Tiffany Zimmermann

Like test driving new cars? Like playing Pong? Then it’s a shame you missed out on this Smart car test drive event. To show off the acceleration power of the Smart ForTwo Electrive Drive, the car company set up a giant game of Pong controlled entirely by cars. Instead of using a joystick to control the paddles, players had to drive the car back and forth. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t get to participate in this event because based on my reaction time in Pong I definitely would have crashed into those tires.

With their reputations at stake, businesses need to raise their game in terms of how they interact with consumers. If companies don't take control or engage with their audiences to discuss how their brand is perceived and talked about, the conversations will continue to go on without them and they will be powerless to try and change opinion or resolve customer service issues. Entering the dialogue may not let brands control people's feelings (nor should it), but it does mean they can respond quickly and with credibility to any issues or queries.

Here's a perfect example. Earlier this week I posted Target, Thanks for Makeing Me Feel Bad About Myself. Here's the funny thing about data and the power of analytics, its not about the numbers but the story behind the numbers. Two people from Target visited my post 3 times on the day I released it at 9:57am and 10:40am. They both entered thru a reffering link, on a Mac, using Chrome. Even though they have the same IP address you can tell that it's 2 visitors. How? Check out the Browser (they are different).

So I know that Target read my post, several times, but what did they do about my comment? Did they try to make it right? Nope, I got no response!

Businesses who succeed in social media are those who maximise their customer service levels through listening and responding to what people are saying about their brand 

A growing number of people are trading items and favors between each other. With advancements in digital technology the web has made it possible to find an object or service they need, when they want it, and where they want it. Rather than finding these products and services at retailers, these items are often found in the hands of other people—sometimes neighbors, sometimes like minds a great distance away. Everything and anything is being lent and traded. 

 As the notion of ‘Co-Sharing’ continues to grow it will be interesting to see how large corporations and service providers will adapt. Below are a couple peer to peer exchanges that caught my eye. If you have any cool sites you’ve stumbled upon please share!

 KeyWifi: Network that Allows Individuals to Safely Rent Out Their WiFi

GetAround: Rent a Card from Someone Nearby

Favo.rs: Network That Allows People to Trade Favors

Exclusive Exchanges: Luxuary Home Swap

I have to admit upfront that I know little to nothing about football, which is a good thing presently, proving that the following is truly unbiased opinion. It is my goal to see if the power of free analytics tools and social analytics can predict who Manning will sign with.

I started my quest with Google News where I found countless articles predicting which team was going to sign Manning. As of this morning, it looks like the following teams are in favor: Arizona Cardinals, Denver Broncos, Houston Texans, Miami Dolphins, San Francisco 49ers and the Tennessee Titans.

After my search on Google News, which showed how much attention he is receiving, I moved on to Google Insights for Search as the best way to get a pulse on where that attention is coming from. After filtering out the last 7 days of data, I found that Indiana, Kansas and Colorado were the top trending from a Regional Interest standpoint.

When I drilled down the top 3 by interest level, I found that Colorado was the only one with increasing relative growth. 

Then I moved on to monitoring social channels. The social analysis I conducted measured the Denver Broncos as the only team with the most positive sentiment and a share of voice. Below are some examples of my research and analysis of sentiment. 

In the end, forecasting who Manning will sign with based on search and social analytics doesn’t lead me to a definite answer. I can’t confidently predict who Manning will sign with, but I can say that data points to the Denver Broncos having the most loyal and positive fans

In this generation, we have become immersed with anything that is measurable. It’s such a cliché to say “Don’t just present data, tell a story” because it’s rarely followed. I’m confident that you’ve sent out reports with lots of data with 6-size font and some pies and stacked bar graphs thrown in. The key of any good marketer is getting behind the data. Statistics are not engaging stories; you have to illustrate the meaning behind the data by drawing insights. 

Where do you draw your insights?

A. Gut feeling, opinions and theories

B. Structured data, analytical stats and roadmaps

---ANSWER---

You should be drawing from BOTH.  

Marketers’ current challenges with measurement and ROI analysis is a story of confusion as it appears that many organizations don't know where to start measuring. There are so many channels to measure beyond website performance like social, viedo, email, ect. 

