21 Twitter Tips

Number 1. Special Offers

We live in a society that is as distracted as it is informed. People are making decisions on what to read, view, purchase, visit, and sample based on the information that filters through their attention dashboards. At best, even the most qualified information sourced from the most trusted contacts will receive only a cursory overview. The trick is to concisely introduce the value up front. If the offer is compelling and affiliated with their interests, the consumer will make the connection to personal value and benefits and click-through to redeem the special or coupon when ready or so inclined.

For example, @delloutlet uses Twitter and Facebook to send coupons to customers. In just one year, Dell recorded upward of $3 million in sales directly sourced from Twitter.

California Tortilla (@caltort), a chain of 39 casual Mexican restaurants based in Rockville, MD, sends coupon passwords via Twitter, which customers must say at checkout to redeem the offer.

Number 2. Ordering

While the distance between introduction and action is only separated by a link, many businesses are using Twitter to log orders. Coffee Groundz (@coffeegroundz) uses the direct message channel on Twitter to receive and prepare orders. Using Twitter as a promotion and marketing channel, Coffee Groundz reports 20 to 30% increased sales and market share.

As an aside, Pizza Hut offers an iPhone and Facebook application that allow hungry patrons to order pizza directly from Facebook and their mobile phone.

Number 3. Word of Mouth Marketing

Moonfruit offered 11 Macbook Pros and 10 iPod Touches to celebrate its 10th anniversary. In order to qualify, contestants had to send a tweet using the hashtag #moonfruit. One month following the completion of the contest, Moonfruit site traffic was up 300% and sales also increased by 20%--and all because of a meager investment of $15,000. The company also realized SEO benefits, by landing on the first results page on Google for "free Web site builder."

Wendy White, Moonfruit's CEO, realizes that there's a fine line between effective and destructive #tweetowin campaigns: "Such campaigns must be courteous and fit with a company's brand, lest you draw the ire of the Twitter-sphere."

Number 4. Conversation Marketing

Zappos (@zappos) doesn't necessarily market on Twitter; instead, it "unmarkets" via conversations and engagement. At current count, 436 Zappos employees use Twitter, including CEO Tony Hsieh. For the record, Tony has over 1 million followers.

Aaron Magness, director of business development at Zappos, acknowledges that proactively sharing the company culture and values creates a humanizing effect that invites people to be part of the community, and also acts as a sales driver. "It's easier for them to embrace openness," he said.

Number 5. Customer Service

Frank Eliason of Comcast (@comcastcares) and Richard Binhammer of Dell (@richardatdell) are paving the way for service-focused organizations on Twitter.

Eliason, whose title is director of digital care at Comcast, uses Twitter to help 200 to 300 subscribers a day. Frank and his 10-person help desk receive direct questions, but also proactively seek out complaints. His key to success lies in his desire to earn relations, not bark advice or chat people up. "If they want assistance, they'll let me know," he said.

Number 6. Focus Groups

Wisdom and creativity are widespread in social media. Tuning in to the frequency of conversations related to the brand or marketplace can serve as a real-time focus group for innovation and adaptation.

Over 3 million mentions of Starbucks populated Twitter in May 2009 and, as the company learned, the price for paying attention is less than that for a caramel macchiato, but the value is priceless

Brad Nelson, who leads @starbucks, recognizes the inherent wisdom and insight in Twitter: "There is a major element of Twitter that's about listening and learning. Twitter is a leading indicator," he said. Morgan Johnston, Manager of Corporate Communications at JetBlue, was inspired to change policy because of Twitter. He helped eliminate a $50 fee for carry-on bikes after hearing complaints via Twitter.

Johnston listens to the people who are active on the Social Web in order to improve company processes and customer service. "Think of Twitter as the canary in the coal mine. We watch for customers' discussions about amenities we have, and what they'd like to see made better."

Original Article Here

¿Por qué estar en las redes sociales si no es para vender? by Agencia365

Analytics: Capturing The Value Of Social Media Using Google Analytics

Measuring the value of social media has been a challenge for marketers. And with good reason: it’s hard to understand exactly what is happening in an environment where activity occurs both on and off your website. Since social media is often an upper funnel player in a shopper’s journey, it's not always easy to determine which social channels actually drive value for your business and which tactics are most effective.

