20 May 2009
This has been somewhat of an anecdotal piece to many of our conversations about social media lately – so I’m sharing it. Given the countless layers of social media, it should be understood these keys are in the context of research, planning and measurement (not tactics). Of course, many of our prospects and clients want to shoot straight for the tactics. Part of our responsibility is backing them out to the bigger picture of what the objectives are. Strategy follows, and only then are the tactics (and technology) addressed. As practitioners we casually speak about listening, learning and engaging. The first two keys are specific to listening. Here is Room 214′s take on it: 1. KEY Words: Those again? Yes. Keywords are not just for SEO and search marketing. In fact, most of today’s leading online business intelligence and social media monitoring tools are providing value initially based on keyword search queries….
...Continue Reading
29 Aug 2006
Awe the lines are starting to blur and I like it. Using public relations is a critical tactic in generating awareness for many businesses, and online businesses should be no different. The irony is traditional PR tactics (media relations, ed cal tracking, by-lined articles, speaking opportunities) to drive awareness in the main stream media (MSM), are as foreign to an online business as RSS feeds and blogs are to a majority of offline businesses. Steven Van Yoder’s recent post titled “Why Online Businesses Should Embrace PR” provides excellent insights to using PR to drive traffic. To quote Steven, “They read newspapers, magazines and listen to the radio. To reach your market niche comprehensively, you need to explore ways to reach your prospects beyond the Internet. It will help you drive traffic to your web site.” We agree. Our experience has been that offline MSM coverage drives a tremendous amount of traffic…
...Continue Reading
08 Aug 2006
I just came across a report released by iProspect, with Jupiter Research’s help, about three months ago regarding important user behavior stats on people using search engines. The leading summary points were as follows. Of over 2,300 people surveyed: 1. 62% of search engine users click on first page results, and a total of 90% click on results within the first three pages. 2. 82% begin a new search query using the same search engine if they don’t find what they are looking for with the first search term used 3. 41% of users who continue their search after not finding what they were looking for will change their search term and/or search engine if they don’t find favorable results on the first page. 4. Now here is the BIG ONE: 36% believe that company websites that are ranked in the top search results are at the top because they…
...Continue Reading
31 Jul 2006
Traditional public relations yields a common problem I call the “Placement Crash,” which is like a sugar crash in business. You get a brief “high” of publicity, which bottoms out fast and leaves you with no lasting benefit. Here’s how it works: Imagine that you land one big “media hit,” such as a Business Week article mentioning your company. This publicity lures volumes of new visitors to your web site. …That’s great, IF your PR firm, online communications expert, or anyone in your marketing department planned ahead of time to Capture the Conversation during and after peak traffic to drive sales or solidify new business relationships. Most companies – including yours, probably – don’t do that. Therefore, much of that wonderful web traffic gets wasted. New visitors click away if you don’t engage them immediately. Every time that happens, your PR/marketing team is costing you an opportunity. Don’t blame them, however. They’re…
...Continue Reading
BrettGreene:
jo_rogel:
JamesOClark:
mountainkat:
JasonCormier: