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Marketing GPS

Marketing GPS-the Marketing Technologies Newsletter of NSI Partners

FEBRUARY 2012

SEO in 2012:Six Words (Part 1)Don Baker

As you're well aware, online marketing ischanging rapidly. Google, Facebook, smartphones and more are changing the wayeveryone uses the Web. Each week bringssome important announcement of a real orpotential shift in platforms or tools thatmarketers need to track or use. Many of theseannouncements directly impact search-engine optimization (SEO), which increasingly is viewed as justone portion of a larger whole called inbound marketing.

This year, we'll witness the continuing impact on SEO of developments that occurred in 2011. It'simpossible to sum up this impact under one category, as Mr. McGuire did so confidently with Benjamin inThe Graduate. I've selected six categories as the most important in which search optimization mustchange in 2012, in order to keep track with industry developments. The categories are Content,Navigation, Conversion, Google+, Social Interaction and Mobile. I'll discuss the first three in this issue,and the final three in our March issue.

ContentIn early 2011—following a string of well-publicized complaints and exposes of companies manipulating itssearch algorithm to achieve high rankings for junky links and content—Google rolled out an ongoingalgorithm tweak called Panda. It found sites with low-quality (brief and/or keyword-stuffed) content thathad gained high search rankings, and penalized them by removing their ranking advantages. Google hasmade clear that Panda variants will continue to target sites containing content that is posted to boostrankings, not provide users with a quality experience. Therefore, quality of content is definitely moreimportant than sheer quantity and ample use of keyword-based links.

The way to avoid a Panda “slap” is to emphasize quality online content that features logical use ofkeyword phrases and outbound links to other pages and sites. Content should be directed toward theinterests of your core audience, with the hope that they will find the information interesting, timely andworth sharing with others. For this reason, it's important to include social-sharing widgets in clear view oneach content-based site page, to make it easy for readers to share links and snippets on social sites andin emails.

Google's algorithm is also checking content for “freshness” and assigning higher value to items itconsiders news-related that have more recent dates. Therefore, dated news releases and other datedcontent will be even more valuable for high organic rankings if they contain well-researched keywordphrases in prominent locations.

NavigationHaving logical and streamlined site navigation has always been important, but in 2012 and future years,it's becoming even more important. That's because Google's search algorithm is better at reading not onlypage text, but also the underlying source code of pages. Page coding that follows standard nomenclatureand eliminates “junk” code will fare better, as will coding that includes newer tags that identify authors andvideo content.

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http://youtu.be/PSxihhBzCjk

http://www.webpronews.com/google-panda-update-addressed-in-new-google-announcement-2012-02

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http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/06/authorship-markup-and-web-search.html

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In addition, cleaner code and navigation speeds page-serving time to users, which was added to Google'ssearch algorithm in 2010 and, it's believed by some in the industry, was tweaked in Panda to reflect itsimportance in overall user experience. Google has added page speed-tracking tools to its WebmasterTools and Page Speed product, to help webmasters make their sites more pleasing to users.

ConversionI touched on the importance of visitor conversion in my July 2011 Marketing GPS article, but it's worthdiscussing again. Because of Google's constant search-algorithm tweaks, and its apparent desire to claimmore and more search-ranking results space for its own advertising and products, it's foolish in 2012 topursue an online strategy that consists primarily of achieving high Google rankings. Therefore, one mustpursue a strategy of diversifying inbound-visitor channels (to be discussed further in next month’s article),while maximizing the value of every visitor who does find his or her way to your site. In addition to usinganalytics to identify the source of each visitor and his or her actions on your site, you must encourageeach visitor to take a meaningful action and, if possible, give you contact information while doing so. Agrowing list of interested, engaged visitors liberates you from the constant need to tailor everycommunication to Google's ever-changing demands and provides multiple opportunities for you to developa long-lasting, interactive relationship with list members through email, SMS texts and even postal mail.

Developing a list is an important step to free yourself from Google’s ever-changing ranking requirements,but it's not the only step. In my next article, I’ll discuss the second trio of important SEO categories for2012: Google+, Social Interaction and Mobile—the latter two of which provide more ways to avoidGoogle's embrace.

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MARCH 2012

SEO in 2012:Six Words (Part 2)Don Baker

Last month, I discussed three of six importantfactors I believe are having an impact this yearon optimizing your web platform to attractvisitors and conversions. Those three wereContent, Navigation and Conversion, and theywere all fairly Google-centric.

In this article I’ll discuss the second group ofthree important, search-related factors for 2012. They are: Google+, Social Interaction and Mobile.

Google+: We Can't Ignore ItWe discussed Google+ for business in December, but it's important enough to shine more light upon it.

As Google continues to refine and introduce more features to Google+, it will increasingly influence thesearch experience for anyone logged in to their Google Account.

The addition, in January, of “Search Plus Your World” (SPYW) is part of Google's expansion of Google+to show more and more personal, and social-media, content in its search results. Increasingly, Googlesearch results will include links to relevant information contained in your own online files, as well as thoseof people and businesses also participating in Google+.

Here's the important part: SPYW results are displayed above regular organic results. And since thegreatest percentage of clicks are made on the top three search results, it's unlikely Google+ users will paymuch attention to organic rankings when they're faced with one to three Google AdWords ads at the topof the screen, followed immediately by three or four more SPYW results.

Therefore, it's imperative that marketers embrace Google+ this year, even if it takes a couple of years todevelop a critical mass of online users.

Social InteractionGoogle’s integration of social interactions into SPYW results is a subset of what’s occurring on a largerscale online. I wrote last October about the huge benefits of investing marketing resources in socialmedia, so I won't belabor that point here. But I want to remind you of two important aspects of socialmedia to your inbound-marketing strategy. The first is that both Google and Bing are likely to continueincreasing the degree of influence that social-media interactions have upon their search algorithm'sselection of top rankings.

The second is that the exploding social-media universe allows you a way to escape the clutches of Google-- and of Bing, for that matter. For marketers frustrated with Google's never-ending changes to its searchalgorithm (that would be me—and perhaps you as well) that reward one type of content one day, whilepunishing it the next, social media provide an alternative universe to Google’s.

In that universe, one's personal reputation and social interactions in community are key to success—relationship trumps search algorithms. A recent whiteboard infographic does an excellent job of explainingthis universe, using the humble donut as an example.

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http://nsipartners.com/newsletter_archive/newsletter_dec11.html

http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/10/google-fuses-google-into-search-and-there-are-bigger-changes-afoot/

http://insights.chitika.com/2010/the-value-of-google-result-positioning/

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part of the universe, need not be the 800-pound gorilla we’ve come to assume it is. Forsome marketers, focusing almost entirely onthe alternate social-media universe will be anout-of-the-box strategy akin to Captain Kirk'sdecision to blow up his beloved Enterprise.

I urge you to begin experimenting more withsocial media, especially if your primaryaudience is women.

Facebook has over 800 million usersworldwide. LinkedIn is the Facebook of thebusiness world, and many B2B marketers findLinkedIn's conversion rate amazingly high.StumbleUpon, surprisingly, has become moreinfluential of late, and has a passionate userbase.