But as the social industry matures, marketers and web analysts need true outcome-oriented reports. After all, although social is growing in popularity, brand websites - not social networks - remain the place where people most often purchase or convert. 

That’s why we’re releasing a new set of Social reports within Google Analytics. The new reports bridge the gap between social media and the business metrics you care about - allowing you to better measure the full value of the social channel for your business. We wanted to help you with 3 things:

• Identify the full value of traffic coming from social sites and measure how they lead to direct conversions or assist in future conversions 
• Understand social activities happening both on and off of your site to help you optimize user engagement and increase social key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Make better, more efficient data-driven decisions in your social media marketing programs

The Social reports allow you to analyze all of this information together and see a more complete picture of social impact than often used today. Here are a couple of the things you can do with our new reports:

Overview Report: see social performance at a glance and its impact on conversions

The Overview report allows you to see at a glance how much conversion value is generated from your social channels. The Social Value visualization compares the number and monetary value of all your goal completions against those that resulted from social referrals - both as last interaction, and assisted.

A visit from a social referral may result in conversion immediately or it may assist in a conversion that occurs later on. Referrals that lead to conversions immediately are labeled as Last Interaction Social Conversion. If a referral from a social source doesn’t immediately generate a conversion, but the visitor returns later and converts, the referral is included as an Assisted Social Conversion. 

Conversions Report: which goals are being impacted by social media

With the Conversions report, marketers can now measure the value of each individual social channel by seeing the conversion rates of each social network and the monetary value they drive to your business.

For example, you can see the effect that social content (i.e. a new video you created) had on conversions. Look at the time graph to see whether Goal Completions via Social Referral peaked after the content was published. Remember that you need to define goals and goal values in order to see data in this report, so tailor it to the things that matter to your business. Networks with a higher assisted / last interaction conversions ratio provide greater assisted conversions.

Social Sources - find out how visitors from different sources behave

The Social Sources report shows engagement and conversion metrics for each social network so you can see how people are interacting with your content and whether it’s leading to a desired outcome.

For example, if you run social campaigns that promote specific products, you can see via the Social Visitor Flow whether visitors from each social network entered your site through these product pages and whether they continued on to other parts of the site or whether they exited.  

Social Plugins: find the content that’s good enough to share

If you publish content, you'll want to know which articles are most commonly shared or recommended, and on which social networks they're being shared. The Social Plugin report shows which articles on your site are receiving the most engagement and which social buttons - for example, Google +1 - are being clicked to share them. 

You can use this information to create more of the type of content that's popular with your visitors, and test different layouts of social sharing buttons to improve use by your community. 

Activity Stream: what’s happening outside of your website

While the other reports show you the impact that social engagement is having on your site, the Activities Stream tab (located within the sources report) shows how people are engaging socially with your content off your site across the social web. 

For content that was shared publicly, you can see the URLs they shared, how and where they shared (via a “reshare” on Google+ for example), and what they said. Currently, activities are reported for Google+ and across a growing list of our Social Data Hub partners including recently signed brands Badoo, Disqus, Echo, Hatena and Meetup.

These new social reports will be available for all users over the next few weeks under the Standard Reporting Tab - please take a look and tell us what you think.

Original Article

Como medir el Retorno de la Inversion en el Marketing de Entrada por Agencia365

Analytics: Site Speed

Measure your website’s performance with improved Site Speed reports

Site Speed Overview Report
The Overview report provides an at-a-glance view of essential information for measuring your site’s page loading metrics: Avg. Page Load Time by Browser, Country/Territory, and Page. Plus you can compare your site’s average performance over time to forecast trends and view historical performance. All of these tools can help you identify where your pages may be underperforming and adjust so more visitors land on your site instead of waiting in frustration or leaving.

Example of updated reports   

Previously there was only one Site Speed report, this has been renamed to “Page Timings”. On the Page Timings report, you can view your site's load times in three ways: use the Explorer tab to explore average load time across dimensions, use the Performance tab to see how the load times break down by speed ranges, or use the Map Overlay tab to see how the load times breakdown by geography.

