On SocialTimes (@SocialTimes), Megan O'Neill (@maoneill) says, “Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most effective kinds of marketing when it comes to influencing purchase decisions.” The following Infographic from WOMMA (@WOMMA) and Column Five Media (@columnfive) takes a look at just how important and effective word of mouth marketing is, online and off.
On The Proactive Report, Sally Falkow (@sallyfalkow) encourages you to map your brand’s social graph. She says “your stakeholders are on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn and they’re connecting to each other.”
It’s quite likely that your content is filtering into the social graph across many platforms and nodes. One customer likes a video you post and adds it to their Facebook page. One of her friends tweets the link. A colleague of his sees it and adds your video to StumbleUpon and a follower there posts it to Digg. As it travels across the graph people add comments. Later it gets seen by a journalist researching a story or someone searching for a solution to a problem.
Invest the time to map your social graph. Locate and build relationships with your brand advocates and online influencers. Respond to your detractors and convert them to fans.
There is real ROI in mapping your social graph and making it possible for your stakeholders to share your content .
Although Adweek (@Adweek) derides this “World’s Largest QR Code” (able to be seen 2 miles in the sky), it may have the last laugh because of its PR value.
And AXA Bank in Belgium arranged thousands of different colors of cans of paint to form a gigantic QR code.
In an article for Media Post (@MediaPost), brand marketer Maryanne Conlin (@mcmilker) extols the convenience of QR codes as the overriding benefit when marketing to busy moms.
Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you think through your QR code marketing strategy. Be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.
Google Analytics (@googleanalytics) created this humorous video to showcase the frustration of consumers when they encounter complicated buying procedures online. It reminds us to keep the consumer experience uppermost in our thinking whenever we serve them, whether through etailing procedures or even intuitive website navigation and valuable immediate marketing content.
For example, Woolley writes about applying direct response methodology, granular keyword-level data analysis, and focusing on quality over quantity as being 3 keys that drive SEO success. He describes how to determine which keywords to focus on, what relevance means, attention to user intent, and business impact.
Springwise (@springwise) reports that the advantage of the printed book’s ability to have the author handwrite at a book signing a personal message to the book’s owner on its pages is now gone. “Kindlegraph (@kindlegraph) aims to challenge that, by enabling authors to send personalized, digital inscriptions directly to the reading devices of their fans.”
Created by Evan Jacobs, a former programmer at Amazon, Kindlegraph is designed to facilitate a closer connection between authors and their fans. To personalize their ebook, users log in with their Twitter credentials and select from a list of popular ebooks. So far approximately 1,700 authors are involved, with around 7,500 books listed.
After selecting an ebook, a request is then sent to the author who, after logging in, will see a list of current requests. There is space to type a personalized message, and clicking “Kindlegraph it” will send the message to Docusign APIs which embed the signed message and sends a PDF back to the reader’s Kindle.
Jacobs hopes that authors will use it as a means to build relationships with fans; for example: sending preview chapters or short stories before they are published. A video on the Kindlegraph’s website explains how the platform works in more detail.
Mark Coker (@markcoker), founder of ebook distributor Smashwords, wanted to know how readers discover ebooks. So he posted a survey at the ebook forum Mobileread (@mobileread), “challenging readers to select the single most common criterion they follow to discover their next read.”
To capture a broad range of usable data, I suggested 12 answers, one of which was “Other.” Respondents were allowed to select one answer only since I wanted to identify the single most important discovery criteria.
The most-selected answer was “Recommendations from fellow readers on online message forums, blogs and message boards," with 29% of respondents choosing this. By contrast, only 4% selected, “Personal friend/family member recommends it to me.” I think this is fascinating, because it implies readers might trust the collective wisdom of strangers and online acquaintances more than they trust the recommendations of immediate friends and family. At the risk of placing too many eggs in this basket, remember 71% selected something else....
What to make of the results? How might authors and publishers focus their e-publishing efforts based on the data?
·Target readers who are active in online communities because they influence their fellow readers
·Maximize the availability of your book so readers can randomly stumble across it and sample it
·Boring titles, unprofessional cover images and poorly written book descriptions are instant turn-offs
More research on a variety of topics is available on the SomersaultNOW dashboard under the Research tab. Stay abreast of the latest information with this helpful online resource for publishing and marketing executives.
On Mashable (@mashable), Ryan Matzner (@rdm) of Fueled (@Fueled) explains how marketers need to think differently when it comes to the mobile space.
Users on the Web are notoriously distracted and hop around from page to page. Mobile users are distracted even further. Their devices are buzzing with push notifications from their apps, text messages and emails are constantly popping up on the screen. They might be standing in line at a grocery store, waiting for a movie to start, in a taxi, in an elevator or walking down the street. These scenarios — and mobile use in general — are defined by 3 key factors:
1. Pockets of Use. Picking up their mobile device is a secondary task. They’re just trying to fill up a pocket of time while doing something else. Users have just a few moments to check their phone or look up a piece of information while they’re completing a primary task (waiting in line, elevator, etc.).
2. Perpetual and Inherent Distraction. Traditional web users may face distraction from email, chat and the infinite number of other webpages they could be on, but when those users land on a page, they typically stick around until they become bored or want to check out some other piece of information on the web. Mobile users, on the other hand, face perpetual off-device distractions — use of their mobile device is secondary. Byrne Hobart, founder of investment research firm Digital Due Diligence, observes that mobile marketers are “writing for an audience that’s in the middle of something else.” They might be waiting for their subway stop, their floor on an elevator, their line to be called at Whole Foods, a friend to show up at a restaurant. Point is, the number of off-device distractions for mobile users is limitless.
3. The (Very) Small Screen. Mobile devices have tiny screens — they simply do not fit a lot of content. It’s critical that marketers keep this in mind as they write copy. What will fit onto a user’s screen without scrolling?