And then, there’s Pinterest. Many people aresaying much right now about Pinterest as a marketing tool. It’s “now driving more referral traffic on theweb than Google+, YouTube, Reddit, and LinkedIn combined."

Adding a “Pin It” widget to your site pages, and featuring more infographics and other luscious graphics,will increase the likelihood of your content being “pinned” and exposed to the passionate Pinterestaudience. As one astute marketer wrote, “A strong SEO campaign will drive folks to your website.Pinterest allows those users to virally spread your content through their followers.”

MobileAs with social media, we can't escape mobile platforms in 2012. The installed user base of smartphonesand tablets is skyrocketing. Last Christmas Day, 6.8 million people activated Android and iOS devices.

The New iPad is expected to sell one million units on its launch day, March 16, and pre-orders havealready sold out. And this stat is really surprising: approximately 19% of U.S. adults owned a tabletcomputer in January—up from 10% in December!

Clearly, mobile devices have already made a significant penetration into Americans' lives and areaccounting for more and more of online usage. I wouldn’t be surprised, this time next year, to find that 40-50% of Americans own and use a smartphone and/or tablet device. Therefore, in 2012 businesses andnonprofits need to ensure that at least a portion of their website’s content is available on a mobile-friendlysite—either a primary site or a mobile-only site optimized for the mobile experience.

The SEO angle in mobile has to do with Google's mobile algorithm: it’s not the same as the standardsearch algorithm. Therefore, your mobile-optimized content will have much less difficulty achieving highrankings for mobile-using searchers.

Especially if your audience consists of early adopters and/or affluent young people, you need to uploadoptimized content to mobile-optimized sites. (And don't forget seniors—they love the iPad's large buttons,high screen resolution and ease-of-use.)

In addition, you need to consider how to incorporate QR codes into your marketing mix.

Though initially pooh-poohed by some, these little square bar codes are beginning to appear everywhere.If you don’t deploy them, your competitors certainly will. Use them in print ads to drive readers to yourmobile-optimized, follow-up content. Print them on invoices, collateral and business cards. Hire people towear them on t-shirts at trade shows, conferences or outdoor festivals. But promise you'll find one or moreways to use them. This year.

This illustration shows that Google, while a



http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/03/05/five-leadership-lessons-from-james-t-kirk/2/

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http://monetate.com/infographic/is-pinterest-the-next-social-commerce-game-changer/

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/12/smartphone-activations-holiday/

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2012/03/12/new-ipad-sales-to-top-one-million.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/pre-orders-for-ipad-sell-out/2012/03/12/gIQAKOG86R_story.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/07/tablet-sales-take-off_n_1274397.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/07/tablet-sales-take-off_n_1274397.html

http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/the-best-life/2011/04/25/why-the-ipad-appeals-to-older-users

http://mashable.com/2012/01/14/qr-code-marketing/#view_as_one_page-gallery_box3871



JULY 2012

Mobile Marketing — Tips On a Trend You Can'tIgnoreJeanne Davant

Step outside and look around you. How many people do you see who are using their smartphones?

Believe it or not, but – according to the Mobile Marketing Association – more people worldwide ownsmartphones than toothbrushes! And most of them are using those phones to check their mail, findrestaurants and other businesses, scan QR codes, shop and, of course, to text and be texted.

In fact, mobile Internet use is on track to overtake desktop Internet use – by 2014. That was one of thestartling statistics NSI Partners' COO Tom McClintock used to wow attendees at a mobile marketingworkshop presented by Colorado Springs Marketing Group and NSI in June. McClintock spoke on mobileapp usage, along with Ian Lee of QRlette, who discussed dynamic QR codes, and Greg Hickman,founder/CEO of Thumbfound, who spoke about SMS.

More than 4 billion mobile phones are in use right now, said McClintock. Three of five searches areperformed on mobile devices, and half of all local searches are made by mobile device users.

That represents a huge opportunity — one that even small businesses can and should take advantage of.But you have to do it right, McClintock said.

Mobile AppsThere are three ways to develop mobile apps:

Native Apps, which access specific mobile device functionality such as cameras and GPS

Cross-platform development, which makes it easy to redisplay web content, and

Prebuilt apps, which make it simple to get started in app development.

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Sites like Canvas, Bizhappy and iBuildApp offer templates that enable you to build your own mobile app.


http://www.qrlette.com/

http://www.thumbfound.com/







NSI Partners and Colorado Springs Marketing Group are making DVDs of all three presentations available to our clients. For more information on how you can get one, contact [email protected].

Mobile apps and other mobile strategies, however, should be part of your overall marketing plan andshould fit in well with your other marketing efforts, McClintock stressed. There are several important "rules"for building a mobile app that you should consider before plunging into mobile marketing. These include:

Building an app people will want to use

Providing simple content

Refining and supporting the app continuously

(If you’d like more information about developing your own mobile app, contact [email protected].)

QR CodesQR codes can greatly assist businesses and organizations in getting people to engage with their brands,Ian Lee of QRlette said. They can connect people to each other and to multimedia digital content.

QR codes can help your business in a variety of ways. QR codes transform any printed piece into a digitalitem, allowing you to streamline content in print ads and other marketing collateral. Clickable codes canbe used on websites to direct viewers to additional content. QR codes can even be used on businesscards to connect potential clients directly to a website.

One of Lee's clients placed a QR code on a hanger that he leaves on people's doors. The code directs potential clients to five different informational videos. The code has helped him bridge the communication gap with his customers.The only limitation on the use of QR codes is one's imagination, Lee said.

When scanned, static QR codes direct people to a single URL. Lee's company creates dynamic QRcodes, which can be reprogrammed when a business desires to change the destination. That savesmoney, because there is no need to redo expensive print material when the destination is changed. Scan-tracking enables customers to see exactly how each destination is performing and to update destinationsto the most effective channel.

SMS Text MessagingThe power of mobile marketing is the ability to deliver the right message, at the right time, to the rightcustomer, in the right context, Hickman said. SMS is one of the most effective ways of getting yourmessage to clients and potential customers, because up to 98% of text messages are read within 4minutes of their arrival.

SMS can be used to invite customers to opt in for mobile coupons; remind them about promotions;acquire more data about customers; and engage them in other loyalty programs.

One of Hickman's clients, a shopping center, used SMS to gather votes for fashion vignettes during a six-hour special event. The campaign generated 3,000 votes, 638 new participants and 574 new members.Another center used an SMS promotion to get people to come to the mall at 6 a.m., where they'd receivea $50 gift card with a $100 purchase. Even at that early morning hour, the promotion was hugelysuccessful, boasting a 13% conversion rate.

Text messages give the most reach of any mobile medium, Hickman said, but he cautioned thatbusinesses that want to use SMS shouldn't just jump right in. It's crucial with SMS, as with QR codes andmobile apps, to:

determine first how your customers are using mobile devices and what tools are most appropriatefor them;

set one specific objective for your campaign;

define your target audience by developing three or four detailed customer personas; and,

define your own identity so you speak to your audience with an appropriate voice.

