The best experiences I’ve had online come from content I’ve shared on my blog and the conversations it generated. I’m not just talking about public interactions – those certainly offer great value – but, especially about private ones. Continue reading “More Personal, More Private”
Tag: engagement
Communications Report for April 27th 2011 – AndreaVascellari.com
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- Metrics & ROI – 2011 Trends: Turning Data Into Action; Mobile; Social Marketing – Most marketers understand the value of good customer data, but they still struggle to organize and use it effectively: 62% cite “turning data into action” as their top marketing issue in 2011, according to a report by Unica.
- Companies increase outsourcing for SEO, PPC and social media: survey – The report is based on a survey which polled 900 client-side advertisers and agencies. It found that the number of companies handling SEO exclusively in-house fell from 51% in 2010 to 44% in 2011, and the number handling paid search in a similar fashion dropped from 47% to 38% over the same time period.
- 25 reasons why you should be blogging – The main benefit of a blog in terms of search engine optimisation (SEO) is that it builds backlinks to your pages. If your content is good then people will discuss and share it, creating links to your pages on their websites, their own blogs and through social platforms like Twitter.
- TEDxEdges – Ricardo Sousa on Teen Entrepreneurship – @ricardojrsousa – Wow!
- Free and Easy Email Reminders with FollowUpThen – Handy tool.
- 6 Smart and Effective Email Marketing Tactics – Here are several simple, emerging email marketing methods with which brands are seeing success.
- IAB: Internet Advertising Reached $26 Billion In 2010, Display Grew Twice As Fast As Search – Compared to other forms of advertising, Internet advertising surpassed newspaper ads in the U.S. last year ($22.8 billion) and is now second only to TV ($28.6 billion).
- Google’s collateral damage after algorithm changes, illustrated – TNW Google – SEOBook has created an interesting infographic that details the effects that changes to Google’s algorithms have had on the web.
- Search Marketing To Grow 16% This Year [REPORT] – Search marketing will grow 16% this year to $19.3 billion and 74% of North American ad agencies say their clients use Facebook, according to a study released Wednesday.
- Cost of Facebook Ads Jumped 40% This Year [REPORT] – Search engine marketing grew 17% year-over-year primarily because of increases in the retail and finance categories. Display advertising showed a 300% jump in exchange ad inventory and a 30% cost-per-thousand (CPM) decline, which Efficient Frontier attributes to “greater gains in reach and efficiency within the ad exchanges.”
- Google Research Shows How Online Ads Drive Offline Sales – The relationship between online search advertising and online sales can be easily quantified, and that’s part of what makes Web advertising so powerful compared to its print and broadcast counterparts.
- HOW TO: Improve Engagement on Your Brand’s Facebook Page [STATS] – Here findings along with tips about when and how to make the most of a Facebook post.
- 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report – A significant 3300 social media marketers provided valuable insight.
- Moblie Marketing & Tagging Infographic – Infographic.
- 7 tips for a killer Facebook landing page – A great Facebook landing page should turn visitors into subscribers, engage people, and encourage them to explore your products and services further.
I’d love to talk with you
Episode: VMC #226 – I’d love to talk with you
[right click to download the source file – ‘Save the link as…’, video-player available below]
Subscribe to the show on YouTube!Show Notes & Credits: Powered by itive.net, World Blogging Forum.
[Communications Report] for June 28th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com
Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.
- 5 Tools to Track Twitter Trends – On any given day there are over 600 tweets per second on Twitter for a total of over 50 million tweets per day. With an overload of tweets daily it can be difficult to grasp what is really trending at any given moment. Use the tools below to quickly find current Twitter trends and trending conversations.
- Social Media Measurement Should Focus on Outcomes, Not Output – It’s not about simply looking for opportunities to drop messaging into ordinary conversation, but about finding shared interests, shared benefits and shared rewards for others in the communities where your brand interacts.
- 8 Steps to Creating a Brand Persona – In social networks, the brand and how it’s perceived, is open to public interpretation and potential misconception now more than ever. Without a deliberate separation between the brand voice and personality and that of the person representing it, we are instantly at odds with our goals, purpose, and potential stature.
- Top 10 Clever Google Voice Tricks – The phone management app is great, but even cooler hacks exist just under the hood.
- How I Use Gmail Multiple-Inboxes Lab Feature to Manage E-mail Overload – Useful productivity tips.
