Picking up on my original post last week, here are a few more slides (from Lee) and observations (from me) on Lee Odden’s SES NY presentation.

[SLIDE 5: SOCIAL SEO KPIs & BUSINESS OUTCOMES]

Odden poses an important question to digital marketers and online-focused companies – “What if Google disappeared tomorrow?” followed by a recommendation “Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket!  Optimize for consumers, experiences and outcomes.”  The Social SEO KPIs slide brings to light the Business Outcomes in order to take some of the focus off obsession with KPIs, which in and of themselves, fluctuate in importance.  Insightful comment of the day from Odden, in my view was “KPIs are just a stepping stone to get what we really want, which are tangible business outcomes.”

[SLIDE 6: TOP 6 CONTENT MARKETING TACTICS: AND HOW TO OPTIMIZE THEM]

The 2011 Content Marketing Playbook, put out by the Content Marketing Institute, identifies these six tactics [1) Blog, 2) Digital Newsletter, 3) White Paper, 4) Article, 5) eBook and 6) Video] amongst the top ten CM tactics for 2011.  Odden takes us through them, giving some tips on best practices in each area.  There was no one strategy trumps all or correct strategy mix for companies to follow.  eBooks might work well for a particular company or industry, while Videos work better for a different industry.

[SLIDE 7: 30 CONTENT MARKETING TACTICS]

Odden outlines a larger list of 30 Content Marketing Tactics, which are further expanded upon in his blog.  As a marketer who has run campaigns across all of these 30 channels, my personal favorites from this list are – 1) Webinars, 2) Crowdsourcing, 3) Mobile Apps, 4) Videos and 5) Infographics.  We are reminded that regardless of the strategies utilized, keyword strategies and trending social media topics should be at the heart of them.  For example, if you want to get attention for “red widgets”, then interview a bunch of people who are “red widget” experts, and make sure to ask them a lot of questions with the wording “red widgets” as well as related phrases.  Transcribing the interview Q&A will yield a healthy amount of mentions for “red widgets” and related keywords in the text, which provides a major SEO benefit.

[SLIDE 8: CONTENT IDEAS]

Some of the memorable tips in this part of the presentation include:

• Interview Other Bloggers: Ask one question to many bloggers (so you get a high percentage of responses) or many (10 or so questions) to fewer bloggers.
• Aggregate Comments: Pull together the best comments from other blogs, and your own blogs; and put them into a fresh post or widget.
• Use of Hash Tags & Twitter Handles: Put hash tags and twitter @ handles in title tags of blog posts, and watch some cool things happen.

I like #7 as well, and have used that quite successfully for a Blueliner client (Completely Bare, a leading Laser Hair Removal and Spray Tan Spa) who gets a ton of customer inquiries to their blog.  We setup each question to come in as a new blog post, with the question as the title, and answer (from the company) as the body content.  Huge SEO benefits accumulated from this tactic.

CONCLUSION

I like Lee Odden’s presentation style.  He doesn’t mince words or talk a lot of fluff.  It’s straight advice given by a marketing professional who does “walk the talk”.  His own company, like Blueliner, does not spend a penny on advertising – because their inbound marketing strategy is so strong.  I have learned a few things from him over the years, most important of which is the consistency of his efforts in quality, multi-form content creation.  That is a lesson that everyone should take home and meditate deeply on.  Whether it’s Google, Facebook, Pinterest or the next big thing, it will be some type of content aggregator and database, that seeks out high quality content providers.  Will you be one of them?

Here is a quick summary of my notes from today’s one-hour session in a kind of slide show (Odden’s slides, not all of them or in the order they were presented) + commentary (my observations) format:

[SLIDE 1: KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE]

Odden reminds us that Content Marketing is not just about adding more content and pages to your website; but rather about strategically devising content for specific audiences.  It’s common sense, but surprisingly, a lot of businesses don’t spend enough time doing their research and segmentation on the types of customers they have.  Odden instructs that this process should be part of the initial discovery stage of a content marketing strategy.

[SLIDE 2: CREATING CUSTOMER PERSONAS]

Once a basic level of research is done on existing CRM and Analytics data, creating Personas – which are essentially profiles of what your target customers look like demographically and behaviorally – is the next step.  These Personas then guide the content, Social and SEO strategies.  Odden got into a lot more detail about this, which I would refer to you to his new Content Marketing book website to learn more about.

[SLIDE 3: HUB & SPOKE MODEL]

Odden utilizes this Hub & Spoke Publishing model to demonstrate all of the various channels through which we can distribute and repurpose our content, as well as that of others.  Some useful tips are recommended, like “Oreo cookie commentary”, where you curate other people’s content with your own twist (kind of like what I’m doing with this blog entry, leveraging Odden’s content – the Oreo filling, but adding my own introduction and perspective around it).  Ultimately, depending on the size of your content team, a realistic checklist and process has to be agreed on, then activated via a manageable Editorial Calendar.

[SLIDE 4: SEO FITS IN EVERYWHERE!]

Odden advises us to “think more holistically about where (and what) you can optimize.”  Most companies have more digital assets (such as PowerPoint presentations, videos, white papers, and images) than they realize.  Identifying those, and building a Digital Assets Management system, so that these nuggets are accessible for various Content Marketing initiatives, is a good step.  This slide also illustrates how pervasive SEO is to the entire life cycle of a customer’s experience with any product or service category.

CONCLUSION

I have a bit more to say on this topic, and more slides from Odden’s workshop to share in Part 2 (published on March 26, 2012).  For now, I just wanted to get something out while still at the conference, while it’s fresh.

Access to deep analytics makes several marketers ‘numbers happy’.  The more numbers they see, the more they circulate amongst themselves and clients. These numbers work both for and against implementing or maintaining different marketing strategies – whether this decision is misguided or even pre-determined. At the end of the day, analytics can be spun several ways, thus basing your marketing ROI off these numbers alone, only presents a partial picture. If pictures are worth a thousand words, then a snapshot of your analytics profile can tell you 2,000 different stories depending on what you’re looking at. Many times, showing portions of an analysis causes businesses and agencies to do things they don’t fully understand.

The concept of ‘stupid reporting’ came up on a number of occasions. Reporting is always a hot topic, as many agencies feel they spend entirely too much contracted time reporting the work and not enough time getting to do it. Stupid reporting in general deals with metrics that really don’t matter. While something can be said for the brand power many feel they get when they have 500,000 likes – it’s an empty measure. Marketers have become all too comfortable with reporting on things such as Facebook likes, tweet frequency, and other quantitative measures that are really only a corner-piece to the puzzle. This data ranges from somewhat impactful to not at all.

Much of this can be traced back to client interaction and marketers giving into client demands for more Facebook likes, more post impressions than their competitors, etc. It’s giving into this desire that has been the problem for many. Instead of taking the request in context and for what it’s worth – somewhere along the way, digital marketers have become comfortable with considering these worthy metrics.

So what does matter? Many ROI focused direct response agencies will swear that the conversions and where they come from are the only things that do. Budgets for many, stop and start on the conversion data that analytics software gives us. The problem with this sort of tracking is that it’s very one sided. Keynote speaker Avinash Kaushik compared this to picking up someone in a bar. ‘Not everyone will go home with you the first night. I mean, maybe they will, then lucky you. Sometimes you have to take them on 3 or even 4 dates before they go home with you’.  The reality is that most people will not convert on the first visit. They also will not reach your site by the same means at all times.

Take a billboard for instance – You construct a billboard in a busy part of the city and allocate a landing page just for that – a sure fire way to measure its effectiveness, right? Many will look at the numbers at the end of the service period, maybe see a lackluster amount of conversions from that particular landing page, determine that it brought no real worth, and decide to pull it. But what happens to all the people that saw the billboard and then searched for you online? That clicked a branded ad, or a branded organic search term? What if they found you on social media afterwards before finally converting? How many steps existed between the user and the conversion, and what were they?

The issue at hand is not giving credit where credit is due. Instead of asking if that billboard converted, we have to ask ourselves if the signage can properly be identified as a vital step in the conversion process. Simply chalking it up to an organic or social lead is easy to do, but often misguided. Identifying the full user experience is the priority of a marketing agency. Digital marketing boats the ability to easily pull anwers to who, why, when, what, and where, but as we all know – partial answers often lead to full mistakes.

With a heavy reliance on analytics and the acceptance of the data at face value, the disconnect with these basic advertising principles can be a shortfall of digital marketing if allowed to become so – As an industry that so perfectly blends digital innovation and marketing, at times, the technical aspects of the tasks become more important than the primary objective – marketing. For instance, a search engine optimization campaign cannot stop at someone that simply knows how to get you to the first page of Google. They’re a part of a team, and should be under the umbrella of a person or agency that understands how to build and maintain brands. SEO is a form of lead generation. Lead generation in of itself is not your marketing strategy. In the same vain, its important to properly identify conversion paths and not to make analytics more than what it is.

So where does this leave us? It asks us to really understand user experience. Instead of measuring Facebook likes and post impressions, let’s measure the interactions instead. How many were likes? How many were comments and how do we value this differently? How many different people interacted with the brand and how did this affect their future interaction and willingness to convert? These are not easy measurements to display which may be part of the apprehension to move towards this model. These figures don’t easily present themselves in a number format at the end of the month in an excel file, but are important to display as they are significant to the brand and the overall value that’s been added to it.

At the end of the day, let’s not just focus on the amount of conversions you have from a particular source, but let’s look at the value that you’ve added to your business because of a specific marketing tactic. Being analytical doesn’t mean looking at summary data and making judgment calls on what’s working and what’s not, but it means statistically analyzing your data to determine where real value lies.

As Google states on the project’s website, internet advertising turns 18 years-old this year, but even after two decades of existence and constant innovation, digital ads are used simply to inform more than they’re being used to connect, engage and entertain.

Taking Coca Cola’s “Hilltop“, Volvo’s “Drive it like you hate it“, Alka-Seltzer’s “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing” and Avis’ “We try harder” campaigns, Google’s team of experts will try to re-imagine these iconic campaigns for the digital age.

The infographic shares insights from 5 million analyzed e-mails and explains that the average e-mail user received 147 messages every day, and spends around 2 hours on e-mail daily. Which is a lot of time!

Many other interesting details worth reading are included in this graphic:

Couple months ago I’ve read an interesting and controversial article in the news about a former French finance minister, now CEO of Atos Origin, one of the largest IT companies in France, who gave it’s employees 18 months to adapt a practice of not communicating via e-mail.

After the deadline, the company will only communicate via phone, IM chat and in person communication.

The decision by the executive Tiery Breton was made after analyzing over 200 company e-mails and concluding that only 10% of the e-mails are valid and useful, while the rest are distraction. They also concluded that employees are spending from 5-20 hrs a week only on e-mails,

What’s your opinion on this topic? It’s certainly an interesting discussion. How do you handle e-mail?

TV Specials, movies, and even celebrities have jumped on the ‘attack fast food’ bandwagon. This eventually branched out to a ‘promote healthy eating’ campaign – friendlier, more marketable, and nowhere near as negative; this campaign has traveled from Europe to North America with measurable success. Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and First Lady Michelle Obama are among the leading voices on this front.

McDonalds PR and Marketing teams combated the attacks in a number of ways. From menu changes and preaching of personal responsibility, to reminding everyone of how much they enjoy the food and the family-time they can enjoy at their locations. McDonalds took to Twitter for a strategy to address the negative attention, but saw very different results than they were expecting.

