2013
Autospeak-Straight Talk contains articles covering digital and social media marketing social communities and events marketing
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The World Cup an event that occurs once every four years is one of the greatest sporting competitions on earth. Large events like this are fun and entertaining but also give us a unique opportunity to study in “Real Time†how advertisers and businesses are leveraging their brands, where they are concentrating their efforts and across what medias they are having the greatest impact.Today’s technologies are playing an increasingly important role in the ratings for popular events. According to ESPN, during the World Cup's first three days, 65% of the audience viewed it via television only, while 24% of consumers combined viewing TV with other media platforms and 11% watched exclusively through a non-TV platform.Â
Popular events and campaigns give us insight into which medias are dominating and the tremendous impact that the internet has today on how information is processed and shared.
What we can learn from these popular events is how people are reacting to them via these media channels and what devices they are using which can help us in planning where and how to concentrate our own efforts in promoting our brand and content across these media channels.
According to a Crowdtap poll of more than 850 men and women in May, the poll found that the Facebook at 65% and Twitter at 17.6% are by far the preferred social channels viewers use to share ads, updates and  message about their favorite brands and teams to friends and family.
“Although different platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc) work best for different activities. When it comes to fostering a community or organizing an event, Facebook is key. And nothing beats Twitter for "day of" promotion of your event.†Ritu Sharma Co-Founder and Executive Director of Social Media for Nonprofits.
Also, Social Communities are redefining the customer experience and how businesses interact with their customer base by taking rewards programs, customer service and feedback to a whole new level. Onsite Social Communities shift customer support and service to being part of the brand marketing mix.
Likewise according to Crowdtaps poll cell phones at 58.4% and computers at (58.1%) were evenly split in devices of choice with tablets coming in 3rd at (37.5%)
It becomes obvious, as events like these point out, how important digital marketing and mobile has and continues to transform media communication as a whole and what is today:
* The social channels where the most engagement is presently taking place and
*From which devices all of this communication and engagement is being received and shared.
To shed some perspective on all this sharing, according to Nielsen’s latest Global Trust in Advertising report, which surveyed more than 28,000 Internet respondents in 56 countries, 92 percent of consumers around the world say they trust earned media, such as recommendations from friends and family, above all other forms of advertising—an increase of 18 percent since 2007.
Online consumer reviews come in second as the most trusted source of brand information and messaging, with 70 percent of global consumers surveyed online indicating they trust messages on this platform, an increase of 15 percent in four years.
Global events like these give us a unique opportunity to get a broad and current picture of where we might want to consider concentrating our marketing resources most effectively and the diverse and incredible ways all this technology is impacting our lives and the future of commerce.
By William Cosgrove
If you are actively seeking to understand digital marketing you already have an idea of how complex it has become. And you might have also read a horror story or two about false prophets dressed up in outdated and/or less than effective or ineffective garb touting quick fixes and cheap ineffective marketing techniques they market to the unaware and uniformed.
First of all if you are not familiar with a product or a service you should be seeking information and advice from various knowledgeable sources in order to make the right decision for you and your business. If you don’t, as with anything, you open yourself up to investing in subpar or ineffective products.
Digital Marketing is an ecosystem where the seamless integration of a systems components is essential for its functioning - a central point where all the elements converge. Today you must approach it holistically.
The complexities and constantly changing landscape of digital marketing takes the right tools, specialization and constant study to be able to properly navigate, participate and be effective within it.
To help you better understand this complexity, here are a few points that highlight some of the intricacies of Digital Marketing and its constant evolution.
Having a Plan That Works
Its location culture, ideals and its people make every business unique. Every marketing strategy, therefore, must also be unique and to do that you must understand your company and your market.
You must have a strategy to generate interest for a specific product, service or idea. It’s an assessment of each individual company, and a constant work in progress in determining which forms of digital marketing will work best for you.
Is your website up to date technologically with website design that is easy to navigate?
Just to scratch the surface on updated search engine algorithms did you know that bad web design and poor navigation will get you poor search rankings. Search engines are now watching people’s habits in an effort to produce better search rankings.
So with that thought in mind sites that have good content, navigation and design are rewarded with higher organic search rankings because they stay longer and navigate deeper.
Compare that to a poorly designed web site that people simply land on the site and leave within seconds because of its look and or poor navigation – Google and the others as well, will now penalize poor design by lowering its ranking on the organic search lists.