Hickman said an important first step for companies who want to get into mobile is to make sure theirwebsite is mobile-friendly.



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JULY 2011

Six Essentials for Local Online MarketingDon Baker

If you don’t think the marketing game has changed for local businesses, imagine this scenario:

On the one night this month that they can afford asitter, John and Jane arrive at one of their favoriterestaurants to find that there is a 45 minute wait fora table. Unwilling to pay for a sitter just to stand inline, John loads the Google map app on hissmartphone to look for other restaurants nearby,while Jane checks the Facebook page of her favoriterestaurant to see if they have posted specials or waittimes. In the middle of all this, John receives a textfrom the Mexican restaurant they enjoyed last month:“Buy one entrée get one half-price tonight atPepito’s.”

Despite the ongoing decline of traditional advertising media such as Yellow Page directories, newspapers,TV and telemarketing, many local businesspersons remain unaware of the advantages of using onlineand mobile media to replace—or to complement—traditional marketing channels. Traditional ad mediaface three big obstacles today: shrinking audiences, higher ad costs (vs. their online competitors) anddifficulties in quantifying returns on investment. So what’s a local marketer to do?

The Advantages of Online MediaWith nearly 75% of U.S. households on the Internet, online ad media are experiencing major growth.Costs are lower than traditional media, and numerous online tools make it easier to quantify consumerinterest and calculate ROI.

Search remains the single biggest advantage that online ads have over traditional media, and is a primarysource of traffic for many small businesses. Google estimates that 20%—over 17 billion searches permonth—have what it calls "local intent."

Additionally, the online environment makes it easy to segment and target your audience, and to build andmaintain online relationships with prospects, customers and so-called "brand evangelists". There's alsothe "viral" potential of online ads (especially videos, like the recent Old Spice series), which can spreadquickly to thousands or even millions of interested people at little to no cost.

Mobile: The Crashing WaveThe explosion of the mobile online platform—from web-capable cell phones to smartphones and tablets—is only accelerating. Even before the huge spike in smartphone sales, Morgan Stanley estimated in 2009that the number of mobile-Internet users would exceed desktop Internet users by 2014. Their prediction isgiven additional credence by a newly released Pew Internet research paper which notes that 25% ofsmartphone owners typically use their smartphone to access the Internet, even when other devices areavailable to them. Recognizing this transformative tsunami, Google declared mobile to be its number-onefocus in 2011.

Mobile-Internet use is revolutionizing commerce through mobile-ready websites and helpful smartphoneapps. Users are able to read reviews, compare prices, and even make online purchases from theirInternet-enabled mobile device. Location-based services such as Shopkick (which allows retail locations

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to reward customers simply for walking in or for scanning the barcodes of featured products) and local-focused discount offers from sites such as Groupon, are making mobile a highly competitive space forlocal advertisers.

Indeed, with consumers rapidly migrating to mobile devices as their go-to research device prior to ashopping trip or night out, mobile platforms appear custom-made for local businesses. A recent studyshowed that after searching for a local business on their smartphones, 61% of users called, 59% visited,and 58% looked for directions to a local business. That’s great ROI on a low-cost marketing investment.

Six Essentials for Successful, Local-Business Online MarketingDiving into online media to enhance your local-business marketing isn’t as difficult as it might seem. Youcan boil it down to six primary steps.

One: Build Your Online HomeBusinesses that haven't already developed a serious online presence now have a variety of goodalternatives to start with. Though a website is often the preferred choice, local businesses can now start byfilling-in business information on their unique—and free— Google Places listing page. A Facebook FanPage is another good choice for a small business, especially if you have frequent updates or special offersto post, since new postings will appear in the Facebook news stream of your fans. To target youngeraudiences, a business owner might select a mobile-only website.

Two: Help Visitors Find YouSearch visibility + inbound links = online-marketing success. By finding out what search terms yourcustomers are likely to use and then placing those terms on your website (or other online home, such as aFacebook page), you help searchers find your business. Good keyword research is still the heart of online-marketing success. Increase traffic to your site by using these keywords when you list your business onfree sites such as Google Places, Yellow Pages websites, and other local-targeted directories, such asMerchantCircle or Manta. You can find important directories specific to your area by typing your mostimportant keyword phrase, plus your city, into a search engine.

You can also get links from social-media sites such as Facebook or Twitter. Share information about yourbusiness on these platforms and provide links back to your site, and encourage friends and customers todo the same. And don’t be intimidated by YouTube: quick, informal videos can drive a lot of traffic back toyour site (remember the Old Spice guy?), as well as show up high in search rankings if you include yourkeyword phrases in the description.

Three: Set Up Your FunnelOnce you have visitors headed to your online home, you need to funnel them to the right page on yoursite. Your site's navigation and content are vital to ensuring that as many visitors as possible do not"bounce" off your site and back to the search engine (or worse, to a competitor’s site). Ideally, visitors willland on a page that offers great content and invites them to take a specific action that will give thebusiness owner valuable information.

Four: Make Visitors Take ActionGet a return on your investment by encouraging visitors to do something that gives you useful information,or that establishes a relationship with them. Two tried and true methods include inviting them to sign-upfor an email newsletter or to download a useful document (provided you collect some contact informationin exchange for the download).

Newer methods that have evolved with the increase in social and mobile platforms include offering visitorsan app to download, or inviting them to participate in a survey, game or contest. Every visitor who decidesto interact with your site is more likely to interact again in the future, giving you additional opportunities toconvert them from prospect to customer.

Five: Establish a RelationshipUse the information you collect to stay in touch with visitors, whether through Facebook postings, specialemail offers or even opt-in text messages. As the direct-mail marketers say, "the money is in the list"—repeated contacts with visitors will build loyalty, make them more knowledgeable about your products andoffers, and increase their lifetime customer value to you as they receive and respond to offers.

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much more. Everything online can be measured and tracked, helping you to fine-tune just abouteverything you do on the Internet. Website and online-ad stats allow you monitor visitor activities andchoices. You can assign values to certain actions, assign and track marketing goals, note trends, andsplit-test ads and offers to improve conversion ratios and drive down ROI costs.

While there is much more to online marketing in the local market, these six essentials will help you find,meet and profit from the growing audience of local consumers interested in your products and services.

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Six: Track, Test and OptimizeIf department-store magnate John Wanamaker had founded his famous company after the advent of theInternet, he wouldn’t have famously stated, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the troubleis I don't know which half." Online marketing analysis tools allow you to know which half works, plus much,



AUGUST 2012

What Schools Taught Us About Online MarketingBy Thomas McClintock

I just returned from a teacher’s convention in Nashville: a gathering of 7,000 Seventh-Day Adventistteachers and administrators representing thousands of schools. (The SDA, I learned, operate the world’ssecond-largest Christian school system, second only to the Roman Catholic system). We were there toshare our marketing strategies, together with our partner GraceWorks Ministries, which specializes inChristian-school marketing. Between us, we delivered six presentations and ran an exhibit-hall booth.

If You Can’t Teach…To help our research, we called in some favors from education clients and partners we’ve worked with inthe past few years. We had just helped The Advisory Board Company complete a study of the use ofsocial media in continuing education programs, and we had been having increasing success generatingonline leads for schools around the country.

We learned that the education sector has been behind the business sector in online-marketinginnovations. Unlike their counterparts in industry, educators at Christian primary and secondary schoolshad only been tracking clickable actions through calls to action (CTAs) for a couple years. This meant thatour data was never before seen. It also meant that, with a knowledge of industry trends and statistics, itwas possible to make fairly accurate predictions and test theories somewhat rigorously.

Gradually, two important best-practice findings presented themselves:

1. Website landing pages, linked with carefully designed Google AdWords pay-per-click (PPC) ads,are the single most effective lead-generation channel to increase enrollment; and

2. the most successful landing pages directly engage prospects on the difficult topic of tuition (i.e.,money).

Landing Page 101The first best-practice finding presented data showing that PPC-supported landing pages are moreeffective than any other channel tested. This is because landing pages are carefully designed to funnelprospects already searching for your products and services directly to the desired CTAs. They avoid thedistractions of a full website, with its multiple navigation layers that serve a half-dozen or moreconstituencies. Landing pages pointedly and enthusiastically ask for the response that best facilitates thesales process: an inbound call or a completed form in most cases.

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This lesson goes well beyond the classroom. How many landing pages and CTAs are you using to sellyour products or spread your messages? Are you benefitting from carefully tested Conversion RateOptimization (CRO), as well as Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? Our research revealed that specificschools were able to more than triple their leads by shrewdly applying test results to their landing pages—and then testing the resulting iterations. These schools found that the journey from latecomer to leadercan be a short hop.

Doing the MathThe second best-practice finding involved the thorny question of tuition, a topic private schools traditionallyavoid in their online marketing. Money discussions seem to be a losing battle either way: prospects askabout cost in an attempt to self-screen and shortcut the discussion. On the other hand, tuition fees thatappear too low generate concerns regarding program quality. Either way, a prospect’s initial interest canquickly fade before proper qualification.

Our research showed, however, that prospects are increasingly expecting specifics while online, andtuition is an obvious discussion topic that seems oddly excluded from the typical school site’s navigation.To reconcile this seeming paradox, we looked again at the schools doing best at lead-generation, and theanswer became apparent: instead of ignoring the issue altogether and losing a significant percentage ofleads, our best-practice recommendation was to address the issue head-on—but not with a tuition table.

Schools with the highest conversion rates felt their real value proposition transcended dollars, and that theonly way to express it was to establish a relationship between their lead educational expert, the Principal,and the student. In fact, these schools had a remarkable 80% chance of closing if they arranged an in-house meeting with both parents. Converting interested parents into customers often involved frankdiscussions about cost and sacrifices in order to provide better futures for their children.

The online sales pitch then was, not to sell enrollment per se, but to persuade parents to take advantageof the school’s expertise in helping hundreds of families to understand the educational options available.These schools pitched Educational Success Consultations – meetings the Principal made time for,because the very best, most thoughtful decisions about a child’s education are made in person. Thesemeetings transformed the question “How much does it cost?” to “How can we work together to make thisaffordable?”

Successful school landing pages were those that started a discussion of the school’s philosophy: that noqualified student should be turned away for reasons of finance, a glimpse of the vast financial aidresources typically available, plus an Education Success Consultation form and telephone number.

Dealing transparently with “The MoneyQuestion,” as we called it in our conferencepresentations, got parents through the door and,ultimately, boosted enrollment.

Again, the lesson is applicable beyond theschoolhouse. Is there a “Money Question” thatyour website avoids addressing? The data wecollected show that direct, transparent,thoughtful engagement of thorny issues willgenerate more easily converted leads; and, thatlanding pages are the single best means ofexperimenting with online positioning.





APRIL 2012

How Content Curation Can Boost Your Marketing EffortsJeanne Davant

Are you a publisher?

"No," you might answer. "I sell a product or a service. That's what Ido."

In truth, however, if you run a website, you're a publisher. If youblog, you're a publisher. If you post on Facebook or Twitter, you'rea publisher.

Assume now you're a publisher, and have an audience you'relooking to attract. Where do you get information to publish? Ittakes a lot of time and resources to research and generate stronginformational content. But providing great content to your onlineaudience is not optional – it's vital.

To keep you top-of-mind with prospects, customers and themedia; to give your site better search-engine rankings; to positionyou as a thought leader; and, to bring in more qualified leads, you need to focus on finding, editing andposting quality content to interest and activate your audience. This process is becoming known as contentcuration.

What Is Content Curation?Here’s a definition of the term from Drew Meyers, who heads a firm that specializes in blog design:

"Curation is the process of narrowing some collection of 'things' into some collection of 'things that meansomething.'"

A good content curator, Meyers says, finds the information your audience wants and needs, organizesand contextualizes it, and shares it. You increase the value of the content you share by adding your owninsights. As you build your audience, you're creating a community of people with specific interests relatedto your product or service—people who will turn to you when they are ready to buy.

Think of the travel industry, says Stephanie Schwab, founder and CEO of Crackerjack Marketing.Someone who sells a travel product could curate travel-related news, such as information about airlinefares or destinations.

"People who are thinking about traveling or travel frequently will appreciate the content, and when they'rein the market for your travel product, they may think of you," Schwab says.

Search-engine optimization (SEO) is another engine of content curation. To improve the searchexperience, Google has begun downgrading websites with little and/or poor-quality content, whileimproving rankings for sites with good content that is updated frequently.

Some Tools and TipsOnline content-curation has grown dramatically in the past year, due to the appearance of new sites andtools that help you collect and display information. These range from free resources to fee-based servicesspecifically focused on marketing. (For an astonishing graphic representation of the multiplicity of curation

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http://www.geekestateblog.com/curation-for-real-estate/

http://www.geekestateblog.com/curation-for-real-estate/

http://www.stephanieschwab.com/2011/02/15/curate-content-for-brands/






tools by a Scoop.it Master Curator, check out this content curation tool mindmap.)

Of course, few online managers have the extra time or resources needed to brainstorm, generate andpost quality content frequently. Fortunately, there are numerous content curation tools that can make itmuch easier and quicker for you to find and publish content. Below are some free content-curation tools toget you started.

1. Scoop.it lets you set up a topic or multiple topics and provides a feed of potential content on thosetopics. You can add content with a bookmarklet or post button and post to Facebook and Twitter.Then Scoop.it creates a nice-looking magazine that your followers can access.

2. BagTheWeb enables you to collect content with a Bag It button on your Bookmarks Toolbar. Thecontent, which can include videos, SlideShare presentations and Flickr photos, is deposited into a"bag" you create with a title and description. Bags can be embedded into your blog or website.

3. Pinterest lets you create boards where you and others can "pin" items of interest. Businesses areusing this highly visual site creatively—for example, inviting customers to submit images showinghow they use a product.

4. Eqentia, a news-oriented site, creates a personal content stream that you can share withsubscribers and followers. You can also search an index of more than 120,000 news articles perday, publish relevant content in your personal stream, and explore already-curated content onmore than 100 topics and 30,000 subtopics.

5. Themeefy pulls in content from websites and social media and creates Theme magazines you canshare. You can personalize your magazines by uploading photos and jotting down notes.

You'll find it fairly easy to use these curation tools, but remember these important tips to avoid content-curation pitfalls:

Always give credit to the source when you share curated content and link back to the originalcontent. Otherwise, it's plagiarism.

Use curated content judiciously – don't rely too strongly on others' efforts. To maintain credibility,keep creating your own content.

Think like your audience, not yourself. Make sure your curated content is relevant, useful, valuableand appropriate for your readers. It's not enough just to collect and redistribute content. You needto add value, context or perspective.

"At the end of the day," says Drew Meyers, "the most important thing to remember about curation is thatit's not about you. And it's not about making a sale right this second. It is about delivering GREAT contentconsistently over an extended period of time. Curation is about building long-term credibility, establishingreal relationships, and earning your place as your audience's go-to source.... The money will come later."



http://www.mindmeister.com/55395228/content-curation-tools-the-newsmaster-toolkit-by-robin-good-2012

http://www.scoop.it/

http://bagtheweb.com/

http://pinterest.com/

http://www.eqentia.com/

http://www.themeefy.com/



MAY 2012

The Value of Content Curation to Enhance SiteRankingsDon Baker

Fads come and go in search-engine optimization (SEO), as webmasters seek to ride the waves ofGoogle's changing search algorithm. Gimmicks may work for a while, but sooner or later Google makesanother tweak (or several tweaks, as it's done so far this year), and the fad-followers take a dive.

One SEO practice that will never be considered a fad is the production and publication of quality content –text or video – that engages and informs site visitors. Site managers want to link to such content. Googleand Bing's search algorithms reward well-written, topically identified content – and other pages linked to it– with higher search rankings.

Sites and blogs that develop loyal followers are those that know how to develop, find and link to goodcontent to share with visitors. In recent years, site managers have begun using a number of tools to helpautomate this process of serving a continuing stream of quality content to readers. This process isbecoming known as content curation. We began our discussion of content curation in last month’snewsletter article, How Content Curation Can Boost Your Marketing Efforts.

What, Again, is Content Curation?To put it simply, content curation is the process of finding, collecting and cataloguing the most interestingthings about a certain topic to be shared online. For companies, curating content relevant to their productsand services results in a higher level of engagement for site visitors, and a higher brand reputation. Forindividuals with sites or blogs, the result is the same – their name-brand is recognized, remembered andtrusted.

As you can imagine, the specialists have already begun to move in and overcomplicate the curationdiscussion. Generally speaking, however, there are five types of content curation, each of which serves adifferent purpose:

1. Aggregation means curating the most relevant content on a topic into a single location. It is themost common way of curating content for an interested audience, especially on blogs.

2. Elevation occurs when curators provide insights developed from a mass of daily musings.

3. Distillation describes the "boiling-down" of a body of content on a certain topic into a summary ofits most relevant and important concepts.

4. Mash-up involves the merging-together of different content about a topic, to create an original andnew article on the topic.

5. Chronology is sometimes known as historiographical content curation. It consists of a timeline of

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curated information to inform readers on the evolution of a topic.

The Benefits of Content Curation to Improve Site RankingsBeyond its obvious value for building brands, informing readers and encouraging visitors to consumeadditional site information, content curation has a number of benefits for site SEO. I'll summarize these inanother brief list:

1. Optimization for broad keyword phrases: thanks to the large amount of references which will beused in gathering/curating content, your search engine ranking can be boosted from within the site,making it more visible to a wider audience

2. Optimization for "long-tail" keywords: gathering and publishing information on longer keywordphrases allows the targeting of niche audiences, which also helps improve search-engine rankingsand thereby increase readership/customer numbers

3. Increased frequency of search-engine updates: typically, websites using content curation areupdated more regularly, due to the ease of generating posts in a short amount of time. Search-engine algorithms now incorporate "freshness" triggers that lead them to favor sites that arefrequently updated. Producing fresh content regularly encourages search-engine spiders to scanand index your content more frequently, resulting in more-frequent indexing as well as a noticeableimprovement in search engine rankings.

4. Increased opportunity for inbound links: when industry publishers and readers discover well-curated, frequently updated content, they are more likely to link to your website from topicallyrelated pages. A growing number of quality inbound links increases visits (and site conversions)and – of course – search-engine rankings.

5. Identify trending keywords: As more content is published about a specific topic, new keywordsemerge. When actively curating content, trending keyword phrases can be recognized, helping youto plan for, and optimize, new content added in the future.

6. Become a reference and authority in your industry: over time, curating the best sources of contenton your website will help your website/brand become a go-to reference for anyone interested inyour industry. If you share, credit and comment on the best sources, people will start to think ofyou as an authoritative source of information; they will link to your content; and, Google will boostyour search rankings for the broad and long-tail keyword phrases you've highlighted.

To be sure, content curation is not an instant solution to poor search rankings or site-traffic levels.However, pursued with care and diligence, it's a sure thing. When fortified with traditional on-pageoptimization and new social-media links, curation will generate solid rankings, traffic and brand authority.





SEPTEMBER 2012

Investment in Pinterest Reaps RewardsBy Jeanne Davant

What is the fastest growing socialmedia site? If you said Facebook orTwitter, think again.

Pinterest, the social network thatfunctions as an online bulletin board,is growing at the astonishing rate of400% a month. Launched in 2010, itvaulted into the social media Top 10early in 2012 with more than 10 millionusers.

Pinterest: Not Just Growing, ButEffectiveA casual glance at the site might leadyou to believe it's primarily for peopleinterested in fashion and home décor,but more and more businesses arefinding Pinterest does a better job ofreferrals, traffic and sales than othersocial media. According to SearchEngine Journal, Pinterest users followmore retailers than users of Facebookand Twitter, and shoppers referred by Pinterest are 10% more likely to make a purchase and spend 10%more than visitors referred by Facebook or Twitter.

Pinterest allows users to share and discover new interests by posting images or video content. Each userhas a board upon which to "pin" images, which is Pinterest-speak for posting. Similarly, the person whodoes the posting is called a pinner. Other users can browse through the images posted on subjects thatinterest them; like, repin or comment on pins; and follow boards they like in order to be notified when newcontent is pinned.

People love Pinterest because it's easy to pin, organize and access ideas and images. Pinterest isespecially popular with women, who comprise 80% of users. If most of your clients, customers orconstituents are female, it's worth your time to take a look at this dynamic social network.

Pinterest can be very effective at driving traffic and leads to your website:

1. Pinterest outperformed Facebook in referring readers to Time Inc.'s Real Simple magazine inOctober 2011.

2. HubSpot gained more than 1,500 referrals to its blog from Pinterest in February 2012,outperforming Google+.

3. Top retailers and e-commerce sites are flocking to Pinterest and building massive followings.Whole Foods Market has harvested more than 41,000 followers, and Etsy's Pinterest fan baseexceeds 97,000.

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http://www.searchenginejournal.com/pinterestingly-enough-interesting-pinterest-stats/45328

http://www.inc.com/john-brandon/9-tips-boost-your-business-pinterest.html

http://www.inc.com/john-brandon/9-tips-boost-your-business-pinterest.html

http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/real-simple-pinterest-drives-traffic-facebook/231576

http://blog.hubspot.com/Portals/249/docs/ebooks/howtousepinterestforbusiness.pdf

http://pinsights.co/2012/06/retail-pinterest-benchmarking-study






Pinterest is a great way to define your brand and showcase your organization's personality. You cancreate a company board and pin photos of employees working together, enjoying company activities orvolunteering, or to highlight employees who have reached milestones or received awards. Similarly, not-for-profit organizations should consider Pinterest a great way to recognize members who have dedicatedsubstantial time to the organization by serving on boards and committees, for instance. The keywords andphrases you employ on your website can point you in the right direction as you develop additional boardsand pins.

Tips for Using PinterestThe same principles and etiquette apply to Pinterest as to most other forms of social media. Here aresome tips for using Pinterest effectively as part of your overall social media strategy:

1. Provide content that is appropriate, useful and interesting, not just promotions for your company orproducts. Pinterest users tend to shun boards that are overly self-serving.

2. Keep your posts clean and simple, in keeping with the look other Pinterest users achieve. Studypopular boards to get a feel for what works. You'll find that most boards focus on a specific topic.

3. Since Pinterest is a highly visual medium, think about sharing images and video content youalready have—for example, well-composed, visually interesting photos of satisfied customersusing your product or service, or pictures from an event you’ve hosted. Consider creatingadditional visual content, such as infographics and data charts, that you can use for Pinterest andother applications. Make sure everything is simple and clearly labeled.

4. Besides pinning unique content on your own board, follow other boards, and like and sharerelevant, interesting content. The goal is to get other users to share your content, because repinstend to spread faster than original pins.

5. Promote your Pinterest presence by sharing your posts and others' pins on Facebook, Twitter,LinkedIn and Google+. Add a "Pin It" button to your website to encourage others to pin interestinginformation. You can use the same hashtags on Pinterest that you use for Twitter and Google+ totie your social network activities together.

As with all social media, Pinterest success depends upon building quality relationships. If you can gainrecognition for your business, nonprofit or product through quality posts, Pinterest users will begin to repinyour posts on their own boards. Keep track of who is repinning your posts and follow them.

If you'd like more information on how to use Pinterest, email [email protected] and we'll send youour Pinterest fact sheet.



mailto:j%65%61nne@ns%69%70artn%65%72s.%63om



JANUARY 2012

The Browser Wars: An Appreciation andUpdateJames Baker

Nearly as old as the Internet itself, the browserwars have played a major part in drivinginnovation on the Web. During the fiercecompetition between Netscape Navigator andMicrosoft's Internet Explorer (IE) during theoriginal browser war of the mid-1990s, engineers tacked-on new features as fast as possible to attractusers and gain market share. While this had the unfortunate effect of diverging from Web standards, it didlead to the creation and early adoption of features like Javascript and CSS (which power nearly allwebsites today).

IE won the first browser war, partly through Microsoft’s free-download strategy. Then followed a period ofconsolidation (or stagnation, if you prefer), with few new capabilities released on the browser or the Web.The dominance of IE was challenged in 2004 by the new Mozilla Foundation’s Firefox browser. IE beganto lose market share to its young (and free) rival. Though important innovations, such as browser tabs,were introduced during this period, overall the rate of improvement for both IE and Firefox was slow.

Google Enters the RingMuch changed in 2008, when Google entered its Chrome browser into the competition. Chrome’s veryexistence sparked a new browser war, as Google unveiled a strategy of releasing new versions every fewmonths – instead of one each year or so, as Microsoft and Netscape had done. Firefox soon copied thisapproach (it’s currently rolling out Version 9!).

Faced with this fresh competition, IE lost ground steadily, falling below 50% market share in October2011. In November 2011, Chrome managed to pass Firefox and become the number-two browserworldwide (after IE). Besides innovations, Chrome’s relative speed and crash-resistance have won overany number of former IE and Firefox users.

Practical Impact of the Current Browser WarsSo much for competition – how have the browser wars affected you and me? For starters, the competitionhas produced feature-rich browsers and, by extension, a new, “rich” Web that is becoming equallyaccessible to mobile users. Together with the emergence of web-based services and the "cloud," theability of browsers to provide a good Web experience for mobile users is transforming how we interact withthe Web on a daily basis.

Browser extensions/plugins/apps for Firefox and Chrome add additional functionality to your browser, andthere are literally thousands of these widgets to choose from. Some of the most popular extensionsinclude an on-demand dictionary, a download manager, a bookmark synchronizer, and a screenshotcapture tool. As you scan the list of available extensions, it's likely you will find a solution for a Web-related annoyance or problem you didn't even know you had!

There is, as the iPhone commercial says, “an app for that.” Browser apps were popularized by Chrome.More powerful extensions, apps can allow you to run entire, stand-alone programs within your browser.Games such as Angry Birds or Bejeweled are two of the most popular, but full-fledged audio and photo

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http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/11/the-end-of-an-era-internet-explorer-drops-below-50-percent-of-web-usage.ars

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2397101,00.asp

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/home

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szrsfeyLzyg

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/aknpkdffaafgjchaibgeefbgmgeghloj

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/adpkifcfcacgmnggcbpbjbkdijciiigm






editors, to-do lists, and mathematic tools are only some of the others available. A growing number ofcompanies are generating their own custom apps, as much to promote their brands as to provide a handyproblem-solver or amusement.

A Few TipsA trick to increase your productivity can be to set up a separate profile in your browser (or even use asecond browser) that is specialized for certain tasks. For instance, you could configure a work browser,with all the tools, extensions and bookmarks required for your job, and a personal browser, from whichyou post on Facebook, conduct e-commerce and catch the latest sports scores. (Such self-discipline canhelp keep you from hopping over to YouTube when that important report is due.)

One of the most important things you can do prior to launching a new website or web app is to test it on avariety of browsers (including mobile). Thanks to the rapid development and adoption of the HTML5standard, today's browsers are largely compatible with one another when rendering websites.

Important differences, however, still remain – the days of having to support only IE users are gone. Now,thanks to the browser wars, three browsers -- IE, Firefox and Chrome – control the majority of the market.Opera and Apple's Safari have small slices as well. In addition, the shift toward widescreen monitorsmeans that you need to consider how your site appears on different screen sizes as well as differentresolutions. Cross-browser testing remains a must. Luckily, tools suchas Browsershots or CrossBrowserTesting are available to assist you and ease the process.

Today, thanks to the ongoing browser wars, we're able to do things on the Web that we had barelydreamed of ten years ago. The good news is, having a war on means we can expect many new ideas andfeatures to emerge from the competition. Through the struggle, the ways in which we interact with theWeb, and with one another, will continue to evolve.



http://browsershots.org/

http://crossbrowsertesting.com/



DECEMBER 2011

Using Google+ Pages for BusinessesJames Baker

In our August newsletter, I introduced Google’s newsocial network and Facebook competitor, Google+, andconsidered possible uses it would have for businesseswhen Google launched support for business- or brand-specific profiles. That time has come, so now let’s take alook at the benefits and drawbacks of the new Google+Pages for businesses.

Businesses and Google+ have had a rocky relationshipsince Google officially launched the network inSeptember without any feature comparable to Facebook'sPages. As enterprising marketers set up user accounts for their brands, Google just as quickly deleted theaccounts. On November 7th, however, Google finally unveiled Google+ Pages for business use.

Like several recent Google products (e.g., Wave), their attempt to add a business-marketing capability toGoogle+ appears hurried and unfocused. Though the basic features are there—brands can post photosand videos in addition to regular updates, fill in "About" tabs, and be "+1'd" and "circled" by fans—thereisn't much beyond these core functions.

For those already accustomed to using Facebook Pages for business, it's surprising to discover a numberof features that Google has (at least so far) neglected to provide. For instance, no multiple administrators:only the Google+ user who creates the page can manage it or post to it, and s/he cannot transfer controlor ownership of the page to any other user (tell your HR department and watch them grimace!) Googlesays that they're working on adding multiple administrators, but in the meantime, procedures to allowothers to use your G+ account, or to share other employee's posts from your page, are inconvenient atbest.

Other missing features include:

Vanity URLs (for instance, http://www.facebook.com/nsipartners) are not supported, so yourGoogle+ page's URL is a long, unsightly string of random numbers

Alerts or notices of page activity are not generated for the manager—not even an alert in theGoogle bar

Hangouts for Pages are still not a possibility, so a business cannot create one of the most useful and business-friendly features of Google+ (The Page manager could start or join a hangout like anyone else, but it would be their user account in the hangout.)

Statistics and analytics are not available for tracking activity on Pages (You can use Google+'scool Ripples feature, but that only tracks how a post is shared.)

These missing features can make businesses hesitant to commit to Google+, and if they venture as far asto create a page, they seem not to devote to it the resources they commit to other social media platforms.Even major brands that have had a Page from day one aren't aggressively updating or expanding thecontent of their Google+ Page.

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http://www.simplyzesty.com/google/evidence-that-google-plus-business-pages-are-dying-a-slow-death-already/






So, with these shortcomings, should yourbusiness bother with a Google+ Page? WhetherGoogle+ Pages will offer greater engagementthan Facebook or Twitter remains to be seen.However, Google is playing close attention to itsnew network, and will likely fix most of theseproblems soon. This will make it much easier tomanage a Page and interact with fans andcustomers.

More important, though, is the reality of Googleas the 800 lb-gorilla of search, and the fact thatit is integrating Google+ into its search strategyin some interesting ways. For instance, search

results already take into consideration the number of "circles" an article's author is in, as well as +1recommendations. Google greatly values social information, and in time might start including in its rankingalgorithms the number of connections a business has in Google+.

Google is already leveraging pages in search by enabling Direct Connect, a feature which takes asearcher directly to the brand's Google+ Page when "+brand name" (try +Pepsi for a good example) istyped into Google's search box. If the brand does not have a Google+ page (try +Bigelow Tea for thisexample), the usual Google results are returned. If, however, the same search is performed from withinGoogle+ for a business or brand not having a Page, the system will return what it perceives to be relatedposts from throughout the network. (Testing the Bigelow Tea example tonight, most posts returned areabout Bigelow Tea, but one is from a user with the last name of “Bigelow,” who references the Boston TeaParty.)

Given the importance Google is placing on the validity of social "signals" to help gauge the usefulness ofcontent, as well as the continuing threat posed by Facebook-based links as an alternative means ofdiscovering Web content, further development of Google+ and Google Search integration will likelybecome one of the driving justifications for devoting resources to developing and maintaining a Google+Page for your business or organization. We’ll stay on top of the developments in Google+—particularly asit impacts search—and keep you updated as this product continues to unfold.



https://plus.google.com/up/start/?continue=https://plus.google.com/&type=st&gpcaz=bbee23aa



SEPTEMBER 2010

Are You LinkedIn?Tom McClintock

NSI Partners has worked extensively this year to help a European telecom clientmeet its sales goals. One of the key strategies we are pursuing with them isdevelopment of their corporate LinkedIn profile, and encouraging the client’semployees and sales channel partners to build their personal networks on theLinkedIn social-media platform.

LinkedIn Company ProfilesYou may already know that LinkedIn’s Company Profiles assist with leadgeneration by providing overviews, key statistics and employee lists. But do youknow that the LinkedIn database is probably the most capable of any online

social network? You can perform very granular searches on LinkedIn, filtering results by job title, location,relevance, relationships, keywords and more. And your lead-generation searches return relevant data:nearly every name is current, and frequently no more than two connections away from your own listing.

Once your search has helped you hone in specifically on the right decision-maker, LinkedIn can oftensupply a free introduction from a mutual friend or colleague. You can even save searches and sign up toreceive email alerts when new members (75 million and growing) who match your criteria join LinkedIn.

You will also want others to find your organization on LinkedIn, so make sure your own company profile iseasy to locate. Here are several tips on optimizing your company profile for enhanced search visibility:

Use Keywords: In describing your company, use keywords or phrases that would likely be used intopical searches by those persons you most want to find you. Build up a list of those keywords andphrases, and use them throughout your profile.

Visually Brand Your Page: Add your company logo to your page. Alternatively, you might choosesomeone at your company – perhaps the founder or current CEO – to act as a focal point, andpost their photo with the profile.

Be Thorough: The more information you use to describe your company’s products, services andpolicies, the more likely that searchers will find and connect with your profile.

Provide Updates: Use status updates employing keyword phrases to share articles with yournetwork. Provide interesting links so your company’s connections will be more likely to payattention to your updates.

Notify Company Website Visitors of Your LinkedIn Profile: Make certain to add a “Follow uson LinkedIn” button to your website. (The code is provided on the overview page of your LinkedIncompany profile.)

Employee ProfilesPeople are the drivers on LinkedIn, so have your key employees develop their LinkedIn profiles. The moreinformation each employee gives, the more connections they will make, enhancing the usefulness ofLinkedIn and the chances of your company being found. To take full advantage of the useful “People YouMay Know” feature that appears on each person’s homepage, have your key personnel fill out theirprofiles completely, including employment background and education, so that those fields will be

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accessible to searchers.

Building Relationships on LinkedInLinkedIn enables you to build relationships organically over time, in ways that are often more effectivethan traditional sales approaches. For example:

Set up Introductions: Rather than cold-calling, search LinkedIn to find the person you need tocontact. If they are a LinkedIn user, you will find information on the person(s) in your network whocan broker a direct or third-party introduction

Join Groups: There are many active industry and special-interest groups on LinkedIn. You canjoin one in your industry to make more contacts in your field, or renew old friendships through yourcollege alumni association’s group.

