Optimizar Landing Pages

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ROI: Facebook + Twitter + Pinterest

Facebook

• Actualizaciones de estado muy cortas o muy largas tienen un alto porcentaje de Likes.
• Posts de 400 a 500 caracteres son los más compartidos.
• Posts que muestran más la personalidad de usuarios, tienden a recibir más Likes.
• Mientras que las fotografías reciben muchos comentarios, los posts de texto reciben un poco más.
• Imagenes:Son las más compartidas y las que reciben más Likes.

Twitter

• Tweets que tienen entre 120 y 130 caracteres reciben mayor proporción de clics (Clicks-through).
• Tweets con más verbos de acción que sustantivos, reciben más clics.
• Tweets con “@”, “RT”, “Via”,  ”Por Favor” y “Ver”, son los que tienen una mayor proporción de clics (Clicks-through).
• Para aumentar la proporción de clics (Clicks-through) , colocar los enlaces luego de haber escrito aproximadamente el 25% del tweet.

Pinterest

• Posts con descripciones con 200 caracteres aproximadamente, son más compartidas (Repinned).
• Contenido que incluye palabras como Dichos, Productos, Hágalo Usted Mismo (DIY), Inspiración, Libros e Ideas, son las que se comparten más.
• Contenido con Likes, son compartidos más a menudo que contenido con muchos comentarios.

¿Funciona realmente el comercio electrónico a través de Facebook?

Creación de contenidos

      

 Los responsables de marketing de empresas B2B dedican una parte importante de sus horas de trabajo a la creación de contenidos y a la generación y gestión de leads, según revela un reciente estudio de Optify. Aproximadamente, 3 de cada 10 respuestas dijeron que dedicaban más de 15 horas semanales a creación de contenidos y a gestión, la proporción más elevada entre todas las categorías listadas.

Pero los auto denominados como “star performers” o“marketing athletes” (aquellos que cumplen o exceden sus objetivos de generación de leads) dijeron estar en un 50% más dispuestos en dedicar más tiempo a esas acciones que sus colegas menos exitosos. Y mientras que el 16,9% del conjunto dedica más de 15 horas semanales a la generación de leads, los star performers”están dispuestos a duplicar los esfuerzos de sus colegas.

Los llamados“star performers”representaron el 47 del total de los encuestados.

De las 7 tácticas para generación de leads identificadas, los star perfomers”utilizan prácticamente todas, pero la que menos la conocida como pay-per-click (PPC). La táctica a la que dedican más de 15 horas semanales son las redes sociales, seguidas de las off-line, SEO y PR. Las que tienen menos interés para ellos son el email marketing, la publicidad online y el PPC.

Interesante destacar que los“star performers”están dos veces más dispuestos que sus colegas menos exitosos del B2B, a dedicar más de 15 horas semanales a las tácticas off-line.

Los“star performers”se autoevalúan muy alto en su conocimiento de múltiples tácticas de generación de leads. Las áreas en las que las puntuaciones son más altas son: social media (42% se reconocen como expertos); tácticas offline (34%); y email marketing y SEO (28%). Las áreas con una menor puntuación (poco o nulo conocimiento) son PPC (25%), publicidad online (18%) y SEO (17%).

Esta percepción de falta de conocimiento del SEO y al mismo tiempo su alto interés por los social media es muy interesante, sobre todo si tenemos en cuenta el resultado del estudio realizado el pasado mes de agosto por Webmarketing123, que reveló que el 52% de los responsables de marketing B2B afirmaban que el SEO es la herramienta digital con mayor impacto en sus objetivos de generación de leads, comparado con el 21% que citaban a las redes sociales. La relativa disparidad puede venir de la mano de las percepciones de complejidad que tiene esa herramienta más que la capacidad con la que contribuyen a la efectividad del marketing.

Articulo Original

Marketing de Contenidos para Hoteles por Hotel Marketing Argentina

 

Can Social Media Raise Staff Morale?

The answer is YES if you bring the employees on board in the process of developing a Social Media Strategy for your Hotel. Social Media is evolving and changing faster then any other tools we seen before that will help Hotels adding new values to their products and services.

This will require ongoing training for your employees.

Loyal, passionate employees brings your Hotel as much benefit as loyal, passionate customers. They stay longer, work harder, work more creatively, and find ways to go the extra mile. They bring you more great employees. And that spreads even more happiness — happiness for employees, for customers, and for Hotel Owners.

Social Media is a People to People medium that emphasis Relationship Marketing. The key here is to reach out to both employees and customers. Studies has shown that 89% employees with high level of well-being reported high job satisfaction and two-third of them reported putting in extra effort to their job.

With Social Media Reputation Management is on of the keys to measure and monitor all information about your Hotel.

Start Communicate and Collaborate with your employees on concerns. Get their viewpoint.

The most misunderstood perception about Social Media not only among Hotels, but many businesses in general is that they seems to believe it is all related to online sentiments.

It is a tool that people use to express their feelings with others in their network. And it boils down to an emotional feeling that someone actually is listening to their concerns. By the way that someone need to be your Hotel.

The service and products delivered still will have the human touch. Don’t forget that. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest or YouTube can not replace the interaction between the guest and your employees that happens inside the Hotel.

Have a proper response system in place to capture both employee and customer concerns.

And add in a little Compassion. Not everyone is a born star, but if you give them the opportunity to shine they might turn out to be your next star.

Original Article

Marketing Online para Hoteles en Argentina

 

 

El fundador y la probabilidad de éxito de un start-up

Si un emprendedor no tiene el cuchillo en los dientes la probabilidad de éxito de un start-up es casi nula.

La falta del cuchillo en los dientes se ve reflejada en alguna de las siguientes situaciones (que deberían prender las luces rojas y alarmas de un start-up):

• El fundador trabaja en forma part-time en el proyecto.
• El fundador no deja su trabajo para dedicarse completamente al proyecto. No se la juega.
• El fundador tiene un portfolio de proyectos y no tiene el foco en uno solo. Salpica entre varios, como si fuera un Venture Capital, para ver cual tracciona.
• El fundador trabaja en el emprendimiento, pero llega a las 11:00am y se va a las 16:00pm, mientras que otros fundadores trabajan hasta la madrugada e incluso los fines de semana.
• Al fundador se le “caen los anillos” para hacer tareas básicas como atender el teléfono, enchufar una computadora, armar un escritorio, cargar una caja, vender, cobrar, ir al banco, etc.
• El fundador tiene algunos clientes en forma paralela como consultor freelance (mas grave si compiten con el proyecto).
• El fundador cobra un salario desproporcionado, llevándose una porción importante del brun rate, mientras que otros fundadores subvencionan al proyecto sin cobrar salarios o cobrando un mínimo para subsistir y pagar “el calefón” a fin de mes.
• El fundador no quiere ser presidente, vicepresidente o tomar la responsabilidad de ser una autoridad legal de la sociedad.
• El fundador se la pasa gran parte de su jornada laboral navegando, chateando, twitteando, facebookeando, etc (social media masturbation).
• El fundador tiene un padre que lo mantiene y si el proyecto falla, no tiene mucho que perder.
• Seguramente habrán otras situaciones para agregar a esta lista, pero creo que queda claro que la falta de compromiso y hambre atentan contra el éxito de un negocio. Cuando hablo de hambre, me refiero tanto a la necesidad económica como a la necesidad de éxito.

Si se topan con personas que tengan algunos de estos síntomas, mejor no hagan negocios con ellos. Si ya están asociados con alguna de estas personas, mi recomendación es hacer cirugía y cortar el cáncer por lo sano. Muerto el perro se acabó la rabia. Suena duro y probablemente sea difícil de hacerlo, pero es la única solución.

Articulo Original

¿A que mercado vas a apuntar?

Una empresa puede querer una torta, una porción de torta, una masita o una miguita, dependiendo al mercado que apunte.