Previous report, now Page Timings   

Speed metrics available in Intelligence Reports & API
The technical metrics included in the Page Timings report were launched a couple of months ago. So we’ve been working hard at making these metrics available in more of your favorite Analytics features. We’ve updated the Intelligence Reports to include the average site load times and all the Page Timings metrics. Now you can create custom alerts based on site speed metrics such as Avg. Page Load Time, Avg. Server Response Time. And view site speed metrics in the Analytics APIand Custom Reports.

Site Speed Sample Rate
Small sites (<10K visits per day) can now increase the site speed sample rate up to 100% to get full samples for page load time. Note that the processing limit of up to 10K per day or 1% of pageview hits (whichever is greater) still applies.

Original Article

Como medir el ROI en el Marketing de Entrada por Agencia365

SEO + E-Commerce: Expired Content

What Qualifies as Expired Content?

1. What is the best way to handle expired listings, especially if the content is only available for a very limited amount of time?

E-commerce: Expired products can occur when products that are sold on the site routinely change for one reason or another, such as:

1. What happens when the site no longer sells a product? 
2. What happens if the product becomes temporarily out-of-stock?
3. What about seasonal products that are only sold during limited times of the year? 

Perhaps most importantly, sites that have to worry about expired content tend to be enormous - often comprised of hundreds of thousands of pages. Thus, recommendations need to be manageable and clear. Taking an individual look at all expired and out-of-stock products is unrealistic. Start thinking, is there a way we can build a process for these type of changes? 

The Options

Like most SEO solutions, there isn't necessarily one right answer. We need to take a look at each individual situation on a case-by-case basis and take into consideration the current back-end of the site, as well as the resources and the technological capabilities of the site's team. There is a time and a place to use each of these options for expired content. Identifying the right scenario for each situation is very powerful. 

I. The 404 Error

It makes sense for webmasters to think that 404ing expired content on the site is the approach to take. After all, isn't that the very definition of a 404 page? 

(Distilled's 404 Page)

In most situations, a page on the site should not be 404ed. Why?

Disadvantages of 404 pages

404ing pages that used to be live on the site is just not beneficial for SEO because it alerts search engines that there are errors on the site. Essentially, you're wasting the site's crawl allowance on crawling/indexing pages that no longer exist.

Also another issue with 404 pages is that they tend to bounce - users land on the page, see that the page no longer exists, and quickly leave. Users are vital to the site and our goal as SEOs is to not only ensure that the site gains organic traffic, but that the users stay, browse through the site, and ultimately, convert. 

Custom 404 Page

If you must 404 pages for one reason or another, consider creating a custom 404 page, so that in the chance that a visitor lands on the page, there is an opportunity for them to convert. A custom 404 page can also include keyword-rich links to other pages on the site (for instance: see Crate and Barrel's 404 page). 

Determining the Right Approach for Expired Content

Now that we know the disadvantages of 404ing pages, what is the right approach in dealing with expired content? To determine this, multiple considerations need to be taken into account, such as:

1. Was there significant traffic (and not just organic, but also consider direct) coming to this page?
2. How can we provide the best user experience?
3. Has this page received external links? How is this page currently internally linked to?
4. Is there content/resources on the page that users would still find useful?

II. The 301 Permanent Redirect

Advantages of 301 Redirects 

For the vast majority of scenarios, I'd suggest 301 redirecting your expired content to another page. This is usually the best option for SEO and can also be customized to enhance the user experience via dynamically-generated messages. For instance, if a product page had garnered external links, you're able to retain most of the link equity from those links via a 301 redirect (whereas with a 404, that link equity is lost). Why would you want to lose the link equity that you had worked so hard to obtain? Furthermore, it demonstrates to search engines that your site is well-maintained and up-to-date or "fresh".

(screenshot of infographic from Dr. Pete's epic status code post) 

Where should you 301 redirect these pages?