Link Building
Did you know that it has become apparent that with the new algorithms used today, some types of link building can land you in trouble with search engines and possibly penalized you with lower page rankings and possibly being removed from search engine listings.
Today, if you want to improve your search engine rankings and attract new customers you need to engage people with good relevant content. This engagement will create the type of indirect links that the search engines are looking for today through comments, sharing and social interaction in its many forms.
It can’t be all about you anymore it also needs to be about what is important to them-How they feel about something and what is going to draw their interest. It is about bringing them to you not just you going to them.
And don’t think of web traffic as just coming from sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus –to name a few - Because these are just a part of driving web traffic as you will see in a report released by Sharaholic on Organic Search traffic vs. Social Referrals covering November of 2012 thru November of 3013.
In the report they analyzed data collected over this 13 month period across their network of 200,000+ sites that reach more than 250 million unique monthly users. tracking the amount of traffic the top 5 search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, AOL) and 5 top ranked social media sites (Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, StumbleUpon and Reddit) drove to publishers.
On average, according to the report, social referrals accounted for just 15.06% with Organic search traffic accounting for 41.45%.
But the importance for both is documented in a recent article on Search Engine Watch that research from Forrester tells us that social networks today have become a critical discovery platform and are now the second most popular channel for website discovery only behind organic search.
Citation Building
Citations are defined as references to your business name and address on other web pages, even if there is no link to your website.
Citations are a key component of the ranking algorithms of the major search engines. Businesses with a greater number of citations will probably rank higher than businesses with fewer citations.
Are yours uniform and up to date?
Web Site Optimization
Today this could be defined as a seamless integration of system components which is essential to be able to function properly - a central point where all the elements converge. The coordination required to synchronize all the functions of a web site can be overwhelming.
Are you overwhelmed yet?
First of all if you are not familiar with a product or a service you should be seeking information and advice from various knowledgeable sources in order to make the right decision for you and your business. If you don’t, as with anything, you open yourself up to investing in subpar or ineffective products.
Digital Marketing is an ecosystem where the seamless integration of a systems components is essential for its functioning - a central point where all the elements converge. Today you must approach it holistically.
The complexities and constantly changing landscape of digital marketing takes the right tools, specialization and constant study to be able to properly navigate, participate and be effective within it.
To help you better understand this complexity, here are a few points that highlight some of the intricacies of Digital Marketing and its constant evolution.
Having a Plan That Works
Its location culture, ideals and its people make every business unique. Every marketing strategy, therefore, must also be unique and to do that you must understand your company and your market.
You must have a strategy to generate interest for a specific product, service or idea. It’s an assessment of each individual company, and a constant work in progress in determining which forms of digital marketing will work best for you.
Is your website up to date technologically with website design that is easy to navigate?
Just to scratch the surface on updated search engine algorithms did you know that bad web design and poor navigation will get you poor search rankings. Search engines are now watching people’s habits in an effort to produce better search rankings.
So with that thought in mind sites that have good content, navigation and design are rewarded with higher organic search rankings because they stay longer and navigate deeper.
Compare that to a poorly designed web site that people simply land on the site and leave within seconds because of its look and or poor navigation – Google and the others as well, will now penalize poor design by lowering its ranking on the organic search lists.
Link Building
Did you know that it has become apparent that with the new algorithms used today, some types of link building can land you in trouble with search engines and possibly penalized you with lower page rankings and possibly being removed from search engine listings.
Today, if you want to improve your search engine rankings and attract new customers you need to engage people with good relevant content. This engagement will create the type of indirect links that the search engines are looking for today through comments, sharing and social interaction in its many forms.
It can’t be all about you anymore it also needs to be about what is important to them-How they feel about something and what is going to draw their interest. It is about bringing them to you not just you going to them.
And don’t think of web traffic as just coming from sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus –to name a few - Because these are just a part of driving web traffic as you will see in a report released by Sharaholic on Organic Search traffic vs. Social Referrals covering November of 2012 thru November of 3013.
In the report they analyzed data collected over this 13 month period across their network of 200,000+ sites that reach more than 250 million unique monthly users. tracking the amount of traffic the top 5 search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, AOL) and 5 top ranked social media sites (Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, StumbleUpon and Reddit) drove to publishers.