Para tratar de explicar el punto, voy a utilizar a continuación varios ejemplos del negocio de los sitios de empleos:

• Monster.com apunta a la Torta del mercado: Estados Unidos y el resto del mundo.
• Bumeran.com apunta a una Porción del mercado: Latinoamérica. También entraría en esta categoría Catho.com.br o Manager.com.br, que apuntan a Brasil.
• Zonajobs.com apunta a la Masita del mercado: la Argentina
• Rosarioempleos.com apunta a la Miguita del mercado, empleos en Rosario.

Hacer un negocio de nicho no sirve. Por lo menos, no sirve para un inversor de capital de riesgo. 
Salvo que uno apunte a un nicho de mercado en EE.UU., UK, Brasil, China, Rusia, India, Alemania o algún otro país de gran tamaño.

Un negocio de nicho o masita, por mas atractivo que parezca (como la foto de este post), termina siendo un autoempleo. Ni hablar de los negocios de micro nicho o miguita.

¿ Invertirían en CompuEmpleosBariloche.com.ar ?

Aparte del tamaño del mercado, cuando uno lanza un negocio tiene que pensar también en el grado de rivalidad competitiva. Vale decir, con cuántos competidores actuales uno tiene que enfrentarse, con qué calidad de competidores uno tiene que lidiar y principalmente en cómo uno tiene que diferenciarse de ellos. Si existen muchos competidores peleándose por la Torta, quizá la mejor estrategia sea puntar a un “segmento de mercado” y conformarnos con obtener una Porción (ej: ser el mayor portal de empleos en LatAm).  Si hay varios competidores queriendo comerse la Porción, vamos a tener que apuntar a un “nicho de mercado” o a la Masita (ej: ser el mayor portal de empleos de la Argentina) o bien a un ”micro nicho” o a la Miguita (ej: ser el mayor portal de empleos de Rosario).

Generalmente cuando se ven brotar en un mercado a las empresa del tipo masita y miguita, en mi opinión, estamos frente a un caso de sobreoferta de un producto o servicio. Como pasó con los parripollos, canchas de paddle, video clubes y otros negocios de moda. Ya es tarde.

En los negocios de Internet, el efecto saturación se puede identificar muy rápidamente cuando empiezan a aparecer proveedores de soluciones “white label” de un determinado producto o servicio (ej: lanza tu propio portal de empleos) o bien comienzan a aparecer ofertas de plugins y scripts en sites como HotScipts.com

El potencial de un negocio para un emprendedor (que piense a lo grande) y para un inversor (que simplemente piense) se encuentra en los negocios del tipo Torta o Porción de Torta.

Ahora te propongo que a la hora de imaginar, soñar y visionar que tamaño empresa buscas construir, tengas presente que es muy difícil hacer algo grande cuando quedan sólo las masitas y miguitas para repartir.

Articulo Original por Damian Voltes.

Hoteles: Google Adwords para Principiantes

Articulo Original 

What is transactional email?

 Basically, it is email sent to an individual based on some action. It could be:

• an action they took directly
• an action they were the target of or,
• perhaps even inaction on their part

A warm welcome sets the tone

For example, if a user signs up for your website, you should probably welcome them with a lovely email. Bam! That’s a transactional email. Signing up is the “transaction” in this case. Simple, right?

An example of an action happening to a user might be the familiar “so-and-so commented on your hooza-whatsit” alerts we all receive from our favorite social networking sites. In these cases the action was taken by other users, but the recipient was the target of the action, so they receive a notification email letting them know something of interest happened.

In fact, for simplicity, many people refer to transactional emails as “triggered”, “automatic”, “real-time” or even “personalized”. Use whatever term makes you comfortable; the goal is to make sure everyone in the organization is speaking the same language and getting the same meaning. The word “transactional” can be rather misleading to business and marketing types.

Some other worthy sources of transactional email:

• email address confirmations
• password resets
• purchase receipts
• “thank you for [some action]“
• account balance updates
• weekly manifests
• auto-responders
• support requests
• cart abandonment
• monthly invoices
• app error alerts (developer tested!)
• automated re-engagement (marketer approved!)

E-Commerce Must Be Transactional?

Nope. I mean, not necessarily. This is a common misconception, but “transactional” does not imply “financial” in this. Transactional email isn’t about purchasing something from inside an email. Nor is it about treating email as a payment method or form of currency. It doesn’t even need to mention money to be transactional.

That said, and somewhat confusingly, e-commerce applications do send a lot of transactional email! Think about the lifecycle of a purchase online:

• sign up, confirmation email
• throw items in a cart, get nudged if you abandon it
• check out, get a receipt
• track the package, get shipping notifications
• invitation to rate the item(s) you purchased (days/weeks later)

Look at that: all the actions of an online purchase are worth sending an email about, for one reason or another. Just remember that it doesn’t have to be e-commerce to be transactional.

As for the law, the CAN-SPAM Act talks about this stuff as “transactional and relationship” messages. That’s kind of a mouthful, so the modern email industry usually just says “transactional”. Check out this document and search for the phrase “transactional and relationship” for some basic guidelines if you’re worried about Johnny Law.

What’s the Big Deal?

Now that all of the confusion is cleared up (and leave a comment if it’s not), we get to a more fundamental question: Why? Why go to all this trouble defining terms and giving examples? Why fret over using an ESP to actually deliver my triggered emails? Why give it an extra thought if this stuff is already working?

In a word: impressions!

We spend so much time polishing the user experience of our web pages, carefully drafting our copy and calls-to-action, optimizing our page load times, and even painstakingly crafting lovely templates for our newsletters. When we aren’t sure about something, we laboriously split test it and pore over the stats to choose a winner.

And why do we do all of this? Because it’s good for business.

Split-testing for fun and profit

Don’t our transactional emails deserve the same treatment? For many of us, these emails are second-class citizens: set up once and promptly forgotten.

We know exactly how many people are on our lists, how many clicks our campaigns get, and on which links. How many triggered emails do we send? For many organizations the answer is “a lot”. Do we know if they are effective in doing what they’re supposed to? What ARE they supposed to do? Can they also hit secondary goals?

Your web store is gorgeous. Shouldn’t your receipts be gorgeous, too?

Your blog is masterfully written and sharp as a knife, but who’s the flunky dullard that wrote your confirmation and welcome emails?

Your designer spent weeks picking just the right color combination for your new web app; your notification emails are OMG MY EYES MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP!

Of course, if you have a larger organization, you probably have a much larger body of triggered email to augment and analyze. That’s fine too! Start tracking things now, it’s easy; the cooler stuff can wait until you have a clearer picture of what’s working and what’s not. What gets measured gets improved, and there’s always room for improvement!

<a href="http://blog.mailchimp.com/what-is-transactional-email/

Why we are getting rid of our hourly rate?

 Like everyone in advertising and digital marketing we are taught that our business is based on an accounting principle known as cost plus. Take all your costs (salaries + overhead) and add your profit. Pretty simple.

To figure out what to charge your clients, you estimate the hours to do a job and apply your billable rate. If you’ve estimated hours correctly and your billable rate properly encompasses your costs and profit you achieve your business model.

Under this model companies have a billing capacity, which is a formula to determine the revenue your company can make in a year. Cost plus billing assumes labour is the primary unit of value in the system. You can only bill as many hours as you have. This means professional services firms can only ever add people or increase their rate to grow.

Very early on Geoff and I struggled with some of these ideas. For starters, we never tracked time at Teehan+Lax. We learned a long ago that time sheets were a fiction. People just made them up. I know because for years I made mine up. What’s the point of a time sheet if the data is false? It’s not telling you anything. Don’t do them.

Secondly, we created a simplified rate card. We only had two rates: one for Partners and one for Associates. We did this because we were sick of agencies having these long rate cards that confused clients and created unnecessary complexity.

But since we started there was one idea that we could never reconcile. There was very little relationship between the time we spent on our projects and the value we delivered. We could see things that took very little time having big impacts in client’s business. Our business model wants projects to have more hours since we are financially motivated to do so. But, we are a company that values being nimble and very efficient. There is very little incentive to be the latter when your business model is the former.