- 15 more awesome social media infographics – Infographics that demonstrate a mixture of both hard data and strategy practices. Hopefully, they’ll also provide some inspiration or can be useful in helping you with presentations or pitches. As before, links to the actual graphics are in the headline titles.
- 6 ways to find value in Twitter’s noise – A great example that shows how we can get insights from analyzing Twitter data.
- Social Media is the 3rd Era of the Web [graph] – A search that compares the world wide search volume on Google for new media, web 2.0, and social media. What the graph shows is that we’re at an inflection point in the language we use to describe the macro trends of innovation on the web…it’s the indicator that we’re in the 3rd Era of the Web and it’s The Era of Social Media.
- How The World Spends Its Time Online [infographic] – Millions of people across the world are constantly connected by the internet. Here’s a look at what everybody’s doing when they’re in front of their computer screen.
- Is Social a Source for B2B Leads? – Terrific insights about B2B site visitors referred from social media.
- Diesel Cam – Interactive installation at Diesel Stores in Spain, being the first store that allows users to share the moment of buying and trying garments on their Facebook profiles from the store. Consumers are able to make pictures, publish them and boast their new acquisitions with their Facebook friends.
- The Fun Theory – A great Volkswagen initiative. #engagement
- Teens and Their Mobile Phones / Flowtown – Have you ever wondered what teens were really using their mobile phones for? A recent study released by Pew Internet Research has shed light on average mobile
- Public Media Joins Forces for One Big Platform – The country’s five silos of public radio and television are spilling into each other with a joint program that will allow them – and eventually the public itself — to build apps, stations, websites and other media services combining audio, text and video content from every public radio and television outlet in the country.
[Communications Report] for June 12th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com
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- Mobile Uploads Spur Facebook Video Growth – Facebook’s nearly half a billion users are now uploading 20 million videos each month, many of which are shared through mobile phones.
- 10 ways to keep tabs on ‘live’ hashtag chats on Twitter – Twitter chats are increasingly growing in popularity, providing participants with a specific time and place to discuss pertinent issues and share knowledge. Before you can get stuck into these lively sessions, you need to consider which application / tool is best suited to the format in question.
- 21 Rules of Engagement in Social Media – While businesses now have access to these rich channels, the true promise of social media however, lies in the direct connections that are forged between people who represent companies and the people who define markets of interest.
- Social media monitoring review 2010 [report] – In-depth review of the leading social media monitoring tools.
- Top 5 Social Media Ethics Concerns for Lawyers – The people in charge of lawyer ethics oversight in your state see social media either as just another form of communication, or as a special threat to client confidences and attorney decorum. Do you know what rules apply to you?
- Costolo: Twitter Now Has 190 Million Users Tweeting 65 Million Times A Day – Most users, says Costolo, don’t Tweet at all, but rather use Twitter as a consumption media. How many of those 65 million Tweets are automated spam is not clear.
- How Consumers Interact with Brands on Social Networks – eMarketer – The social networking audience in the US has reached critical mass. eMarketer estimates that 57.5% of all US Internet users, or 127 million people, will use a social network at least once a month in 2010. By 2014, nearly two-thirds of Internet users will be on board.
- Building Trust with Empowered Consumers – The top three sources that influenced purchase decisions for US Internet users were friends and family sought out for their opinion (53%), friends and family who offered their opinion (49%) and online research (49%).
- Social Media No. 1 Emerging Channel for Lead Gen – Lead generation was marketers’ first priority, with 66% saying it was their greatest concern for 2010, compared with just 17% who chose brand awareness.
- The State of LinkedIn – The most represented industries are hi-tech (16%), finance (12%) and manufacturing (10%), while engineering (15%), sales (11%), administrative (9%) are the most common job functions.
- Klout is the standard for influence – The goal is to accurately measure that influence and provide context around who a person influences and the specific topics they are most influential on.
- From Facebook, answering privacy concerns with new settings – By Mark Zuckerberg (CEO Facebook)…
- Official Google Blog: Search more securely with encrypted Google web search – Good or bad for analytics, tracking, etc. ?
- Use LinkedIn Effectively – LinkedIn is the de facto online social network for business types. The thing is, lots of people are “on there” but aren’t necessarily using it to the fullest.
- The best creative marketing examples on YouTube – YTShowandTell’s Channel.