Consider what would result in the best user experience. You want to redirect these pages to the most relevant page. A suggestion is to take a look at the breadcrumbs and redirect the page based on the internal navigation of the site. For instance, the product page can be redirected to the most relevant sub-category page. You want to be careful that you're redirecting the page to another page that is likely to stay on the site in the foreseeable future, otherwise you run the risk of having to deal with this issue again (not to mention that having a 301 redirect lead to another 301 redirect to another 301 redirect is not considered good SEO practice). A safe bet is to redirect these pages to the most relevant category page, as these are pages on the site that are least likely to change. 

Dynamically-Generated Messages

You can customize and improve the user experience by implementing a dynamically-generated message via cookies during a 301 redirect. This would result in users who have landed on expired products receiving a message letting them know that the original product they were seeking is no longer available. This enhances the user experience because it informs users on why they are being redirected. 

Disadvantages of 301 Redirects 

For some sites, implementing multiple 301 redirects might affect server performance (though for a well-designed site, this should not be an issue). However, if it is true for your site, knowing that site speed is a search engine ranking factor, we want to be wary of the impact we may have by implementing this strategy. If this is the case for your site, consider only 301 redirecting the pages that have gained external links or have received significant amounts of traffic and directing the remaining pages to a customized 404 page. Please bear in mind that this is not an ideal scenario and is just a workaround. 

III. Leave the Page on the Site

Advantages of Leaving the Page As Is

Sometimes product pages still garner significant amounts of traffic or are rich in unique content and contain information that is still useful to visitors. It would be worth leaving the original product there, especially if the page has unique, high-quality, evergreen content, but have a message that the product has been discontinued. This will likely provide the best user experience as it will provide a strong call-to-action. 

 How Could You Set Up the Message?

Implement a JS overlay that would include similar products as the one that has been discontinued and drive users to those new products. Consider incorporating keyword-targeted internal links to drive traffic to those sites. This provides a positive user experience and is especially important for repeat customers. 

Example: Real Estate

For this niche, expired listings bring tons of traffic since people are curious about what has been sold and what the market looks like. Thus, consider leaving these pages on the site, but include additional information on the top of the page, such as "contact us to see similar listings" or "here are some other houses in the area that have similar selling prices."

Disadvantages of Leaving the Page As Is

You want to be wary of the practice of leaving old pages, especially if they aren't enhancing the value of the site. Why? Because this will require more bandwidth from search engine bots to crawl your site as you continue to add new product pages to the site. You don't want to risk wasting your crawl allowance having bots crawl pages that are thin in unique content and value. Also, having search engines crawl such pages indicates to them that the site is not "fresh."  

Also often times, new products contain the same content as an older variation of the product. For instance, the names of new products may vary only slightly to their previous version and the product description can be a close duplicate. Having all these pages live on the site can result in massive duplicate content issues.

How to Deal with Out-of-Stock Products

If a product is out-of-stock and is expected to be restocked, the page should remain on the site, but an out-of-stock notice should be implemented on the page. However, please bear in mind that out-of-stock pages do tend to generate high bounce rates. To confront high bounce rates issues and improve the overall user experience, consider ensuring that users know similar products are still sold on the site or have users sign-up to be notified when the product becomes available again. 

How to Deal with Seasonal Products - at the Category/Sub-Category Level

If a product is seasonal, such as the case for fashion products (example: swimsuits), you might want to leave the page on the site permanently. Why? Because overtime, these pages can retain their link equity year-after-year. If the swimsuit page garnered 3 links this year and 5 links the next, you can continue to accumulate those links. Overtime, you've developed a page that has retained a significant amount of link equity making it much more difficult for competitors to keep up. Thus, giving your site a huge advantage. 

And if you don't want the page to be indexed in the off-season, add a meta tag to noindex/follow the page. Users will no longer be able to get to that link from search results (and hopefully from internal results as well), but only through direct links or bookmarks. Once the season starts again, remove the noindex/follow meta tag to an index/follow. 

Building Processes/Checklists

Based on the specific needs of your site, it would be helpful to develop a checklist for your technical team. For example, if my site had seasonal products, I would compile a checklist that would include the following:

1. Remove noindex/follow tag from the [products] page in [month]
2. Update and resubmit XML site map
3. Submit this page to "Fetch as Googlebot" in Google Webmaster Tools

Consider creating separate checklists for the steps that you, as an SEO, would need to take to determine which pages to 301 redirect, which ones you need to 404 (if you absolutely need to), and which ones to leave as is. Checklists should also be created to help develop the framework for how your technical team would implement these changes. After awhile, an overall framework should emerge on how your site handles its expired content, which will help make the entire process run much more smoothly. 