Answer Questions: LinkedIn allows users to post questions that are open for anyone to answer(from your homepage click on “More,” then “Answers”). Posting answers can position you asknowledgeable, experienced, helpful and approachable, as well as extend your network throughnew contacts you make.

Post Updates: Regular, informative or friendly posts “drip” on your personal connections, tomaintain mindshare, make yourself more personable and increase your accessibility.

Building your LinkedIn network and fostering the relationships won’t happen overnight, but you can startby connecting with me at http://www.linkedin.com/in/tommcclintock.

If you need help building out and optimizing your company profile, please contact us. We can also developa best-practices guide for your employees, or provide webinars to help get them started or increase theircomfort level on LinkedIn.



http://www.linkedin.com/in/tommcclintock



NOVEMBER 2009

When Aligning Branding and Messaging, Don't Forget Social MediaPart 1: Logo Police Ride Into the Sunset

Thomas B. McClintock

Recently at NSI, we’re spending less time urging clients to open Twitter and other social-media accountsthan urging them to shut accounts down, or – more precisely – to consolidate poorly maintained accountsinto more active ones. There’s a right and a wrong way to “do” Twitter and related media, we’re all finding.Some of it has to do with extending the coordination of your branding and messaging into the social-media space (“multi-channel alignment,” as it’s called).

Where’s the Logo Cop When You Need One?Fifteen years ago at Deloitte & Touche, my boss would complain about what he called “the Logo Police.”Despite tight deadlines when rolling out a new product, we were forced to wait for approval from whatseemed to be a very powerful department. My boss described the Logo Police as staffers who “ride in likethe FBI, pixel rulers drawn, shutting down everything because a margin or color doesn’t precisely matchtheir regulations.”

In our (much smaller) firm, I sometimes miss having a Logo Police Department to ensure that the latestversion of our logo and tagline appears on all our collateral materials. But with or without Logo Cops,those responsible for multi-channel alignment are busier than ever.

It’s no longer enough that collateral materials match one another in branding and messaging, or that aweb site’s look-and-feel is consistent with its print counterpart. In today’s Web 2.0 world, multi-channelalignment now extends into the blogosphere and beyond – onto Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn,and every corner of your online presence. Now more than ever, it seems, the long arm of the marketingdepartment is needed to police your brand.

Redefining the Logo Cops’ RoleFor social media to work effectively, editorial policies (from the Logo Police, legal department or PR team)can’t be allowed to bottleneck staff responsible for posting online. The first of two rules to prevent yoursocial properties from going dormant is: establish guidelines, then empower and trust knowledgeablepeople to update your social-media platforms.

The second rule appears to contradict the first: delegate social-media posting, but continue monitoring allposts. In other words, don’t delegate the command and control function, lest your campaign lose its focus.Assign a single individual responsibility for monitoring, measuring, and reporting on the posting-team’sefforts. Ideally, this will be someone both familiar and involved with social-media, who can usepredetermined metrics to evaluate your social-media effort and ensure the frequency and consistency ofposts.

With communication channels multiplying, marketers need help – but not from Logo Cops! While Iunderstand that some content may need review before it’s posted, guidance and assistance is neededmore than policing. The fast pace of social-media conversation presents a new reality to which everydepartment involved – from marketing to legal—needs to adapt.

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DECEMBER 2009

When Aligning Branding and Messaging, Don’t Forget Social MediaPart II: New Sheriff in Town?

Thomas B. McClintock

In last month’s issue, we looked at the job of policing brands in light of social media’s growing influence.Instead of strict brand enforcement, we suggested that organizations need to a) establish guidelines, thenempower and trust knowledgeable people to update social-media platforms, as well as b) delegate social-media posting, but continue monitoring all social-media posts.

In this issue we’ll look at the role described in “b” above, the brand-monitor or “sheriff” policing the social-media frontier. Ideally, this role would be assigned to a single individual.

A Sheriff and DeputiesToday’s fast-paced marketing environment resembles the old Wild West, and many organizations mayfind it easier to skip suggestion “a” above, than to coordinate activities among a team having differentexperiences, skill sets and training. Assigning all social-media responsibility (not just monitoring,measuring and reporting, but content-development and posting, too) to a lone brand “sheriff”–in effect,combining both “a” and “b” in one individual—may seem safer, but it’s actually more risky. It’s doubtful thatone staffer can do all these tasks well.

The social-media sheriff’s position is ideal for leading, training and encouraging the posting team whilekeeping marketing goals in view. The wise sheriff will help hone message points and slowly build on smallsuccesses. Each member of the posting group should be able to post on all platforms to allconstituencies, in order to maximize economies of scale. With proper training and direction, each teammember should grow into someone the sheriff can fully “deputize” to coordinate message points acrossthe social-media landscape.

Upholding the Rule of LawOf course, besides directing the content team, the sheriff must also track and report results againstpredetermined metrics and goals–ensuring that each campaign maintains posting focus, frequency andimpact. To maintain posting frequency, for instance, the sheriff should set overall goals and then establishindividual team-member expectations accordingly. Accounts should be updated at regular intervals, soenough authorized posters must be assigned and trained to ensure the posting schedule is maintained.

This doesn’t take as much investment as it sounds, though, as long as team members incorporate social-media posting into their weekly schedules and take advantage of the appropriate tools. And the larger theteam, the less frequently each member must post, but since every link in the chain counts, posters mustbe held accountable to the predetermined frequency goal.

Benchmarking also helps determine targeting, based on how impactful marketing efforts are on variousgroups. The decisions regarding what audiences to target, who should post, even what identities to setup, must themselves be centralized to encompass these goals. This way the sheriff can truly takeresponsibility, and metrics can accurately measure marketing success.

New FlexibilityWhile maintaining control over the marketing message, the sheriff can also exploit the flexibility of socialmedia to reach a variety of smaller audiences, at low cost. You may find advocates for your point of viewin the most unexpected places, and these diverse groups will not respond in the same way to your

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branding and messaging as your core target market. Therefore, while you should at least echo your brandand message points to new audiences, avoid rebroadcasting them in a regimented way.

ESPN, for example, now has dozens of properties that focus on more aspects of sports than can becounted: national, local, collegiate, classic, informal, Spanish-language, niche, journalistic, biographical,fantasy, etc. Many of these can be customized to personal or even mobile preferences through micro-channels. But these properties don’t mimic the look and feel of the original cable channel. As KevinHillstrom puts it, “The only theme that runs through all of these micro-channels is that this is ‘ESPN, TheWorldwide Leader In Sports.’ Sure, there's cross-promotion between platforms. But by and large, ESPNdeviates away from the ‘look and feel’ and ‘integration’ mantras of multichannel marketing.”

While strict rules for social-media use would be simpler, they would make your social media marketingless flexible and effective, so marketing policing by necessity now raises many questions. But the firstquestion is one you should ask right away: has your new sheriff arrived in town?



http://minethatdata.com/blog/2009/04/espn-multichannel-considerations-for.html

http://minethatdata.com/blog/2009/04/espn-multichannel-considerations-for.html