At the very first Toronto BarCamp, Jay Goldman, Michael Glen and I discussed these issues on how to get clients to pay not for the time but for the value. We couldn’t figure out how to do it and the discussion died.

Without a better solution we relied on cost plus billing and estimating hours to determine pricing.

Late last year I stumbled across the writings of Ron Baker. Ron is a former CPA who is one of the most vocal and main proponents of a movement in professional services known as value pricing.

I read his blog and then bought his book Pricing on Purpose. The book was a revelation to me.

Ron lays out a compelling argument as to why cost plus billing is not only wrong but economically flawed. While there are many reasons it is a flawed system, the biggest reason is that it misaligns the incentives for clients and agencies. In any system where hours are used to determine the price of work, its your incentive to convince your client it will take many hours and their incentive to convince you it won’t take that much.

If you are cost plus billing you are selling time. We didn’t get into this business to sell time. No one at teehan+lax became a creative professional to sell time.

Last Wednesday we sat with Tim Williams of Ignition Consulting to begin the process of moving away from the hourly rate in our business. It was an amazing day and we learned a lot.

The next day we removed our hourly rate from our site, our marketing materials and our vocabulary. We do not sell hours here and clients will no longer be able to buy them from us.

Original Article

What is the most effective non-direct way to know the limit of a client's budget?

When I started my first company we used all the traditional methods of pitching and pricing  work: competitive analysis, researching industry rates, I asked my friends and I scrounged for every piece of documentation I could find. 

Then, a few years into things I had a revelation and made two significant changes to how I operated. First I quit charging by the hour and switched to charging project fees. Essentially making things one rate, vastly simplifying things for myself and also for my clients. You want X, X costs Y. If X turns into Y, then we recalculate and move on. 

I then stopped making up the budget number in the dark and made a bigger fundamental shift in my business in that I stopped treating clients like adversaries and began treating them like partners. When a potential new client comes to me now, we talk and more importantly I listen. I listen to what it is they do, what their concerns and needs are, what it is that they need help with and I ask a lot of questions.

From here I take a tact that is often very different for my contemporaries...I ask what they can afford and if I don't think they'll be successful with what they've asked me for I say so. I talk with complete and total transparency bringing them into the fold and making them also a part of my business. 

I can't tell you how good it feels to from the very first engagement with a client to feel like you're working with them to be successful and not some shitty cog in a wheel of failure. I can also say from experience that potential clients do not hear no or I don't think you should do that very often and this begins the process of building a bond, one that for me has led to long term engagements and partnerships that last and are mutually beneficial. Now the key here is that it's not simply no, you've got to back that up with reason, experience and data if at all possible.

I'm personally past the point where i'm disengaged, willing to simply cash a cheque, shake a hand and walk away. Doesn't work for me. I want to know about my client's business, to learn the details of what it is that they do...for the simple reason that their experience plus mine ( and my teams ) are what will make us successful. No more working in a vacuum, no more us vs them and much less in the way of confusion. 

So after all that...my answer to what is the most effective way to find out limits to budgets...Ask and be honest about why.

 

 Kerry Morrison

eCommerce en América Latina

Consumidores Online Latinos Prefieren Comprar Vestuario/Accesorios y Electrónica, Siendo Éstas las Principales Categorías de Retail en la Región

                                           

 Reconocimiento de Marca y Lealtad son Claves para Impulsar las Compras Online

Al evaluar cómo los Latinoamericanos comienzan su experiencia de compra online, el informe descubrió que casi 7 de cada 10 compradores navegan directamente al sitio web de la empresa, destacando la importancia del reconocimiento de marca y lealtad hacia las empresas de Retail en la región. Más de la mitad de los compradores online (56%) dijeron que normalmente comienzan el proceso de compra mediante búsquedas de palabras clave, mientras que un 36% comenzó la compra a través de una publicidad online.

Pregunta: ¿Cómo comienza normalmente su proceso de compra online? Seleccione todas las que apliquen. (Entre compradores online)

Fuente: comScore Estudio de eCommerce Latinoamérica 2012

  Porcentaje de Compradores Online América Latina

Ingresa directamente al sitio web de la empresa de Retail 68%

Búsqueda de Palabras Clave en un motor de búsqueda 56%

A través de un aviso publicitario online 36%

Referido de amigos/colegas/familia 29%

Red Social 26%

Comparación de precios 26%

Remates Online 26%

Publicidad Offline 25%

Mediante un Cupón de Promoción 21%

Una investigación más profunda revela que los compradores online en Brasil fueron más proclives a comenzar su proceso de compra a través de sitios de Comparación de Precios y Avisos Online que el resto de la región, mientras que los peruanos fueron más proclives a usar Redes Sociales y Avisos Offline para comenzar su proceso.

Vestuario/Accesorios y Electrónica se ubican en la cima de la Categoría Retail 

Entre los consumidores online en América Latina, el 43% de los encuestados indicó que compraron vestuario o accesorios durante los últimos tres meses, ubicándola como la principal categoría de Retail. Por otro lado, la categoría Electrónica se ubicó en segundo lugar con el 41% de los consumidores online comprando estos productos, y el 36% de los compradores adquirió música, películas o videos. Los electrodomésticos se ubicaron como la cuarta categoría más popular (35%), mientras que 1 de cada 3 consumidores compró hardware computacional online.

Pregunta: ¿En los últimos 3 meses, qué productos ha comprado online? Seleccione todas las que apliquen. (Entre compradores online)

Fuente: comScore Estudio de eCommerce Latinoamérica 2012

  Porcentaje de Compradores Online América Latina

Vestuario & Accesorios 43%

Electrónica 41%

Música, Películas o Videos 36%

Electrodomésticos 35%

Hardware 33%

Tickets de Entretenimiento 31%

Vacaciones/Viajes 27%

Salud & Belleza 24%

Libros y Revistas 24%

Deportes 15%

Otros descubrimientos clave del Estudio de eCommerce para Latinoamérica 2012 incluyen:

Empresas locales de Retail son preferidas en Argentina, Brasil y Chile, mientras que los consumidores en México y Venezuela son más proclives a comprar en sitios de Retail internacionales.

Los compradores online en Argentina son los más involucrados de la región; casi la mitad de ellos realiza actividades relacionadas a las compras online diariamente.

El mayor gasto online se registró en encuestados de Brasil y Venezuela.

“Por Conveniencia” es la principal razón por la cual los consumidores escogieron comprar online en América Latina, mientras que las principales barreras fueron debido a motivos de seguridad y privacidad.

Entre los compradores online en América Latina, 8 de cada 10 han buscado en Internet al menos un producto relacionado con la categoría viajes en los últimos tres meses.

Agencia 365

Content Marketing

Original Article by SEOMoz

Changing from "build" to "attract"

From an SEO viewpoint, the interest in great content is to attract links, where as a lot of what Google is looking to eliminate are examples of where content is used to build links: articles, spun articles spammed across thousands of directories, blog posts spun across networks, networks that dragged in content form places like Youtube, Yahoo Answers and article directories to create mashup posts, blog comments, spun blog comments using scrapebox so you can hit thousands of sites at a time, web2.0 link wheels made from spun content, reclaiming tumblr blogs with PR and adding posts with links to your site, buying up dropped domains and using archive.org to re-add the previous content so you can link to your site, finding squidoo len's to comment on, the list could go on and on and on. It's a lot easier to build links with subpar content, as you don't expect anyone to read it.

What's being sold as "Content Marketing" - is truly great content that people want to share and link to = hey presto ... you're #Number1inGoogleB*tches.

The problem with a lot of SEO's evolution into "Content Marketing" is they are really just thinking about links/shares - it's a blackbox approach, with content going in and links and social shares coming out:

There is more to Content than Links

The reality is true content marketing isn't just about links and shares. In the words of copyblogger:

"Content Marketing means creating and sharing valuable free content to attract and convert prospects into customers, and customers into repeat buyers. The type of content you share is closely related to what you sell; in other words, you’re educating people so that they know, like, and trust you enough to do business with you.” CopyBlogger

Content Marketing is so much more than getting links. It's the glue that holds your funnel together. It's the reason a prospect visits your site, it's the reason they choose to move further down the purchase path, buy a product and return to your site time and again. Real content marketing is complex; it's not just building a great infographic and notifying some bloggers about it. If you are purchasing a "Content Marketing" strategy from an SEO agency where the sole objective is to acquire links - you are going to waste money in the long run. Sure links can be a metric, but real content marketing is expensive, as a link building strategy - it's very difficult to make a decent return on.

If you are investing in content marketing, why not put together campaigns that drive goals across your funnel and have links and shares as a metric, but not the sole objective. Let's start with TOFU (Top of Funnel) content marketing campaigns ....

Top of Funnel - Joining the Dots

Your approach to content marketing will differ slightly dependent on where the campaign resides within the funnel. For example, the following is a snapshot of what may be involved in a TOFU (Top of Funnel) campaign.

# Objective

Anything successful in life starts with a clear and concise objective/goal. For example, a goal could be structured as:

Core Objective: Our content campaign is aimed at people who love to camp and are looking for the latest pair of hiking boots from brand X. We want to attract X amount of new visits, rank for keyword “X” on first page of Google, attract 15 links from PR2+ sites and drive X% of these new visits into our product page (which converts at X%) - of course that X% can be improved upon by MOFU (Mid of Funnel Campaigns) via A/B Testing etc

Secondary Goal: We want X amount of these new visits to turn into Facebook Fans and X to turn into new Twitter Followers

The more specific you can be about the goal of your content campaign the better. When asked to explain what you are doing to a VP of marketing, having a well-structured campaign mapped against core business goals will get you a far bigger budget than "I'm trying to get links".

Your Twitter Highlight: Your Content Marketing Strategy Should be aligned to Business Goals

I have purposely left out revenue in the above goal as I am splitting campaigns into Top of Funnel and Mid of Funnel to show the importance of content throughout the purchase path. If you're running a content campaign across the funnel - you should have revenue as a metric. You will need to quantify your own metrics to establish the ROI on your campaign e.g. how do you value Cost Per Link.

1. Persona Development

Persona development is a crucial part of any successful content marketing strategy. There are a number of ways to develop personas:

Using your Analytics

Social listening (this is hard, I’ve done it)

Interviews with prospects

Interviews with customers

Interviews with people you want to become customers

Customer surveys (if you have a big enough Email DB)

Google consumer surveys (http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/home)

Even running an internal workshop with different teams provides great insights. You would be amazed how much valuable information is stored within the customer support team, example of a previous one I ran with the help of iqcontent.com

Something that’s really important to keep in mind is your content campaign may touch multiple personas. For example, in the objectives mapped out above, the persona we are targeting for new visits isn’t necessary the same persona who is going to link to you. Unlike online marketing, where most people have blogs, it’s highly likely in other industries the people who you can get links from and potential customers are not the same person.

Your Twitter Highlight: If Links are your core goal; you need to target the personas who actually have the power to link to you.

2. Strategy

Once you have personas in place, you can build out your content campaign framework. This should be broken into what I call The VP Strategy and The Actual Strategy.

But What's my VP Strategy?

This is for that moment in a meeting when you are asked, "Hey what are you spending my 100k on?" They don’t need your life story, just an overview that makes sense.

• We are building an interactive map of the globe where users can click around and learn about the best camping destinations in the world + what camp gear they should bring for each hike.
• We are doing 10 posts on our own blog to promote it. We are doing an outreach program with 20 experts on outdoor pursuits; these experts helped us develop the content for the map.
• We are doing PR with 10 online camping magazines about our Facebook competition where you can win a holiday to one of the destinations on the map. The clues to this are being given away on our Twitter feed; you have to follow to get them, as they are time sensitive
• We are also running paid campaign via remarketing, content network and third-party placements to support our initial launch

The Actual Strategy is your project plan. I usually start everything with a flow diagram (creately is awesome for this) – I am a visual thinker so this helps a lot - how you plan content could be totally different. But you need to plan .... :

3. Resources

Most content campaigns will fail because they have no clear objective and they haven’t considered what resources they require (often not having the correct resources to implement the campaign). You need to define:

How much will this cost in total? This includes any piece of activity related to the campaign, regardless if its coming from your budget or some other department’s e.g. if you are feeding Facebook/Twitter with great content – maybe you have a social media budget that you can steal take from :)

What internal resources do you have?

What external resources will you be using?

For our campaign we probably need:

Project coordinator

Content strategist

Outreach consultant (to get bloggers onboard)

Developer (for interactive map)

External agency for design

PR manager (for pitching of the competition)

Resources should be part of your project plan doc.

Your Twitter Highlight: Your Content Marketing will #fail if you don't have the right resources

4. Content Types

What content types will you be using in your campaign:

• Blog posts
• Guest posts
• PR pitches
• Video

5. Mediums

What mediums are going to be used to promote your content? For our example we are going to use:

• Google (organic): Once our piece lifts off, we expect to acquire traffic for informational key phrases around “camping destinations”. Yes, not all these are going to purchase our product. But some may share it, like our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter, join our email list or help us amplify the content. Think both macro and micro conversions.
• Facebook: Let’s assume we already have an audience on Facebook we can promote it to. We can also use this as a way to acquire new fans via paid ads – but how effective it is to pay for fans is open for debate.
• Twitter to promote time sensitive clues for our competition
• Email Marketing: Yes, building an email database should still be part of your marketing strategy. Guess what Email Marketing is NOT DEAD. Leveraging it for content campaigns is a great reason why. Just make sure you are doing it right.
• Remarketing: We are going to build a list of anyone who has visited our product pages on camping gear. Instead of advertising another product to them – we are going to take them back up the funnel a little and show them this great interactive map. Maybe they won't buy, but the might help amplify our message.
• Display: We are going to run a small display campaign across a select number of outdoors activity sites advertising the interactive map. Google content network campaigns advertising free content tend to perform quite well.
• Guest posts: Once live we are going to ping the experts who helped us put the map together. There is no requirement for them to post, but we hope they will :). Dependent on your brand, this step is really easy or really hard. The great thing about content marketing is, the better you get, the easier this step becomes.

Your Twitter Highlight: Even the most remarkable Content will #fail without a solid promotion plan

6. Metrics

Doing content for "Brand Awareness" or "Thought Leadership" is easy, as most companies do not put anything measurable against these goals. Putting metrics against what you are doing and reporting to senior execs is a lot more difficult. You will get asked what did I get in return for my spend? Having an answer to this will put on you a par with every other exec (mostly in Sales), who can easily answer that question.

a. Goals

Defining goals for content marketing campaigns is not easy, just as defining goals for whitehat link building campaigns is near impossible (unless you are just doing guest posting). How do you put a number against how many links a piece of content will deliver naturally? But it's critical you have specific goals for any campaign you put live. These will be defined in your objectives:

X Number of Visits

Improved Keyword Rank (To First Page)

Attracted X Number of Links

X Number of Visits into Product Page

Increase X Number of Facebook Fans

Increase X Number of Twitter Followers

Most TOFU (Top of Funnel) campaigns core goal is not Sales(B2C)/Qualified Leads(B2B), but thinking in terms of Macro and Micro conversions will help put dollar/euro values against each goal. For example, you can get the number of sales generated by your product page (either when it's the landing page or when it's some part of the journey), using this you can put a dollar/euro metric against each visit generated to that product page as part of this campaign. It's then up to your MOFU campaign to split test the hell out of the page and turn these into sales.

b. ROI

ROI isn't going to be a straightforward calculation. How valuable is each new visit? (Google Analytics Mutli Funnels help a lot). How valuable is your improved visibility on Google? How valuable are visits to your product page? How valuable are your Facebook Fans/Twitter followers? In most cases, it might not be possible to answer all these questions, but if you want executive buy in for large content campaigns - have some type of ROI forecast you can give them.

c. Links/Shares

Yes, links and shares are good metrics to have. Trying to put a monetary value against these are a lot more difficult. You are better of measuring what links and shares should bring e.g. new visits from both google and social media.

Agencia 365 

89 sophisticated cliches used by dumb people to seem smart?

1. It’s a paradigm shift = I don’t know what’s going on in our business. But we’re not making as much money as we used to.

 

2. We’re data-driven = We try not to make decisions by the seat of our pants. When possible, we try to base them in facts.

 

3. We need to wrap our heads around this = Gosh, I never thought of that. We need to discuss that….

 

4. It’s a win-win = Hey, we both get something out of this (even though I’m really trying to get the best from you)

 

5. ROI [used in any sentence] = Look at me, I’m very financially-minded, even if I never took any finance classes in school  

 

6. Let’s blue sky this/let’s ballpark this = Let’s shoot around a bunch of ideas since we have no clue what to do

 

7. I’m a bit of a visionary = I’m a bit of an egomaniac and narcissist

 

8. I’m a team player/we only hire team players = I hope everyone on the team thinks this is a meritocracy, even though I’m the dictator in charge

 

9. Let’s circle back to that/Let’s put that in the parking lot/let’s touch base on that later/let’s take this off-line = Shut up and let’s go back to what I was talking about

 

10. We think outside the box here/color outside the lines = We wouldn’t know about how to do something innovative if it came up to us and bit us in the behind

 

11. I/we/you don’t have the bandwidth = Since we cut 60% of our headcount, we’re all doing the job of 3 people, so we’re all burned out

 

12. This is where the rubber meets the road = Don’t screw up

 

13. Net net/the net of it is/when you net it out = I never studied finance or accounting but I sound like someone who  can make money if I keep talking about another word for profit

 

14. We’ll go back and sharpen our pencils = We’ll go back and offer you the same for 20% less in hopes you’ll buy it before the end of the quarter

 

15.  It’s like the book “Crossing the Chasm”/”Blue Ocean”/”Good To Great” / “Tipping Point” / “Outliers” = I’ve never read any of these books but I sound literate if I quote  from them. And, besides, you cretins probably never read them either to  call me out on it

 

16. Let’s right-size it = Let’s whack/fire a bunch of people

 

17. It’s next-gen/turn-key/plug-and-play = I want it to sound so technical that you’ll just buy it without asking me any questions

 

18. We need to manage the optics of this = How can we lie about this in a way people will believe?

 

19. This is creative destruction = I’ve  never read Joseph Schumpeter but our core business is getting killed so  it’s your responsibility to come up with a new product the market will  buy

 

20. We don’t have enough boots on the ground = I don’t want to be fired for this disastrous product/country launch,  so I’m going to sound tough referring to the military and say I don’t  have enough resources  

 

21. Deal with it = Tough cookies

 

22. By way of housekeeping = This makes the boring stuff I’m about to say sound more official

 

23. That’s the $64,000 question [sometimes, due to inflation, people will denominate this cliche in millions or billions of dollars] = I don’t know either

 

24. Let’s square the circle = I’m someone who can unify two team members’ views and sound important

 

25. It’s our cash cow/protect/milk the cash cow = If that business goes south, we’re all out of a job

 

26. It’s about synergies/1 + 1 = 3 = I don’t get the math either, but it sounds like more and more is better, right?

 

27. Who’s going to step up to the plate? = One of you is going to do this and it’s not going to be me

 

28. We’re eating our own dog food = It sounds gross but we seem like honest folks if we do this.

 

29. We need to monetize/strategize/analyze/incentivize = When in doubt, stick “-ize” on the end of a word and say we’ve got to  do this and 9 out of 10 times, it will sound action-oriented.

 

30. We did a Five Forces/SWOT analysis/Value Chain analysis = We didn’t really do any of that, but none of you probably even remember Michael Porter, so what the heck

 

31. It was a perfect storm = We really screwed up but we’re going to blame a bunch of factors that are out of our hands (especially weather)

 

32. At the end of the day…. = OK, enough talking back and forth, we’re going to do what I want to do

 

33. Who’s got the ‘R’? [i.e., responsibility to do what we just spent 20 minutes talking about aimlessly] = If I ask the question, it won’t be assigned to me

 

34. Let’s put lipstick on this pig = plug your nose

 

35. I’m putting a stake in the ground here… = I’m a leader, simply because I’m using this cliche

 

36. We’re customer-focused/proactive/results-oriented = That can’t be bad, right?  This is motherhood and apple pie stuff

 

37. Our visibility into the quarter is a little fuzzy = Sales just fell off a cliff

 

38. That’s not our core competency/we’re sticking to our knitting = We’re just glad we’re making money in one business, because we’d have no clue how to get into any other business

 

39. Well, we’re facing some headwinds there = You put your finger on the area we’re panicking over

 

40. It’s a one-off = Do whatever they want to close the sale  

 

41. Incent it = That’s not a verb but I just made it into one because I’m a man/woman of action

 

42. I’m an agent of change = This makes it sound like I know how to handle the chaos that our business is constantly going through

 

43. We’ve got to do a little more due diligence there = Don’t have a clue but does that legal term make me sound detail-oriented?

 

44. Don’t leave money on the table = Be as greedy with them as possible

 

45. We take a “ready, fire, aim” approach here = We totally operate on a seat-of-the-pants basis

 

46. Hope is not a strategy = I don’t have a strategy, but this makes it sound like I’m above people who also don’t have a strategy

 

47. We have to tear down the silos internally = Our organizational structure is such a mess that I’m going to be under-mined by other departments at every turn

 

48. I don’t think it will move the needle = This won’t get my boss excited

 

49. Good to put a face to the name = I’d really rather talk to that person behind you

 

50. Let’s take the 30,000 foot view… = I like to think I see the big picture

 

51. It’s the old 80-20 rule = I really have no idea what the rule was, but I just want to focus on the things that will make us successful

 

52. We need to manage expectations = Get ready to start sucking up to people

 

53. It’s not actionable enough/what’s the deliverable? = You guys do the work on refining the idea. I’m too tired.

 

54. My 2 cents is… = This opinion is worth a heck of a lot more than 2 cents

 

55. I’m going to sound like a broken record here… = I want to clearly point out to you idiots that I’ve made this point several times before

 

56. We’ve got too many chiefs and not enough Indians = I want to be the Chief

 

57. Going forward = Don’t screw up like this again

 

58. My people know I’ve got an open door policy = I’ve told my direct reports to come to me if they have a problem, so  why should I feel bad if they complain I’m too busy to talk to them?

 

59. It’s gone viral = Someone sent a tweet about this  

 

60. I know you’ve been burning the candle on both ends = Get ready to do some more

 

61. It’s scalable = We can sell a lot of it in theory

 

62. It’s best-of-breed = We hired a market research firm to say that

 

63. We’re all about value-add = Unlike our competitors who seek to add no value

 

64. What’s our go-to-market? = Has anyone planned this out, because I’ve been too busy?

 

65. I’m drinking from a fire hose right now = I want a little sympathy over here, because I’m tired of carrying this company on my back

 

66. We’re getting some push back = They’re not buying it

 

67. We need to do a level-set = I’ve never been inside a Home Depot, but this phrase makes me sound handy

 

68. It’s basic blocking and tackling = How could you screw this up? I also played high school football and those were the best days of my life.

 

69. Let’s put our game faces on = Get serious, guys

 

70. We’ve got it covered from soup to nuts = I have no idea what that means, but don’t you dare question my prep work on it

 

71. We don’t want to get thrown under the bus = So let’s throw someone else first

 

72. But to close the loop on this… = Always the more theoretical Business Development/Strategy guys who say this, so they can sound thorough

 

73. What are “next steps”? = Did anyone take notes during the last 90 minutes of this meeting?

 

74. This is low-hanging fruit = Get this done quickly

 

75. We need a few quick wins = We’ve got to trick people into thinking we know what we’re doing by some successes we can point to and claim as ours

 

76. It’s a [Insert Company Name] killer = Did I get your attention yet with the Freddy Kreuger imagery associated with the company who’s currently eating our lunch?