- 100 Incredibly Useful & Free Mac Apps – Some handy ‘Productivity’ and ‘File Sharing and Transfer’ apps.
Online Personal Marketing Strategy
Few weeks ago I was in Rome with my ‘Get the Best Out of Twitter‘ for the Ignite Italia -O’Reilly. Among the people I met at the event there was also Robin Good. Inspired by my presentation he decided to invite me for a nice walk at the Villa Borghese park and record a video interview focusing on:
- What steps do you need to take to create a valuable online service or business
- What’s the strategic approach that an individual can follow to create value, authority, credibility and the opportunity to make business online
Video highlights below. Enjoy it!
@Robin: Thanks for the great time, it was nice to see you again! 🙂
Andrea
Video highlights:
Anyone can do what she/he wants for a living
There is one thing that everybody should keep in mind. Nowadays, more than ever before, everyone has a chance of doing what he or she loves for a living.
Going Global
Why? Because we are going global. With a simple blog and few clicks you have the chance of connecting with the entire world. It’s definitely interesting period the one we are living in.
Being Passionate
At the base, before focusing on technology, it’s important to be really passionate about what you are doing. I see way too many people who are unsatisfied with their jobs, and I can’t stand that. Maybe it’s because I am an entrepreneur. I really do what I love. I love my job. That is what I am really passionate about in my life and I think everyone has some passions. I think they should go for it. Online you are instantly connected with the entire world. You will find other people that have your same passions becoming your target audience, whether you do it for business or not.
What you do doesn’t have to be necessarily related to business (it could non-profit etc.) but let’s say that you have the possibility of finding a place to express yourself. Usually, if something is done with passion, you have that drive to go on that usually other people do not have. It’s not going to be easy. Every time you do something, you will find roadblocks. Ultimately, passion is the drive that makes you go on. Nothing really starts or works in first place if you do not really want it badly.
Start By Listening
First thing you should do is to start by listening a little bit what’s going on and understanding who is already out there. Let’s say you want to start your own small business. You should carefully listen to which are the other players in your field and to understand in which environment you will have to move, because sometimes it will happen… you won’t be the first. You definitely have to pay attention to them, and then of course build a presence on the web that express your strategic communications plan. It doesn’t have to be just ‘a blog’, your online presence is going to be the gate between you and the world or your target audience, so it has to be done really carefully.
Jump Into The Conversation
After that, you can start to jump into the conversation that is happening out there – I do not want to say “join” the conversation, because I am sick of hearing it. Everyone is talking about “joining the conversation” and just few people actually do it. Anyway… you have to start to jump into that, where the conversation is already happening, with your audience, with people within your niche. After that, when you establish a basic connection with this environment that is out there, then you can start to be proactive.
Build Trust, Engage Deeper
Once the trust is built, then you can start to engage at a deeper level and eventually this will translate into business. It could also be just for a passion or for the organization you are working for. It just depends on which is your focus and what are your objectives.
When Does The Money Show Up?
The money comes after you establish a real connection with your audience, after your target audience trusts you. The money will come after, as a consequence.
I tell you an example.
Every time I go to Venice – I come from Venice region in Italy – I go to the market on Friday morning. I go there and buy some good fresh fish. There are tons of people that are selling fish, but I always go to the same lady. There is no way I can go and buy fish from anyone else, because I bought fish from her for years.
How she convinced me at first?
- observing the crowd and stopping me when she noticed that I need some fish,
- showing me the really good fish she had,
- why would have been better to buy from her and not from others,
- giving me good tips on how to cook fish, and so on.
She established a real emotional connection, so I trusted her and I became her client.
You can basically do the same online. At that point – after you have built all these connections – is where the money is going to come. It’s going to be a consequence.
Word of Mouth
Another important thing is what you call in Italian “il passaparola“, the power of word of mouth. Happy clients will talk to other potential clients and they will bring them to you. It’s going to be also your community that will help you and your business grow.
[Report] for January 16th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com
Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.
- Global Study Reveals Proliferation of Consumer-Based Social Networking Throughout the Enterprise and a Growing Need for Governance and IT Involvement – Cisco released the results of a third-party global study designed to assess how organizations use consumer social networking tools to collaborate externally, revealing the need for stronger governance and IT involvement. The new study is based on extensive interviews with 105 participants representing 97 organizations in 20 countries around the globe.
- 10 Gorgeous Social Media Infographics – Enjoy… 😉
- Ad.ly Analytics – Understand Your Followers – Good analytics for your twitter account.