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Primero CRO despues SEO por Agencia365

Redes Sociales : Como construir una empresa social desde el principio

Primero debemos crear y establecer las cuentas de las redes sociales a la vez que se empieza a crear una base de seguidores. Utiliza tus cuentas para más cosas que sólo el marketing, habla con la gente y encuentra trabajadores, compañeros o inversores. Puedes incluso utilizar tus cuentas para encontrar contenido generado por los usuarios que puede servirte para futuras campañas de marketing.

Objetivos, estrategias, tácticas, medir y repetir: determina cuáles son tus objetivos, diseña tu estrategia, mide los resultados, reevalúa, ajusta y prueba una y otra vez. Las redes sociales están en constante cambio así que únete y crece con ellas.

No es necesario que estés en todas las plataformas: descubre cuál es tu audiencia y en qué plataforma se mueven, es decir, en cuál tiene más sentido que estés presente. Conoce los límites de cada plataforma y diferencia tu contenido según en cuál de ellas lo cuelgues.

Sé constante: desarrolla la voz y personalidad de la marca en todas las plataformas. Asegúrate de que resulta sencillo a los usuarios encontrar tus páginas.

Genera contenidos e información relevante: cuenta tu historia, transmite tu pasión. Los fans conectarán contigo mucho mejor cuando conozcan tu historia y puedan identificar tu marca con una personalidad definida.

Mueve tráfico hacia tu Web y visitantes de tu Web a las plataformas sociales: no olvides añadir links y actualizaciones en ambas plataformas para que los seguidores conozcan tanto las páginas en las redes sociales como la Web corporativa de la empresa. Asegúrate de colocar botones “sociales” en la página de inicio de tu Web para hacerlo más sencillo.

Identifica a las personas más influyentes en las redes sociales y hazles seguidores de tu marca: encuentra a los fans u organizaciones a las que el resto de seguidores dan una mayor importancia y haz que se interesen por tu marca y la den a conocer.

Anima a la creación de contenido por parte de los usuarios: las personas adoran que se les pregunte por su punto de vista. Diviértete con tus fans haciendo concursos de creación de contenidos. Es más fácil que los usuarios compartan un contenido que han creado ellos.

No tengas miedo de utilizar también los medios offline: las críticas negativas inevitablemente ocurren. Discúlpate y ofrece también una dirección de contacto a través de medios tradicionales.

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Funciona realmente el comercio electronico atraves de Facebook por Agencia365

5 Customer Loyalty Programs

1) Use a Simple Points System

This is the most common loyalty program methodology. Frequent customers earn points, which translate into some type of reward. Whether it’s a discount, a freebie, or special customer treatment, customers work toward a certain amount of points to redeem their reward. Where many companies falter in this method, however, is making the relationship between points and tangible rewards complex and confusing. Fourteen points equals one dollar, and twenty dollars earns 50% off your next purchase in April! That’s not rewarding, that’s a headache. If you opt for a points-based loyalty program, keep the conversions simple and intuitive.

One example of a company using a points-based loyalty program well is Boloco. They speak the language of their audience by measuring points in dollars, and rewards in food items. Customers swipe their stylish Boloco card at every purchase and the card tracks the amount of money spent. Every $50 spent earns the customer a free item. Doesn’t matter if they choose a super jumbo burrito or an extra small smoothie - it’s free after $50. This is an example of a company simplifying points with an accessible customer reward system.

Although a points system is perhaps the most common form of loyalty programs, it isn't applicable to all business types -- this type of loyalty program is most appropriate for businesses that encourage frequent, short-term purchases.

2) Use a Tier System to Reward Initial Loyalty and Encourage More Purchases

Finding a balance between attainable and desirable rewards is a challenge for most companies designing loyalty programs. One way to combat this is to implement a tiered system. Offer small rewards as a base offering for being a part of the program, and encourage repeat customers by increasing the value of the rewards as the customer moves up the loyalty ladder. This helps solve the problem of members forgetting about their points and never redeeming them because the time between purchase and gratification is too long.