Stratigent is the leader in Multi-Channel Analytics consulting. To promote the company's capabilities at eMetrics we launched a campaign to get followers to Tweet what their most important channel is to track in 2012 by tweeting the “1 tweet = 1 balloon” formula. For every person who tweets @Stratigent, one balloon is blown up and put into the conference room. One Tweeter from eMetrics even got a video message dedicated to him to show the progress of the campaign on YouTube. We recieved over 100 tweets in just the first day, resulting in tons of balloons filling up the office. There were 4 videos filmed and a bloopers reel. 

This campaign was launched during eMetrics, which is one of the biggest industry's event, to raise awareness for Stratigent. This branding/awareness campaign stretched across: print,web, FB, Twitter, YouTube, email Marketing and G+.

Who ever thought analytics could be so fun?

It's not just best practices, it’s next practices. Online Marketing is all about information and people. Making connections that solve marketing problems and filtering out the noise in today’s environment of social and technological innovation can be challenging. With 1,500 blog posts, 98k tweets and 695k Facebook updates every 60 seconds social content information overload is inevitable. When information overload spreads across multiple channels you start to pick up on common threads and trending topics. The curating and filtering of trends, in essence, creates a great place to divulge.

In a recent post from Avinash Kaushik, “The 2015 Digital Marketing Rule Book. Change or Perish” one of his rules for Digital Marketing Revolutionaries is the need for marketers to extend their expertise beyond core skills. “You can no longer be good at just one thing, or two. It is a 10-thing world now (and maybe a 20-thing world soon).”

Despite the rapid pace and growth, it’s still about the basics. Starting with a solid marketing strategy and layering in the tools and technologies around them is the key to success. Lets see if I can break it down for you:

Social Strategy Tips:

Listen, then strategize- Social media can be intimidating because it’s so timely and ubiquitous. Start by making a commitment to listening to your audiences and establish a monitoring program.

 Plan before you jump- Formulate a strategy and be realistic. Focus on what you can do. If you don’t have the resources, skills or knowledge, get help!

Content is king- Bring value to your audiences with great content.

Tools and Technology Trends:

Marketing empowered by sophisticated analytics- Marketing analytics teams and their social technology vendors are coming together to turn the deluge of social data into actionable, measurable insights. These insights will be augmented by new technologies that will accurately measure influence and engagement.

Toolset/ CRM Integration: Monitoring platforms will be adding publishing and management solutions, while social platforms will evolve to include e-mail, mobile and website management.  The social technology toolset will also see a tighter integration between social data, CRM and web analytics solutions. 

Mobile: Smart phones are becoming the primary channel for users to interact with social networks. Mobile will become “an imperative, not just a nice-to-have.” Make sure your content is mobile-friendly.

Technology Developments: Video, Google +, Facebook Edgerank, open APIs, Inbound Marketing tools and Interactive Voice Response. 

To sum up it up there’s no magic formula but I hope these tips give you a good starting point.

With recent events and the release of Chris Brogan’s new book “Google+ for Business: How Google’s Social Network Changes Everything” it seems like a good time to take some uncertainty out of using Google+.

 Getting Author information to appear in the search results:

-Google suggests adding your name and your email address to each article or blog post and then verifying that same email address within your Google+ profile. 

- Add a Google Profile button to your site or manually add the link using: Google and replace the [profile_url] with the long id in your Google+ profile web address. Then make sure you link to the sites that you contribute to from your Google+ Profile in the area called “Contribute to”. Once you do that, there’s a form you need to fill out.

Take full advantage of these changes and post useufl information on your Google+ profile or company page that are relevant to your business and the business problems of your customers. Engage with others and be useful and interesting so that as many other relevant users of Google+ add you to their circles as possible. The larger your network on Google+, the more likely your content will appear prominently in their search results.

“The Most Important Part of Your Profile: The Introduction”

The introduction field in you Google+ profile should include:

• Professional Experience:  give your potential customers an idea of what it might look like to work with them.
• Personal Information: this will inform prospects what matters most to you outside of business.
• Linking: do not stuff your profile with links but be sure to link to outside resources where appropriate.

Unbenounced to my previous post, I stumbled upon this infographic and found it to be pretty entertaining and insightful.