneer president Geri Stengel.
“While we found that a majority of companies attempt to measure performance, they don’t understand what actually works. The concept of trying, measuring, and tweaking — almost in real time — is new, but it’s as critical to effectiveness as is time spent.”
The Ditch Digital Dabbling Executive Summary is available for free download, in addition to the comprehensive report with in-depth case studies, detailed survey figures, and more, visit www.DitchDigitalDabbling.com.
We’re always hearing that print is dead or that email is dead or that direct marketing is dead, but “Nothing in the marketer’s bag of tricks dies. Some just become less important,” says Laurie Hood, vice president of product marketing at Atlanta-based digital marketing firm Silverpop.
When it comes to email, a Silverpop focus, “Social is where people are having the conversation, but email is still where they are converting,” Hood says.
Hood is one of dozens of participants in the upcoming Digital Summit in Atlanta May 9-10. Fewer than 100 seats remain for conference, which includes sessions on Social, Mobile, Usability, Video, Search, Analytics, Email, Ecommerce, Data and more. It includes speakers from Google, Klout, Twitter, Pandora, The Onion, Huffington Post, myYearbook, Turner, Mashable and Adobe.
You have to be multichannel
Hood says that today’s marketer needs to be multi-channel. Some people may long for that time 20 years ago when you had a folder with product brochures and if fancy, a CD and, Hood says, “That was your whole world.”
Today’s prospects and customers, however, “Are multi-channel. So you have to figure out where your customers are and then what your participation in those channels will be.”
She adds, “You can’t not be in social channels and we see our clients using them as acquisition or for conversion connections, but ultimately, if you’re selling something, use email.”
Marketers have to analyze all the channels and decide on a strategy, she says. “Your CEO is going to read an article on Pinterest and come in wanting to know what your Pinterest strategy is.”
Still, she notes, “People are still struggling to find a return-on-investment through social channels.” Some vendors have even shut down their social storefronts.
Social channels do have their uses. Social sign-ins via Facebook or Twitter, for instance, make it much easier than filling out a form to subscribe to a newsletter, opt-in to a service, or register to receive offers.
Hood notes, “Seventy-percent of people prefer social sign-ins over forms.”
Three tips on multi-channel marketing
Hood offers the following advice on multi-channel marketing:
First, she says, “Grow your email database using your social networks. Add email opt-in and lead generation forms to your Facebook page.
Next, “Design campaigns around the idea of social sharing using buttons and that underlying technology. Think of content that’s going to be suitable to share on social networks.
And then, she concludes, “You’ll want to understand the social sharing patterns of your customers and prospects. Identify key influencers and provide them with specific offers and content to share in their social channels.
Matt Peters, co-founder & creative director, Pandemic Labs, during his presentation at the Internet Summit in November. His company has done significant research since then on how brands can increase their Facebook engagement. (Photo by Allan Maurer)
By Allan Maurer
While brands have been climbing on the Facebook bandwagon for quite a while, many of them are not getting the engagement they could from the social network, says Matt Peters, co-founder and director of Pandemic Labs, a social media marketing and analytics agency.
In fact, most brands rely heavily on the least engaging Facebook posts – those with just links. They also do most, if not all of their posts during business hours – although most of their customers are likely to go to the site evenings and weekends.
Pandemic Labs has collected a vast amount of data even since his appearance at the Internet Summit in November 2011. Peters plans to share insights from that research on increasing Facebook engagement during his presentation at the upcoming Digital Summit in Atlanta May 9 and 10.
Pandemic Labs uses neuroscience and analytics to determine successful best practices for brands that want seriously improved Facebook engagement. It calls its work the “Science of social.”
The company recently received third-party validation that its tactics do indeed work.
On March 22, 2012, L2 released its 2012 Digital IQ Index for hotels. Pandemic Labs client, The Ritz-Carlton, ranked 5th in overall score out of over 50 hotel brands from around the world, and holds the top spot for Facebook Engagement. Social media constitutes only 20% of the overall ranking, but The Ritz-Carlton had an extremely strong showing in the social arena. The Ritz-Carlton is shown to have the most engaging global Facebook Page of any hotel brand in the world. Pandemic Labs has been working with The Ritz-Carlton for years to design and execute a best-in-class social media presence focused on consumer engagement and value.
Meanwhile, here’s a glance at some of what Pandemic Labs discovered about Facebook brand engagement in an infographic the company created:
StreamSend
While consumers and marketers both say that interacting through social media has strong benefits, there is still more engagement and interaction required by both groups, according to 
In today’s data-driven world, companies strive to use all the information available to them to make the right decisions in improving sales, productivity, and efficiency—but new independent research challenges whether this is true in the creation and management of digital experiences, such as a company’s web sites and mobile applications.
Are you a problem solving executive who knows how to motivate employees and can act with speed, agility and creativity in a changing market? If so, corporate America is looking for you, according to a survey from CareerBuilder and HeadHunter.com.
Getting a handle on marketing analytics, online reputation and website performance can be more than a handful for small businesses. In addition to the learning curve – what should you pay attention to – it’s downright time consuming.
Have something you want to sell on Pinterest? A new site, 
Hydra,
Millennial shoppers, those ages 18-34, now represent the highest percentage of Americans who do not have enough money to cover their basic needs according to WSL/Strategic Retail, the leading authority on shopper behavior and retail trends.