- tweetcloud – what’s being said? – The goal is to quickly show users “what’s being said” across the Twittersphere or from a specific Twitter user through an intuitive interface (a cloud).
- CMP.ly – Need to disclose? – Provides bloggers and advertisers with a simple disclosure solution.
- ShoutEm – Roll your own Microblogging Social Networking – Handy. I love to use it for internal communication but it’s great for public too.
- Ushahidi :: Crowdsourcing Crisis Information (FOSS) – The Ushahidi Engine is a platform that allows anyone to gather distributed data via SMS, email or web and visualize it on a map or timeline. Their goal is to create the simplest way of aggregating information from the public for use in crisis response.
- Just because you only met social media idiots does not mean that everybody is one … by @nicolesimon – Nicole comments on comment so called experts. Well written post.
- How to create a music video clip 2010 style – So this is how you produce a Music Video Clip 2010 Style. You ask your fans to turn on their webcam, mimic a frame they get presented and upload it. One frame at a time and together with other visitors you become part of the latest video of C-Mon & Kypski.
- Mike Arrington interrogates Mark Zuckerberg – Where the privacy on the web will go in the next couple of years. “Public Is the new “social norm”.
- The 10 Stages of Social Media Business Integration – Full social media integration often happens in stages — it’s an evolutionary process for companies and consumers alike.
- 10 on 10 – Ten consumer trends for 2010 and beyond from Edelman.
- Google – Internet Stats – Collection of the latest Internet stats – This Google resource brings together the latest industry facts and insights.
- What Is Engagement And How Do We Measure It? – Did you get something from your audience that can make your business better? That can mean profits, ideas, referrals and recommendations, digital merit badges…
- How Saatchi & Saatchi’s Toyota social media disaster unfolded – Toyota’s now disastrous foray into social media offers a demonstration of what skills an agency needs to play in that space.
[Report] for January 7th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com
Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.
- Keep track of what you need to do thanks to Google – …I – LOVE – IT!
- Facebook for iPhone 3.1 Adds Push Notifications, Address Book Syncing – There’s finally a way to extract your contacts from Facebook!
- HootSuite Now Lets You Update Your WordPress Blog – The feature doesn’t limit you 140 character updates, and you can include URLs, photos and files in your updates.
- Habbo Hotel launches conversation tracking tool – Habbo Hotel, the virtual world for teens, is offering marketers the chance to understand what its users are saying about their brands with a tool that has been piloted by MTV.
- Search engine optimisation ‘to evolve’ with Google’s incorporation of Twitter – Google recently announced that it will be incorporating live updates from sites such as Facebook and Twitter into its results pages. Keywords would have to be included in Twitter posts, descriptions and accounts in order for the feed to be “properly optimised” by the search engine.
- Location-Based Ads Come to Augmented Reality in the US – Location-based social network Brightkite announced this morning that it has added what it calls the first mobile Augmented Reality advertising for U.S. markets to its AR layer in the Layar augmented reality browser
- Pepsi Chooses Social Media Over Super Bowl – Pepsi appears to understand that they are talking to people, and this is a huge point that scares many larger companies away from social media.
- Twitgether – Social Twitter Client for Gmail Gadget, Facebook App… – Twitgether is a full featured twitter client for social networks.
- How Much Information? 2009 Report on American Consumers (PDF) – In 2008, Americans consumed information for about 1.3 trillion hours, an average of almost 12 hours per day. Consumption totaled 3.6 zettabytes and 10,845 trillion words, corresponding to 100,500 words and 34 gigabytes for an average person on an average day.
- Engaging Employees in the Age of Streams – Steve Rubel offers three potential solutions.
- Social Media Guide for Journalists – It’s not enough today to have a good rolodex of sources (seriously, who even has a rolodex nowadays?) and a solid recorder, journalists need to be able to make use of every tool in their arsenal in order to stay afloat in today’s almost real-time media landscape.
- Need an effective presentation? 6 PowerPoint tips – Useful.
- Google Alerts for Twitter Lists – listimonkey – Get free email alerts whenever a keyword appears in Twitter Lists of your choice. Good monitoring tool…
- 20 Essential Gmail Tips You Probably Don’t Use (but Should!) – Awesome round-up of tips.
- Ten trends that will matter to every company in 2010 – Neville sums it all up!