 

77. I want to address the elephant in the room = I know you think I’m trying to cover up/gloss over something, so I might as well talk about it

 

78. This is the next big thing/new thing = Some of our 20-somethings have told me this is really cool

 

79. This time it’s different because… = Don’t wait for the explanation… simply run for the hills.

 

80. What are the best practices on this? = How can I cover my behind that we’re just doing stuff the way other good people have supposedly done this?

 

81. This is our deliverable = I know this sounds like something that comes in a body bag, but it makes our PowerPoint sound tougher than it actually is

 

82. We’ll loop you in when we need to = You’re not that important to know about all the details on this

 

83. We want this to move up and to the right = I failed high school algebra but someone said this means we’ll be making a lot of money if this happens

 

84. We’re going through a re-org = No one knows what the heck is going on at the moment

 

85. We’ve got to increase our mind-share with the customer = I think I would have been happier as a doctor doing lobotomies than in marketing as a career path

 

86. I don’t think you’re comparing apples to apples = Let me tell you how you should really think about this issue

 

87. Let’s peel back the onion on this = I want to sound thorough so this is a better way of telling you that than simply clearing my throat

 

88. You phoned it in = I was too busy checking my email during your presentation that I didn’t listen

 

89. I want you to run with this = I just threw you into the deep end of the pool and you’re on your own to figure it out

 

La importancia del copy en las Redes Sociales

 En publicidad, la redacción siempre ha sido desde mi punto de vista -y el de muchos otros- la piedra angular del business.

El copy sintetiza la idea y la soslaya para convertirla en impactante, única y, a poder ser, eterna. No es de extrañar que, para que un titular o un lema publicitario (eslogan) sean aprobados por el cliente, deben haber pasado -el titular o el lema- un sinfín de filtros, revisiones y cambios.

Copiar y Pegar

Los buenos redactores sabrán mejor que yo lo que cuesta llegar a una sentencia como “Just do it” o “Think different”, por mencionar algunos de los más conocidos, y la de horas de trabajo, investigación, talento y esfuerzo que suponen sacar tan inolvidables aforismos. Sin embargo, cuando llevamos el terreno de la redacción a las redes sociales y más concretamente a los posts o tweets que a diario escriben los community manager, el asunto cambia radicalmente.

Por un lado, tenemos que, debido a la alta frecuencia de publicación imperante en redes sociales, cualquier tipo de filtro o corrección se presenta como inservible, más allá de la que la misma persona responsable de su redacción (community manager, normalmente) pueda llevar a cabo. De otro modo, se perdería la agilidad y el potencial de conversación que nos facilitan este tipo de medios. En consecuencia, un community manager debe saber redactar correctamente, pues cada texto que crea es susceptible de convertirse en un mensaje constructio o destructivo.

 Por otro lado, existe el reto de escribir manteniendo el tono y posicionamiento de la marca. Esto es trasladar al entorno social de Internet el estilo que se muestra en medios offline masivos, como TV, prensa y exterior. Y no es fácil. Si ya resulta complicado redactar un copy para un anuncio, aunque este sea puramente explicativo, imaginaos lo que es tener que escribir a diario, en más de una ocasión, frases que refuercen o mejoren la imagen y el posicionamiento de una marca. Obviamente, no se le puede exigir a un CM que cada frase que escriba se convierta en memorable, pero sí debe ser coherente con el resto de la comunicación que la marca desarrolla.

Otro factor a tener en cuenta es el contenido que se publica, ya que, salvo que sea creado por la propia marca,éste deberá cumplir con una serie de estandartes de “calidad” y deberá seguir la misma línea que el resto de los elementos que conforman la estrategia. Pero esto ya lo dejamos para otro día, porque merece un artículo aparte.

Articulo Original

The Real Difference Between Google and Facebook Ads

 

The Real Difference Between Google and Facebook Ads

Published on Creative Guerrilla Marketing | 

For some people who enjoy reading different charts and graphs comparing Google AdWords to , there seems to be no contest. Yes, the truth of the matter is that Google has more ad effectiveness for what Google is. Then again, that’s because of what Google is – an entire search engine that is able to span the Internet. Facebook, on the other hand, is only a lone network. Sure, they have millions of other companies and sites associated with them, but Facebook users use Facebook; everyone can search Google. So there isn’t an accurate comparison.

Or is there? You see, once you compare them platform-to-platform and start looking at the metrics that actually matter to advertisers who would use Facebook to bolster their brand, you start to see something entirely different. You start to see how Facebook bests Google in the most important categories.

Top Reasons Why Facebook Ads Win Out

You could spend an entire day reading dozens of different articles and viewing different charts about what it is that exactly separates the two services. The real test is in how they actually break down to target their audience, however. And while Google might be more widely used, because it’s a search engine as opposed to a social network, ad campaigns all come down to targeting, and this is why Facebook is able to trump Google on ad effectiveness.

Narrowed Focus – Facebook

With Google, you’re attempting to drive people to a destination. That destination isn’t on “Google” per se; it’s just your site. On Facebook, you’re driving within the network and can drive outside of it. Thus you can narrow the focus tremendously. Your fan page or business page can pick up a head of stream through likes and sharing and unique content within the social context of the Facebook framework. You have many different filters that can be applied to help you keep this focus as narrow or as broad as you wish. It’s much easier to reach the right audience, and the word-of-mouth factor is exponentially increased on a social network when compared to the Internet at large.

Search Terms – Google

Google might have different ad formats and more options than Facebook, but at the end of the day you’re relying on what people decide to search. This means you constantly need to be on top of your research across the board, all to drive people to a destination. With Facebook’s 900 million users, however, you have something of a comparable size with much more focus. Google’s search terms and ad formats and other features provide more options, but Facebook provides a much more streamlined approach for targeting your market.

At the end of the day, you don’t really have to choose. You can run a Facebook campaign while still advertising with Google AdWords. Though for the sake of argument, it looks like Facebook wins in the categories that matter the most.

Agencia 365

4 Facebook Plugins to Drive More Traffic to Your Content

Published on Social Media Examiner | 

Do you want more of your content shared on Facebook?

Are you wondering how to make it easy for people to share your site or blog content on Facebook?

Which Facebook widgets are best?

Facebook recently introduced the —which is different from the —and the and the .

But what are the differences and how do you decide what will work best for you? And then how do you install them?

Similar to the Like Button, when people like an article using the Recommendations Bar, a story is published back to their Timeline and friends' news feeds.

We’ll dive deep into those questions in this article (hint: your best solution may be a combination of the options).

#1: Recommendations Bar

First let’s talk about the newest plugin, the Recommendations Bar. This really is more of a popup box that is shown to readers of your blog post as they scroll down your post.

The Recommendations Bar is good for people who have blogs because it can help direct them to other blog posts that people liked on the site.

Here are some of the things you need to know about the Recommendations Bar:

• Pops up inline with your blog post. You can choose what percentage of your article must be read before the box pops up.
• You can choose to have the words Recommend or Like as the verbiage in the upper-left corner. That verbiage is then used in the Activity post.
• When someone clicks Like or Recommend in the upper-left corner of the Recommendations Bar, that information is sent to the Activity area of readers’ Facebook Timelines and also appears in the Ticker for their friends to see.
• Can be minimized by clicking the square in the upper-right corner of the popup box.
• Only appears if the person reading your blog post is logged into their Facebook personal profile. If they are logged in as their page, it won’t appear at all. If the person is not logged into Facebook, the popup will appear but if they click Like, they will have to log into Facebook to complete the Like.
• Shows how many people have liked the post, as well as whether a friend has liked the post, which is good social proof for your articles.

Here is a video tutorial on how to install and configure the Facebook Recommendations Bar using the Facebook WordPress plugin.

As mentioned in this video, use this post as a supplement to help you install the Facebook plugin.

The Recommendations Bar can pop up at the beginning of the article and have the word Recommend rather than Like.

Different information appears in my Recent Activity if someone likes or recommends the article from the Recommendations Bar.

The Recommendations Bar shows how many people like the article and whether a Facebook friend of the reader likes the article.