On average, according to the report, social referrals accounted for just 15.06% with Organic search traffic accounting for 41.45%.
But the importance for both is documented in a recent article on Search Engine Watch that research from Forrester tells us that social networks today have become a critical discovery platform and are now the second most popular channel for website discovery only behind organic search.
Citation Building
Citations are defined as references to your business name and address on other web pages, even if there is no link to your website.
Citations are a key component of the ranking algorithms of the major search engines. Businesses with a greater number of citations will probably rank higher than businesses with fewer citations.
Are yours uniform and up to date?
Web Site Optimization
Today this could be defined as a seamless integration of system components which is essential to be able to function properly - a central point where all the elements converge. The coordination required to synchronize all the functions of a web site can be overwhelming.
Are you overwhelmed yet?
Web Page Optimization“The web page is the most important social media development of all time. This is a weighty statement... but it’s also a true one.†Says Steven Aresenault, CEO of One Big Broadcast.
“No other form of content sharing has had such a dramatic--and long-lasting--impact on companies. These pages serve to inform and attract. They are the first impressions and the final thoughts. And using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will reinforce what they do. Web page SEO is meant to increase a brand’s visibility.â€
Social Media Integration
The world of Digital Marketing is constantly changing. Consumers are flocking to the Internet seeking information about their favorite brands and products. They want the immediacy of networking; they want the ease of web site posts; they want instant communication.Â
And they’re willing to give their loyalties (as well as their dollars) to companies that offer these things through social integration.
Social integration is the process of linking media forms to the Internet. It’s meant to increase a brand’s reputation, as well as subtly promote specific products or events.
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Consumers are now spending their time--and their money--online. They’re seeking out company web sites, utilizing social media as a way to learn and buy.Â
Social integration is linked to consumer awareness. Companies that embrace networking, blogging and more become part of an ever-expanding circle of accounts. They are connected directly to the demographics they need, bringing traffic to their sites.
A business that isn’t integrated is a business that’s losing money.
SEO and Social Automation Platforms
There are SEO and social automation platforms available that can save valuable time which translates into valuable resources. But the key to how they function is in their design and the team behind it who will be consulting on a consistent basis on changes and new developments and strategies that will keep you at peak performance.
Analytics
Measure, measure, measure. Analytics are an essential component required to measure the effectiveness of you marketing. You must be able to gauge where your marketing is being the most effective and adjust accordingly.
Your marketing company should be consulting you on a regular basis to help you understand the information contained in the analytics that they provided and work with you on adjusting to increase you marketing’s effectiveness.
One article I read that made a good point that a company that does not offer analytics is a company be should avoided-. Good advice. And another pointed out that if they don’t want to do an audit of your current marketing platform before they start making suggestions or giving you prices-Walk away-More good advice.
As a business you must understand the enormous impact of all this is too great not to have some knowledge so you can at least ask the right questions and stay informed on a continual basis. This is not something that without some knowledge you just sign up for and forget-it is a process that must constantly be monitored and adjusted to maintain and improve its effectiveness.
These are only some of the components that are involved in structuring and executing an effective online presence and digital marketing program. Content and strategies must be constantly changing and adjusted to keep up with new Technologies, Social Trends and Changes in search engines sophisticated algorithms.
Hopefully this made you aware of the complexity of the rapidly changing digital world of marketing and that you will delve deeper and get specialized competent advice to help make the best decisions for you.
William Cosgrove
Using your own social channel (community) on your website to connect with your offsite social channels can make for a winning social media marketing strategy.Not only can it provide a multitude of benefits that cannot be realized through any other marketing initiative, you will not be subject or impacted as much by the constant flux of other's changing marketing policies and popularity.
There is no more transparent way of connecting with your customers and employees than having an onsite social network. An onsite social network allows you to partner with your customers and employees to bolster your marketing initiatives and project your customer and employee centric culture across all your social channels.
By building your own brand community of fans and followers you will have a central location with an organic reach of 100 percent on your real estate with which to form lasting relationships and a community of fans and followers who can help you broadcast your message organically across the internet.
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Although it is important to maintain a presence on other social networks an onsite social network gives you the opportunity to market better, smarter, more economically and more secure.
Your onsite community provides the means for Socialcasting of which community plays a key role that in its many forms can boost page ranking and drive traffic in ways that no other form of media can. This can provide a base from which to launch all of your marketing efforts to positively impact your overall marketing efforts. Technology is constantly providing us with new and creative ways of centralizing our marketing to make it more efficient and cost effective.