Phase 1 of their new Twitter strategy sought to respond to those that criticized the quality of their food by highlighting the quality of their ingredients. By using #MeetTheFarmers, McDonalds put the focus on its use of fresh products, grown in the United States (different execution, but similar to what we saw Dominos do with television commercials in 2011). In the beginning, everything seemed to go smoothly, with a positive reaction from Twitter users.

When McDonalds broke into Phase 2 of the campaign, they sought to remind those of positive experiences at McDonalds. Instead, as the internet often does, users had fun at McDonald’s expense and used the opportunity to mock them and remind everyone of what McDonalds was trying to suppress with positivity. #McDStories initially seems like a statistical success, but over-run with negative commentary – drawing the attention of jokesters and unimpressed customers.

In retrospect, their mistake was changing the hashtag from #MeetTheFarmers to #McDStories. Meet-The-Farmers is generic, implies nothing, and can only promote a certain amount of activity and limits the tweets that can come in, both in quantity and quality. With little to no chance of a blow-back from this hash-tag, results were positive but quickly stale. For this reason, Social Media Manager Rick Wion determined that it did not have the impact they were looking for and ‘set about a change of course’.

News spread quickly of McDonald’s ill-fated hash-tag and drove visitors to Twitter to get involved. It only took a few hours for McDonald’s to realize that the negativity was the thing gaining traction, and quickly switched back to the old #MeetTheFarmers. Confused users looking to get involved in the #McDStories campaign shunned their return to #MeetTheFarmers and interest dwindled until the campaign was no longer successful.

A brief Twitter disaster for McDonalds is a clear reminder of carefully thinking out a strategy, its interpretations and properly plan for how people will embrace it. Surely the fast-food giant’s recovery time for a gaff as this is minimal if at all – certainly a moment of embarrassment. A smaller company or start-up may not have been nearly as lucky.

Creative collateral serves two purposes. First and foremost, it has to be able to garner the attention of the consumer. A logo for instance, has to rely on its basic shape and color to be noticeable from a distance and at a quick glance. Then it has appeal to the consumer for a long enough time to effectively guide their eyes through its message. In digital marketing, these messages often act as an instantaneous call to action – a precursor to a successful conversion.

The importance of solid creative cannot be underestimated. Color contrasts are chosen at times for particular reasons. There’s an old rumor of a fast food giant that uses alternating colors to promote desired consumer action. Red and yellow were rumored to have been chosen for their abilities to quickly grab the attention of a potential consumer.

The colors were also said to have tested positively for hungry customers (red) and to then successfully turn them off to the point of leaving their facilities upon finishing their meal. This was based on the time spent looking at the unfavorable tint of yellow in contrast to red. While the colors used to pull them in were bright and vibrant, and same colors used indoors carried a slightly duller tint. As the consumer leaves the facilities, they have freed up space for a new customer, improving the restaurant’s turnaround time, allowing them to seat more, serve more, and thus earn more.

Weather this was an implied strategy or not, it’s no secret that something as simple as two colors together can influence the way in which a person views, reads, and interacts with a website, a banner, and more. Colors that promote various actions and deliver conversions require various degrees of market testing. Having a wide range of variations to choose from is where any designer wants to start. For those that have a limited imagination outside their current train of thought, the Color Scheme Designer can help you mix things up.

Here is a quick tutorial to guide you through the website that may be very useful:

You can choose the background color with your mouse (step 1) and then compare the different combinations given when you pick 1, 2, 3 or 4 colors (step 2). As you choose the first color, you will be able to see immediately the complementary colors given by the website (step 3).

When you like a color combination, you can click “Light page preview” or “Dark page preview” (step 4) to see how those colors would look like on a web page, as it will display a fake web page using the colors you have picked.

If you like those colors, put your mouse over them (step 5) to get the color code and start using them!