When people see that one of their Facebook friends has also read and liked the article, they may be more interested in reading the article. The ability to keep people on your website reading your content and getting to know you better will help you convert readers to customers.

#2: Recommendations Box

The Recommendations Box is the older Facebook plugin (with the confusingly similar name). It appears in the sidebar of your website.

Here are some of the things you need to know about the Recommendations Box:

• Showcases popular articles on your website.
• Doesn’t have a social side to it.
• If you click on one of the articles, you are taken to the article but it doesn’t appear as a like or recommendation in Facebook. It is just a way to show popular articles with the number of people who have liked them.

The Recommendations Box is displayed on the sidebar of your website.

This plugin is a good choice if you want to have a list of popular articles in your sidebar with some social proof listed underneath the article.

But Facebook has done some initial experiments and found that the Recommendations Bar was getting three times more clicks than the posts in the Recommendations Box, according to a blog post from Facebook developer Jeffrey Spehar.

Add the Recommendations Box to have a list of popular articles, but using both the Recommendations Box and the Recommendations Bar may be overkill. Choose the one that fits better with the design you want—inline with the Recommendations Bar or on the sidebar with the Recommendations Box.

#3: Like Button

You may be familiar with the Like Button already. If you click the Like Button, you’re sending the activity back to your Facebook personal profile that you like the article you’re reading.

Here are some of the things you need to know about the Like Button:

• You can choose the verbiage Like or Recommend for the button.
• The action of Like or Recommend shows in the Activity area and the Ticker, similar to the way the Recommendations Bar works.
• You can choose if you want to display the number of people who have liked the article or post and even if you want to show the profile pictures of people who have liked the post (this will only show the profile pictures of someone’s Facebook friends who like the post).
• Shows up with an indication that the button is there if someone is logged in as their page.
• It can also easily incorporate the Send Button, which allows people to easily email the article.

The Like Button can have the number of people who have liked the post and the Send button.

Indication that the Like Button is there, and you need to switch to your personal profile to use it.

Use the Like Button when you have a lineup of social sharing buttons. People will look for your social sharing buttons all in one place. But if you have your social sharing buttons with a different plugin, then you may not need it.

If you are using the Recommendation Bar, you may not want to rely on that alone to allow people to like your post, since it doesn’t show up when someone is logged in as their page.

#4: The Like Box

The Like Box is different from the Like Button in that it allows you to bring your Facebook page to your website versus sending activity about your website to your readers’ Facebook profiles. The Like Box resides on the sidebar of your website.

Here are some of the things you need to know about the Like Box:

• Can be configured to show the profile photos of people who like your page, the last few posts from your page and other design elements such as width, height, and color scheme.
• Shows an indication that it is there if someone is logged into Facebook as their page with a prompt to switch back to the user profile, similar to the Like Button.
• When someone clicks Like, they will automatically like your page but not leave your website.
• If you have a Like Box with the stream showing (the last few posts), someone can click on the stream to be taken to Facebook or even click on the links you have shared on your Facebook page.

The Like Box can be configured with faces and different styles and allows someone to like your Facebook page without leaving your website.

Add the URL of your page and configure the Facebook Like Box.

The Like Box is a very useful plugin to allow people to like your Facebook page right from your website. None of the other plugins accomplish this, so it is a good one to keep if you don’t want to have people navigate off of your website to go like your page. You can configure the Like Box so that it doesn’t have to take up too much space on your sidebar.

Installing the Plugins

Now let’s talk about the easiest way to install many of the available Facebook plugins onto your website.

If you’re using WordPress, adding a suite of Facebook plugins is easy with the . All you need to do is download a zip file, install the plugin and configure your own app on Facebook (which is completely outlined for you by Facebook).

Then you just choose which Facebook app you want to add.

These plugins are shown in the Facebook Plugin area of the sidebar: Social Publisher, the Like Button, the Subscribe Button, the Send Button, Facebook Comments and the Recommendations Bar.

Take a look at this post which shows you exactly how to install each of these options.

Then you’ll find the Facebook Like Box, Recommendations Box and even the Like Button and Send Button (another way to install them) in the widgets area of Facebook. Drag the widget over to your sidebar and configure it.

The Like Box and Recommendations Box are in the Widget area of your WordPress site.

If you have a non-WordPress website, then you’ll have to use the site to get the code for each of these Facebook plugins.

Deciding What’s Right for You

Now that we’ve covered all the bases on the different plugins and you see the differences, you need to decide what’s right for you.

How much social interaction do you want? Do you want someone to be able to like your Facebook page easily or is that not as important as sharing your post with their friends? Maybe you already have social share buttons on your blog and you don’t want to add anything new.

A combination of these options may be best. At Social Media Examiner, we have a Like Box and the Like Button. Perhaps you want to experiment with the traffic generation of the Recommendations Bar to try to keep people on your site.

What do you think? We’d like to hear from you. What are your thoughts about all of the options? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

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5 Common Mistakes when Running Facebook Contests

This is a guest post by Aaron Lee from Binkd.

Running a Facebook contest is beneficial in many ways. It’s a great way to help increase engagement, re-energize your audience, build your email database, grow your customer base, and help increase awareness around the product.

Facebook contests are very popular and I can quite easily find new contests popping up every day. But just about every other day I’ll find contests on Facebook that are either not following the promotion guidelines or simply not making the most out of their contests. Even some of my friends tend to make these mistakes when they are running a contest for their businesses.

The biggest mistake that most businesses make is not reading Facebook’s promotions guidelines. I believe not many business owners are aware that such guidelines even exist.

Here are some of the most common Facebook contest mistakes.

1. Using a Facebook feature as a contest

Probably the most common mistake is using the Facebook feature as part of the contest elements. Quite often will I find contest such as:

• Click like to win
• Share this photo and win
• Comment to win

Although contests such as these are easy to organize, the rules say:

“You must not condition registration or entry upon the user liking a Wall post, or commenting or uploading a photo on a Wall.”

Going against this basically means that Facebook has the power to make your contest invalid or even to the extent of blocking your account – although it is entirely up to Facebook’s discretion.

The best way to go around this is to use a third party contest application and I will go into the details below.

2. Not using an application

Small businesses tend to ignore the fact that third-party applications are required to run a contest on Facebook.

The best way for business owners to organize a contest on Facebook is by using a third party application. This helps you to comply with the promotional guidelines which states that:

“Promotions on Facebook must be administered within Apps on Facebook.com, either on a Canvas Page or a Page App.”

There are a few ways or going around it. If you have an in-house programmer, you can have them to code the contest. Alternatively if you don’t, you can simplify the job by using the services of other professionally-built third-party apps out there.

Some of the popular Contest Applications are:

• Binkd
• Strutta
• Wildfire

3. Announcing winners on wall

Another mistake is announcing winners on the Facebook wall. This is a tough one as fans want to know who won the contest. Although I believe this should be changed, Facebook clearly states that users must not notify through any of Facebook’s communication platforms such as messages, chats or post on profiles or pages.

Despite having an application, many businesses still make the mistake of announcing the winners on the wall.

4. Giving away unrelated prizes

The best prizes are those that are relevant to your business. It’s common to see businesses giving highly sought-after products like an iPad away, but as enticing as the prize may sound, giving away an iPad (or any other unrelated products) might attract those who wants the iPad but will not associate themselves with your business in the future.

Business owners should give away some of their products as prizes. Why not? Prizes should be related or relevant to your business because then the winners will get to try your product. It helps to increase awareness and it is a chance for you to roll out that kick-ass promotional campaign to show-off your product.

More often than not, the winners themselves will share their achievements on other social networks such as Twitter and Instagram and that too will help spread the news about your product.

5. Not promoting enough

Don’t expect your contest to get popular without any promoting it.

Unless you already have an existing fanbase to participate in your contests, chances are your contest will not gain any momentum and will lack in engagement. If you are lacking that fanbase and are looking for more fans on your page, then you will definitely need to promote your contest and give it a little push to get the best out of it.