By taking advantage of your existing customer and employee base you can easily and cost effectively have a powerful platform of brand advocates from which to build on. New customers can automatically become members of the community as part of the benefit of doing business with your company and site visitors can be invited to join to enjoy member benefits as a way of nurturing new business.
Give community members discounts on extended warranties, maintenance Contracts and/or Services and provide drawings and special offer to keep them engaged and you will have an army of devoted customers who will help you broadcast your customer centric culture and drive more traffic to draw many more devoted customers to your business.
All of this will have many positive effects including bolstering your SERP and feed on itself to give you a platform from which to launch all your marketing initiatives.
“While the idea is still new and new ideas often take time to be fully shaped inside organizations, in the future it is quite likely that consumer-facing companies will no longer outsource social platforms, but rather look to integrate, partner, and build their own niched platforms that are tailored specifically to what their consumers want.†Jennifer Wolfe stated in her recent article Think It’s Too Costly to Build Your Own Social Platform? Think Again
William Cosgrove
Today’s Local marketing must bring together and blend both traditional, internet and mobile marketing strategies.  It needs to be a comprehensive plan that works to drive traffic within a specific geographical area to your business where a specific product or service is offered.Local Marketing is not just an event or a campaign, but instead should be a continually evolving process. Local area marketing gives your brand the opportunity to leverage your messages to create a solid community of loyal customers who live or work close to your market area.
Advances in integrated digital technology have provided business the tools to directly market through their own websites. Â The process of executing your marketing campaigns has never been easier, faster or more cost-effective. Marketing Automation allows businesses to use their site as the center for conducting all their marketing initiatives to make them more efficient and give them more control over their initiatives, save time, and reduce the need to look outside for solutions.
Local area marketing provides the best opportunity for your business to connect with your customer base off and onsite and through your social media channels to show them that you actively support and give back to the community and are concerned with your customers’ needs by promoting workshops on product and service related topics and by posting relevant content to educate, inform and answer questions regarding your products and services.
It is knowing which messages to market and where to market to your customers based on local knowledge and trends. This is the key to Local Marketing that turns campaigns into success stories. A great resource for obtaining this knowledge is within your organization-your employees.
First, you need to determine all of the local keywords for your business. These keywords need to be specific to your geographic area. This is also known as location-based keyword usage. Your site should have keywords that include your city, county or other relevant geographic information.
Keywords and phrases need to be included on every page of your website to increase your site's SEO ranking when potential customers perform local searches.
Next, promote your team. People like to do business with local people- and be consistent, reinforce your marketing messages, have a local marketing program in addition to your stand-alone campaigns.
Consider an onsite social network. Companies with private social networks can experience better employee relations, customer service, reduced customer complaints and increased brand loyalty. Think of having a central place in which to read and understand your customers’ concerns, wants, needs and expectations.
Part of your integrated platform solution for your site must also include mobile. Fully integrated sites that include a mobile solution attract more visibility and therefore more traffic compared to using different solutions and vendors to fill your needs – And with mobile it is widely expected that in the near future, local searches will account for the bulk of all mobile searches annually. If you don’t already have a mobile solution integrated into your website's platform you’re losing ground every day.
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And let’s not forget another very important ingredient that provides for local businesses to get found and that is listing in online directories. Listing in online directories is not complicated and by listing in as many as you can you will exponentially increase the probability that you get found in online searches.
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These are some of the reasons that your business needs to have a comprehensive local marketing strategy in place to compete in today’s marketplace. What can you add that will help in forming a successful local Marketing solution?
 William Cosgrove
(Photo Courtesy of ADXmedia)
Social media destinations today seem to be a what’s trending, what's fashionable media where Social Icons are losing ground and where smaller ones are constantly being replaced with the next technologically fad driven way to communicate and share with one another on the internet and platform changes on these web properties can cost you dearly as many of you have learned.It is time to look more within your organization to find better and more stable ways of attracting customers and communicating with your existing customer and employee base from your most important online asset-Your website. Having your message emanating from and traffic directed to your website is the only way you will reap 100% of the benefit that SEO and link building provide.