Virgin Airlines’ Flying Club inducts members at the Club Red tier, then bumps them up through Club Silver and Club Gold. Club Red members earn miles on flights and get discounts on rental cars and hotels. Club Silver members earn 50% more points on flights, expedited check-in, and priority stand-by seating. Club Gold members get double miles, priority boarding, and access to exclusive clubhouses where they can grab a drink or get a massage before their flight. The key is to offer benefits in the early stages to hook the customer into coming back. Once they do, they’ll realize that "gold" status isn’t unattainable, and offers really cool benefits.

The difference between points and tiered systems is that customers extract short-term versus long-term value from the loyalty program. You may find tiered programs work better for high commitment, higher price-point businesses like airlines, hospitality businesses, or insurance companies.

3) Charge an Upfront Fee for VIP Benefits

Loyalty programs are meant to break down barriers between customers and your business -- are we seriously telling you to charge them a fee? In some circumstances, a one-time (or annual) fee that lets customers bypass common purchase blockers is actually quite beneficial for business and customer alike. By identifying the factors that may cause customers to leave, you can customize a fee-based loyalty program to address those specific barriers.

In 2011, eCommerce shopping cart abandonment hit a record high of 72%, and is still rising. This abandonment is often caused by "sticker shock" after tax and shipping prices have been applied. ECommerce giant Amazon found a way to combat this issue in their loyalty program called Prime. For $79 annually, Prime users get free 2-day shipping on millions of products with no minimum purchase, among other benefits.

This program is innovative because it charges loyal customers while providing enough in return for those frequent shoppers to realize the benefits. Analysts estimate that Amazon actually loses about $11 annually for each Prime subscriber, but makes up for it in increased transaction frequency that would not have otherwise happened without their exclusive benefits.

Clearly this system is most applicable to businesses that thrive on frequent, repeat purchases. For an upfront fee, your customers are relieved of inconveniences that could impede future purchases. Amazon has mastered this for eCommerce, but this loyalty program model also has potential to work for B2B businesses who deliver products to businesses on a regular basis.

4) Structure Non-Monetary Programs Around Your Customer's Values

Really understanding your customer means understanding their values and sense of worth. And depending on your industry, your customers may find more value in non-monetary or discounted rewards. Every company can offer promotional coupons and discount codes, but businesses that can provide value to the customer in ways other than dollars and cents have an opportunity to really connect with their audience.

Patagonia, an eco-friendly outdoor apparel company, realized that their customer needed more than just points and discounts from a loyalty program. Late last year, the company implemented its Common Threads Initiative. In it, they partnered with eBay to help customers to resell their highly-durable Patagonia clothing online through the company website. 

This program builds on their brand of sustainability and creating a high-quality product, and it matches perfectly with the company’s customer persona by providing a value that they really care about. So before implementing a loyalty program of this nature, be sure you’ve researched and designed an in-depth customer persona!

5) Partner With Another Company to Provide All-Inclusive Offers

Strategic partnerships for customer loyalty, also known as coalition programs, can be extremely effective for customer retention and company growth. Again, fully understanding your customers every-day lives and their purchase process will help determine which company is a good fit as a partner.

American Express has a huge partner base with companies across the country. Their recent Twitter Sync campaign rewards customers for tweeting about them by syncing discounts and deals with Twitter #hashtags. According to Visibli.com, cardholders have redeemed over $2,000,000 in rewards. Participating companies that are benefitting from their coalition with Amex include Whole Foods, Staples, and Zappos.

Luckily, you don’t have to be a multi-million dollar credit card company to implement a partnership plan. This methodology is applicable on a much smaller scale, as long as you understand how individual customers experience your product or service and what would fit best for them.

For example, if you’re a dog food company, partner with a veterinary office or pet grooming facility to offer co-branded deals for mutual benefits for your company and your customer. The target audience obviously owns a dog, so any services that dog will require offer added value from your company. Providing customers with value beyond even what your company can offer will show that you understand them, and grows your network to reach your partners’ customers, as well.

Original Article Here

CRO o SEO por Agencia365