Facebook adverts are a great way to give that edge to your contest and to get more fans of your page. It does require a little more investment so if that is not what you prefer then try promoting your contest through your blog or any other networks that you already have. Blogs or your business website are two great platforms to promote your contest as it allows you to give more details as well as outlining the terms and conditions to your contest.

What are other mistakes do you think should be added into the list? Feel free to leave a comment below.

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5 Examples of great looking e-commerce sites + 5 Ways to Boost it http://bit.ly/ecommerce365

 5 Ways to Boost your e-commerce site

1) Show Visitors Exactly Where They are ... and Where They can Go

Clear site navigation is not only crucial for search engine optimization -- users who land on a product page need to know exactly where they are within the site architecture. Make it easy for them to browse other categories with breadcrumbs on every page. If you're not familiar with the term, breadcrumbs refers to a component of your site navigation that lets users see where they are and where they have been. Let's take a look at Zappos for an example:

See that orange callout in the top left corner? Those are breadcrumbs! So even if someone lands on this page directly from a search engine, he or she can easily digest what other options are available: other shoe types, other types of boat shoes, other shoe brands. The hierarchy is crystal clear, which means the user experience is swift and painless.

2) Make it Unbelievably Easy to be Contacted

I know you're an ecommerce marketer, but some people are just more comfortable using the phone. If not to place an order, then to assess the professionalism of a company, to ask product questions, or to give feedback. Give these people an opportunity to talk to you in their preferred method by placing your phone number on every page of your ecommerce website. In fact, an A/B test from LessEverything showed that simply placing a phone number more prominently on the website generated a 1.8% increase in overall site visitors to paying customers. That's an easy change to make that leads to money right in your pocket.

3) Follow Product Page Best Practices

Design your product pages to be as simple and striking as possible so they pass the blink test -- the commonly accepted three seconds you have to orient a new visitor to your website so they don't get overwhelmed, causing them to click their browser's back button.

Since the average visitor's attention span is so short, stick to a product page outline that is clear and effective. You can do this by displaying the checkout or add to cart button near large, high-quality images and away from cluttered text like user-generated reviews or comments. Use no more than three columns, and limit the amount of distractions around the page.

AHAlife does an excellent job of simplifying their product pages to increase shopping cart conversion rates. Their product page layout is two columns, the product is featured more prominently than any page copy, and the eye is drawn to both the large image area and the buy now button.

4) Include User Reviews and Unique Content

 Many ecommerce product pages include hackneyed, generic product descriptions -- I get it, it's much easier to just plop in the manufacturer's description. But doing so not only subjects your website to duplicate content penalties that harm your SEO, but it does nothing to convince your shoppers of your product's value. In fact, a study from CompUSA and iPerceptions showed 63% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a site if it has product ratings and reviews.

 Write unique, compelling product descriptions, and encourage user reviews so your website can reap the SEO benefits and appeal to buyers who may be on the fence. One company who always does it right is ModCloth -- take a look below for an example. This product alone has generated over 234 user reviews which are displayed right on the product page. And if you've ever read their product names and product descriptions -- browse through "The Story" behind "Ignite the Night Dress" -- you know they have a sense of humor in their copy that appeals to their core demographic.

5) Offer a Secondary Call-to-Action for Non-Buying Visitors

 The sooner you embrace the notion that not everyone on your ecommerce product page is ready to buy, the better. To capture the attention of non-transactional leads, use a secondary call-to-action that offers value. Of course, make sure this button does not cannibalize your primary add to cart button. Let's take a look at a company that's doing this right, ecommerce vintage eyewear company Warby Parker.

 They take advantage of non-buying users with a secondary 'Home Try-On' button. This is a great secondary call-to-action because it helps move the visitors who aren't ready to buy further along the sales cycle with an offer that's less of a high commitment -- plus they offer a virtual try-on that might save some visitors from abandoning as they wait to try on their glasses at home.

Bonus Tip

 Use a Recommendation Engine to Increase Product Cross-Selling

 Popularized by companies like Amazon and Netflix, a recommendation engine promotes the up-selling and cross-selling of ecommerce products.

 Most recommendation algorithms utilize the user's history and profile to drive recommendations, but this logic can be difficult to build on your own. A simpler approach would be to take a look at your analytics, marry that up with your own product knowledge, and create your own logic for each of your product pages.

 Search Engine Land worked with a company that saw the following changes after implementing an ecommerce recommendation engine:

Pages per visit (PPV): +20.1%

Time on site: +2.8%

Bounce rate: -5.9%

Conversion rate: +4.8%

                                           

 

 

8 Examples of Landing Pages + AB Testing Made Simple

8ExamplesofLandingPagesABTestingMadeSimple.pdf Download this file

8 Examples of Landing Pages + AB Testing Made Simple by Agencia 365

 

 

Experimentos de contenido en Google Analytics

Con los Experimentos de contenido, puede hacer lo siguiente

• Comparar cómo funcionan las distintas páginas web con una muestra de visitantes aleatoria.
• Definir qué porcentaje de visitantes se incluye en el experimento.
• Elegir los objetivos que desea probar.
• Obtener actualizaciones a través del correo electrónico sobre el estado del experimento (actualmente no disponible).
• Ejemplo del uso de experimentos para mejorar un negocio

 Supongamos que tiene un sitio web que comercializa servicios de limpieza doméstica. Ofrece limpieza básica, limpieza en profundidad y limpieza general. La limpieza general es la más rentable de las tres, por lo que desea conseguir que más usuarios contraten esa opción.

La mayoría de los visitantes entran en la página principal, por lo que esa es la primera página que le interesa probar. Para el experimento, cree varias versiones nuevas de la página web: una con la limpieza general destacada en un gran título rojo; otra con información ampliada sobre las ventajas de la limpieza general; y otra con un icono junto al enlace para contratarla.

Después de configurar e iniciar el experimento, una muestra aleatoria de los visitantes visualiza las distintas páginas, incluida la página principal original, y solo falta esperar a ver qué página obtiene el mayor porcentaje de visitantes para contratar la limpieza general.

Cuando descubra qué página genera más conversiones, puede hacer que sea la página predeterminada para todos los visitantes.

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Remarketing ; Google Analytics

 El remarketing con Google Analytics permite aprovechar los valiosos datos sobre los visitantes de su sitio web que muestran interés por sus productos y servicios, por ejemplo, los visitantes que dedican tiempo a ver páginas concretas o ponen artículos en su carrito de la compra. Una vez que haya identificado a su público objetivo, puede publicar anuncios en la Red de Display de Google adaptados a dicho público.

 Cómo funciona

 Hemos simplificado y acelerado la búsqueda de los clientes que desea. Puede seleccionar una de las listas de remarketing predefinidas o crear sus propias listas personalizadas, todas ellas basadas en métricas conocidas de Google Analytics, como páginas visitas, duración de la visita y consecuciones de objetivos. A continuación, envíe automáticamente sus listas de clientes a Google AdWords y publique anuncios orientados en cuestión de minutos con unos pocos clics. Llegue de forma precisa al público que desee aprovechando los más de dos millones de sitios web que forman parte de la Red de Display de Google.

Dónde encontrarlo

Haga clic en la pestaña "Administrador" de la esquina superior de Google Analytics (debe ser administrador de cuentas) y, a continuación, haga clic en la pestaña "Listas de remarketing".

Por qué se debe usar el remarketing con Google Analytics

• Conecte de forma exacta con los clientes adecuados usando datos exhaustivos online
• Ofrezca anuncios orientados de la Red de Display de Google basados en sus segmentos de clientes específicos
• Cree y modifique listas sofisticadas con nuestra interfaz intuitiva

Considere lo que el remarketing puede hacer por su estrategia de publicidad

• Identifique y consiga nuevos clientes en su región
• Ayude a los compradores potenciales que comparan precios a llevar a cabo la transacción
• Atraiga a los compradores que han colocado artículos en su carrito pero no han comprado
• Retenga a los clientes que han realizado una compra anteriormente
• Ofrezca un estatus especial y ofertas a sus clientes más fieles

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