 This can be done by forming an onsite community to provide a central platform on your site where employees and customers can be engaged and can act as advocates for your brand that will strengthen your company in ways that no other medium can.
Social communities can integrate your marketing initiatives to organically grow your inbound traffic and SEO effectively reducing the cost of your online marketing and provide a host of benefits that cannot be achieved or more effectively controlled in any other way.
This interaction can be streamed across your social channels to engage potential customers by showing them that you have a customer and employee centric culture. This builds trust and confidence in your brand that will:
Increase visibility
Increase site traffic
Increase recommendations and testimonials
Increase employee retention
 All of which combined will result in higher sales and a fatter bottom line.
Onsite social communities bring you closer to your employees and customers by acting as listening posts that leads to better communication to gain valuable insight to make better decisions that will result in a healthier organization.
There is a saying that content is the fuel and social is the fire. And for businesses in today’s customer centric marketplace creating a private social networking platform connects your employees, existing customers and potential customers into a single-focus environment enabling them to exchange ideas which will ultimately strengthen your brand and broaden your customer base.
In addition to your overall digital marketing strategy social communities are a perfect branding platform to show your members your appreciation and dedication to serving them by offering member only specials on purchases and services all geared towards producing devoted customers who will ultimately become your brand ambassadors.
This sense of community creates a win, win relationship where both you and your members can communicate closely and collaborate on such things as events, volunteer efforts, etc which in turn is channeled through organic SEO and social networks to generate goodwill across the internet from your website.
“We all know that social technology enables human connections. But the thing is, there are no boundaries between consumers or employees, because most of us are both. Technology has also amplified the speed and reach of every type of communication. This evolution in how we share information and knowledge goes far beyond just social "media." It's a complete transformation in the way we interact. When businesses fail to take advantage of the valuable assets in their organization, they miss out on an excellent way to create both customer engagement and employee empowerment." Michelle Killebrew, Program Director, Strategy IBM Social Business.
In today’s world of being relevant using content marketing in all its forms, what better way is there to be relevant than by creating your own onsite social community-What are your thoughts?
William Cosgrove
Bill Cosgrove Straight Talk
See Social Communities to learn more
Delivering marketing messages and content on mobile platforms has become essential as part of any digital marketing solution.You need to have a mobile solution that responds to all device screen sizes for optimal viewing. Some websites are recording 30-40% of all traffic from mobile devices. Â Responsive design is what is trending today for website mobile solutions because of its ability to adapt to any screen but adaptive design does have its place depending on the experience you are looking provide.
Whatever your preference or need may be, having a mobile solution today is essential if you want to successfully compete in today’s digital marketplace. Find out what is going to work best for you by knowing the differences so you can make the right decision in choosing your mobile solution.
One thing is certain. If you are not reaching the mobile user you are losing a lot of traffic to your website.
More than 50% of the pages for local search visits are made on mobile phones and local search is projected to surpass desktops by 2015. And according an exact target 2014 mobile behavior report 76% of  smartphone users and 70 % of tablet users search for something on the internet at least once a day.
William Cosgrove
Bill Cosgrove Straight Talk
Also see MOBILE SHOULD BE A SEAMLESS PART OF YOUR WEB STRATEGY
Including employees as part of an onsite social community can act as transparent communications ecosystem in which to collaborate, communicate and provide your employees with a platform from which they can interact with their social channels, you and your customers.
The following Infographic from The Queens University of Charlotte, Communicating in The Modern Workplace, defines a modern workplace which can be managed and fostered in a company sponsored community benefiting both your employees and company as a whole.
William Cosgrove
Bill Cosgrove Straight Talk
SourceÂ
The following Infographic from The Queens University of Charlotte, Communicating in The Modern Workplace, defines a modern workplace which can be managed and fostered in a company sponsored community benefiting both your employees and company as a whole.
William Cosgrove
Bill Cosgrove Straight Talk
SourceÂ
We all know that mobile is playing an increasingly important role in online marketing today just ask the 85% of people who say that mobile devices are a central part of everyday life and further illustrated below by this demographic smartphone ownership survey published by Pew Research January 2014.
Daily Activities on smartphones and tablets (Marketing charts February 2014)
Furthermore,  according to web and mobile measurement firm comScore 55% of all time spent with online retail as of June 2013 occurred on a mobile device, 45% occurred on desktops and laptops. Specifically, smartphones accounted for 44% of retail Internet minutes while tablets accounted for 11%.