Finally, the top menu allows you to choose from various options (such as RGB or Web colors), to randomize a palette to get a complete random range of colors. It also even allows you to export your palette in order to use later (you can export it as a HTML+CSS file, an XML file or even a Photoshop or GIMP palette)

Remember to use these popular color variations to perform AB and multivariate testing on your website. This can be done simply with Google Website Optimizer. While you can test for several things on any page you want, the webpage color scheme that allows for the lowest bounce rate, the highest conversions, and most time spent on your site is probably the winner!

Google’s 2011 revenues were a total of 37.9 billion dollars… yes, 37.9 billion, with a B. The most interesting fact is that 96% of the revenue came from advertising.

Thanks to companies like StateFarm, Progressive, Amazon, Macy’s, Sears, Quicken Loans, Lowe’s, Booking.com and many others like them that spend millions of dollars per year bidding for keywords like “new york hotels” with average CPC of $7.68 (used by Booking.com), “zumba dance dvd” with average CPC $5.18 (amazon), “self employed health insurance” with a extremely high CPC of $43.39 (eHealthInsurance), “cheap hybrid cars” bidding for average CPC of $15.57 (Cars.com) Google made its billions.

Below you can find the infographic with all the breakdowns and stats…

Source: http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2012/01/23/google-revenues

Do you remember these retro video games that many of you used to play as a child? Few of the readers will not recall these games, but many will remember the endless hours they’ve spent trying to get to the next level on Final Fight or to act like the best team on Earth while playing  Cadillacs & Dinosaurs or Metal Slug.

Below are some of the top 8 retro arcade games that I could remember… let me know in the comments if you can think of any other awesome arcade game that I’m missing…

FYI: If you would like to go back in time and play these games, there’s an app for that! ) j/k, visit rom-world.com and download the MAME emulator. Then download a .zip file of the game you want to play and add it to the Roms directory in Mame32 folder and enjoy. Do not forget to configure your buttons and use 1 to insert coins.
Final Fight

Super Pang

Tumblepop

Snow Bros

Bubble Bobble

Cadillacs & Dinosaurs

Metal Slug

Street Fighter II

A great reminder of why social media was a success to begin with, is AnnMarie Walsh, a homeless woman from Chicago. She recently used Twitter to tweet to over 4,800 followers about her experiences in being homeless. Her insights allowed her to offer pieces of advice for others that may be suffering as well.

AnnMarie currently has over 5,800 followers.

How did a homeless woman manage to tweet? She used her cell phone and computers from a local library. She was intrigued by Twitter as it enabled her to interact with people that would not normally listen to her. People were moved by her situation and even offered her as much as two laptops, to pay her cell phone bill, and bus passes.

As this was taking place, a filmmaker reached out to her via Twitter and asked her to be part of his documentary about the homeless. This was just the beginning of her positive experiences, as AnnMarie was invited to some of Twitter’s, 140 Characters Conferences as a guest speaker regarding her homelessness experiences. During one of these sessions, she encountered a case worker who was able to help her find temporary residence.

This is just one recent example. Many will remember the story of Ted Williams, the homeless man whose unique voice went viral on YouTube. He was soon able to find a job and residence after his story made headlines.

The trend seems to just be catching on. A charity in New York aims to give the homeless another chance at life, by giving them pre-paid cell phones and setting them up with Twitter accounts. This organization helps the homeless stay in touch with a world that sometimes forgets them, through Social Media.

These are just some examples of Social Media reinforcing the position that its level of interaction can be used to solve real life problems and effectively communicates the needs to one to another, enabling an action. Within the 7 Pillars, social media is integrated with other forms of communication to replicate this pattern, and enable conversions, whatever that may mean for each business or individual.

In this case, social media allowed individuals were overlooked or looked down upon on the streets, passed by thousands each day, and gave them a voice on a level playing field, where her residential status didn’t matter; where her class or appearance didn’t matter. Social media allows the world to take in a message and to grab onto it – to spread the word for the benefit for the source, in a world where we sometimes forget that the message may be all that matters.