We can all agree on the importance of mobile today but we also know to keep in mind that statistics can be misleading depending on who is using them and what they are trying to accomplish.
This article seeks to address all the talk recently on the popularity of mobile applications and put it in perspective and to address an apparent content deficiency on many mobile platforms which today is one of the most important media forms for driving customer engagement.
First, the fact is in a lot of cases having a mobile app for most businesses is not going to provide much if any marketing benefit in reaching consumers. So before you make an investment in building your own mobile app make sure you know what the statistics are really saying and if it is right for you to act on, and if building your own app is going to provide you with any real or long term benefit.
Is a mobile app a substitute for a mobile Website/mobile-optimized Website?
According to Canalys., the total number of apps through the Apple App Store and Google Play, just two of the largest, offer over 1.6 million mobile apps. So unless you build an app that is going to take the market by storm or is needed in order for your company to operate- what do you think the chances are that you app will even be found?
If you build a specialty app that is available to download from your site consumers first need to find your site to download it.
After you know and understand mobile apps and which ones that are dominating mobile and by first having in place the tools to provide good organic search rankings and social media initiatives you should conclude that by being involved through having a fully integrated mobile solution for your website is probably your best plan of attack and should be your first priority.
In this piece from Marketing Charts “More Data Shows That, In Mobile, Apps Rule the Webâ€, Pay particular attention to the chart highlighting the top 10 Smartphone applications and you realize that your money, in most cases, is better spent in utilizing the most popular existing mobile applications through your own mobile website instead of building your own mobile app. (mobi Thinking.com)
We can all agree on the importance of mobile today but we also know to keep in mind that statistics can be misleading depending on who is using them and what they are trying to accomplish.
This article seeks to address all the talk recently on the popularity of mobile applications and put it in perspective and to address an apparent content deficiency on many mobile platforms which today is one of the most important media forms for driving customer engagement.
First, the fact is in a lot of cases having a mobile app for most businesses is not going to provide much if any marketing benefit in reaching consumers. So before you make an investment in building your own mobile app make sure you know what the statistics are really saying and if it is right for you to act on, and if building your own app is going to provide you with any real or long term benefit.
Is a mobile app a substitute for a mobile Website/mobile-optimized Website?
According to Canalys., the total number of apps through the Apple App Store and Google Play, just two of the largest, offer over 1.6 million mobile apps. So unless you build an app that is going to take the market by storm or is needed in order for your company to operate- what do you think the chances are that you app will even be found?
If you build a specialty app that is available to download from your site consumers first need to find your site to download it.
After you know and understand mobile apps and which ones that are dominating mobile and by first having in place the tools to provide good organic search rankings and social media initiatives you should conclude that by being involved through having a fully integrated mobile solution for your website is probably your best plan of attack and should be your first priority.
In this piece from Marketing Charts “More Data Shows That, In Mobile, Apps Rule the Webâ€, Pay particular attention to the chart highlighting the top 10 Smartphone applications and you realize that your money, in most cases, is better spent in utilizing the most popular existing mobile applications through your own mobile website instead of building your own mobile app. (mobi Thinking.com)
Further justification comes from this statement from Marketing Charts that states -“There’s one important note: while apps are dominant in terms of overall consumption, there’s reason to believe that individual properties have greater reach among mobile owners through their mobile websites than via their apps.â€
“Through their mobile website†In my opinion is confusing and should read “Through their mobile  soloution.†Because today’s platform technology makes it possible to integrate mobile as an extension of a website platform negating the need for a separate website for mobile that enables any or all of the content on your website accessible from mobile.
A properly integrated mobile solution is a make-or-break opportunity for brands. An integrated mobile solution makes it easier for consumers to access content on smaller screen to find and tap relevant information. Â (Graph courtesy of Cars.com insights)
But as pointed out in this graph 67% of respondents surveyed stated that mobile-optimized websites are more user-friendly but are not meeting demands in terms of accessible content- a problem to which as I have stated above are viable solutions.
“Through their mobile website†In my opinion is confusing and should read “Through their mobile  soloution.†Because today’s platform technology makes it possible to integrate mobile as an extension of a website platform negating the need for a separate website for mobile that enables any or all of the content on your website accessible from mobile.
A properly integrated mobile solution is a make-or-break opportunity for brands. An integrated mobile solution makes it easier for consumers to access content on smaller screen to find and tap relevant information. Â (Graph courtesy of Cars.com insights)
But as pointed out in this graph 67% of respondents surveyed stated that mobile-optimized websites are more user-friendly but are not meeting demands in terms of accessible content- a problem to which as I have stated above are viable solutions.
It is very important that you get it right so look at mobile solutions that are part of a fully integrated marketing platform or can be fully integrated into your current website platform and are compatible with all IOS and Android devices. (Seamlessly Integrated Mobile)
By being properly informed the right decisions can be made that can avoid costly mistakes and provide the information on which to make sound investment decisions. And there are technological solutions to addressing the issues and concerns addressed here that will best serve your needs to provide the best ROI possible. So work with someone who is just not looking for a sale, will give you the broad picture and who will work with you to find the best overall solutions for you.Â
William Cosgrove
Bill Cosgrove Straight Talk
Technology has shaped the way we market as a whole and the rapid advancement of technology is providing us with increasingly newer ways of collecting information and getting your message out consistently and effectively.
Knowing what is best for you can often be a difficult decision to make. One clear low cost way is to utilize data that already exists in your company database and an onsite community where you can collect additional data to help you maintain a clearer picture of what your existing customers want and need as individuals and project a customer centric image to potential customers
.
An onsite community acts as a core social tool that can be combined and used to enhance all your marketing initiatives. Â Communities act as a stable platform on your site that you control on which you can build solid marketing initiatives regardless of what is trending on social channels and will act as a magnet for organic search to draw more people to your site.
From mobile marketing to social media to organic SEO your website should be ground zero from which all your marketing emanates.
This infographic created by the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Online Masters in Business Administration program shows you more about how technology is impacting how we market.
Click to enlarge
NJIT New Jersey Institute of Technology – Online MBA
Knowing what is best for you can often be a difficult decision to make. One clear low cost way is to utilize data that already exists in your company database and an onsite community where you can collect additional data to help you maintain a clearer picture of what your existing customers want and need as individuals and project a customer centric image to potential customers
.
An onsite community acts as a core social tool that can be combined and used to enhance all your marketing initiatives. Â Communities act as a stable platform on your site that you control on which you can build solid marketing initiatives regardless of what is trending on social channels and will act as a magnet for organic search to draw more people to your site.
From mobile marketing to social media to organic SEO your website should be ground zero from which all your marketing emanates.
This infographic created by the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Online Masters in Business Administration program shows you more about how technology is impacting how we market.
Click to enlarge
NJIT New Jersey Institute of Technology – Online MBA
Taking care of the people that take care of you can reap big rewards when showing your customers and employees that you care for and appreciate them. There is no better or more economical way to accomplish this than with an onsite social community that can be successfully accomplished in any organization.For example Lululemon produces sports apparel for women that is fashionable, environmentally friendly, and as technically advanced as sports apparel for men. The company spends virtually nothing on advertising. Instead, they build product awareness and forge ties with local communities through the community portal on their website.
They are encouraged to apply to become Lululemon ambassadors, “unique individuals … who embody the Lululemon lifestyle and live our culture.†The company now has over 200 stores, and sales soared from US $40 million to US $1.37 billion in eight years. In the US alone, sales grew 40 percent in 2012.
The following article by Michelle Killebrew, Are You Ignoring Your Best Brand Advocates?, Â tells us what empowering your employees can accomplish for your organization and the growing need to recognize all the things that they do and can do for your organization.
One reason this is such a powerful strategy is that it provides you with a way to leverage your entire customer and employee base. One of the most powerful ways to spread your message on social networks is to get customers to share news of their purchase from you. The message may be delivered on the social network, but it originates on your site. Community provides an effective mechanism on your site to encourage purchase-sharing and by showing your customer and employee centric culture.
If you limit your social strategy to the social networks, you are missing the chance to leverage Social when it will help you most. You know that many of your shoppers are also going to your competitors’ sites. Why wouldn’t you give yourself the advantage of showing those shoppers that their friends, friends of friends and neighbors shop with you?
An onsite community strategy is all about connecting you with the social networks to improve the shopping experience for your customers and the bottom line for you. To fully deliver on the value promise of social networks, the information needs to be able to flow in both directions.
William Cosgrove
Bill Cosgrove Straight Talk