The 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing Blog

Lee Odden’s “Optimizes” SES NY 2012: Part 2 March 26, 2012 – 11:29 pm				Arman Rousta

[This is Part 2 of 2 in a review of Lee Odden's Search Engine Strategies NY 2012 Session. Part 1 is available here.]

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?

Posted by Arman Rousta
Posted in 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing, Blog Marketing, Content Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing | 2 Comments »
Tags: #sesny, @arousta, @leeodden, Content Marketing, Inbound Marketing, odden, Social KPIs

Lee Odden “Optimizes” SES NY March 22, 2012 – 8:01 pm				Arman Rousta

I have always been a fan of Lee Odden – one of the digital marketing industry’s thought leaders – and got the chance to finally meet him today after watching his talk at SES NY.  Odden strength is in his effective communication and knack for weaving that skill into great content strategy, production and distribution.  He recently authored Optimize, which I hope to win a free copy of by live blogging from the conference (I have been taking notes and pictures throughout the session, which have been going up on Twitter – @blueliner while citing @leeodden with the #sesny hashtag throughout).  Win or not, I plan to read the book because I value what Odden has to offer, and encourage other marketers to do the same.  His message is simple, but the work required behind it is not as easy as it looks.  It requires real dedication, of time and resources, to follow through on an effective Content Marketing strategy.  Luckily, Odden gives us some good tools and a framework to approach Content Marketing, while weaving in SEO and Social Media (notice that 3 of our 7 Pillars are covered).

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.

Posted by Arman Rousta
Posted in 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing, Blog Marketing, Content Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing | 4 Comments »
Tags: #sesny, hub & spoke, Lee Odden, personas

Project Re:Brief – Redefining online marketing March 19, 2012 – 11:21 am				Damjan Arsovski

Project Re:Brief is Google’s latest initiative to expand the reach and awareness of digital marketing through re-adapting couple of the most epic marketing campaigns in the history of advertising for the new, modern audience that spends enormous amounts of time online and is constantly connected thanks to the latest gadgets and technology.

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.

Posted by Damjan Arsovski
Posted in Business News, Interactive Marketing, Public Relations, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »
Tags: Advertising, brief, digital ads, digital advertising, digital marketing, digital media, google, Internet Marketing, Marketing, online ads, re:brief

#McDStories February 9, 2012 – 1:33 pm				Cristiana

McDonalds, for better or worse is known for their iconic sandwiches that propelled fast food into the homes of millions of Americans. Their quick meals accessible to many on the go are also well known for their poor nutritional value. The global recognition of the McDonalds brand has created a singling-out of the fast food giant (even among its direct fast food competitors) for the nutritional content of their food.

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.

Posted by Cristiana
Posted in blog, Marketing, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »
Tags: digital agency nyc, social media strategy, twitter marketing

Brooklyn Museum: A New Path for Art November 9, 2011 – 12:33 pm				Cristiana

Social Media is a great tool for companies to keep a base of fans and followers active in the triumphs of their business. Companies create a buzz to garner some attention in hopes of stimulating sales, influencing visitors, etc. This technique has spread across several industries. Museums have embraced the digital age of advertising with open arms and use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more to promote their newest features and attract visitors.

The Brooklyn Museum in particular embraces these platforms and integrates them into their website. These interactive features compliment their rather ‘typical’ website, which is used to provide basic information on exhibitions, operating hours, etc. for a cost effective interactive experience.

A prime example of their willingness to interact with a younger, social media savvy audience is none more evident
than on Twitter. With over 320,000 followers, the Brooklyn Museum updates their account on an almost daily basis, using it to interact with potential visitors, as well as promote their new exhibitions. Unlike some companies, interaction is not only based on their ability of the business to directly relate to the tweet by nature of organization, but on a personal level. The Brooklyn Museum takes on the role of a friend as much as it takes on the job of promoting their institution.

The Museum’s Facebook Page takes a similar approach, and effort that has gained them over 45,800 ‘Likes’. The account is primarily used to inform the public of their featured events and to answer questions. There is less direct interaction than on Twitter, but they manage to still interact with their base. The comments and answers received on both ends create a nurtured community of museum fans.

The Brooklyn Museum treats their YouTube account like educational television. It provides a look behind the scenes for those that want more information on the features they’ve seen or were thinking of seeing.

This behind the scenes access is reinforced in the Brooklyn Museum blog updated once to twice per week. With several contributing authors, the museum’s employees share their intimate relationship with their work with the public.

The blog allows readers to access animated podcasts, stories, and pictures of how employees set up their public art experiences. It also shows their dedication to the museum and their efforts to constantly improve and bring life-long memories to its visitors; inspiring readers to visit.

The museum has used social media to reach out to potential and repeat visitors by making it an operational tool in its business. By more than just having a presence, they have been able to attract thousands of new visitors. Art will always be art, but the museum as a corporation with employees, expenses, assets, and liabilities have used social media to sustain and improve its business model. They are a prime example of a business that has been willing to change as people and the way they interact with brands/activities has changed.

Posted by Cristiana
Posted in blog, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »
Tags: 7 pillars of digital marketing, art, brooklyn museum, digital marketing agency, facebook, flickr, interactive content, nyc, Social Media Marketing, twitter, videos, viral, YouTube

Tips on New Facebook Friends List Feature and Redefining Friend or Fan Types October 13, 2011 – 10:24 am				Asif Anwar

Just before the F8 Conference on 9/22/11, Facebook rolled out some great new features on defining your relationship with your friends. Previously, the relationship you had with your Facebook friends were flat. Your boss, colleagues, buddies, hangout pals, industry acquaintances, and often fans were all your friends, even though there were some privacy definitions. However, with a recent Facebook update, you can now have different types of friend lists that you can interact with accordingly.

New Facebook Friends List

The Custom Friends List Feature was already available. I am sure that many of you have custom listed many friends in categories like: Schoolmates/Classmates, Colleagues, Best Friends, Just Friends, Extended Friends, Family/Parents, Relatives/Extended Relatives, “Not so Close Friends”, “Have to Keep them as Friends”, etc. Facebook rolled out a new set of friends list standardizing and defining them into specific categories:

• Close Friends
• Acquaintances
• Smart Lists (Work, School, Family, City)
• Subscription (Following/People You Follow) and  Subscribers (Followers or Fans)
• Restricted Friends

Close Friends or Featured Friends

Close Friends are those, whose updates come to you as notification when you add them. However, you can turn off the notification from the Close Friends List Page. The updates from the people tagged as Close Friends, will also have higher priority in your homepage news feed, than others.

Who are the best candidates for Close Friends?

• Buddies that you want more updates from
• Updates from family members you don’t want to miss
• Someone you have crush on
• Who’s updates are more important than normal friends
• Friends you share common interests with, etc.

Acquaintances

Updates from your Acquaintances will be rarely shown in Facebook homepage news feed. But, you will not miss their most important updates, like: Relationship status changes or migration to a new city. Rather than un-friending, this list can be a good choice to keep your friends with the mute button pressed.

People with probable candidacy for Acquaintances:

• Your close friend who updates noting but Gaming Resource sharing (assuming, you don’t like them)
• Link spammers or self promoting friends that you have to keep
• Your high school bullies,
• Annoying family members or relatives,
• Someone you don’t want to interact with much, but want them to get your updates to them, etc.

Smart Lists

Facebook introduced many smart lists (friend lists with a lightning icon) in the friend list feature. e.g. colleagues, family members, classmates, and local friends within same city. When you mention your work place (company), education institution, and cities; you will find them as separate friend list in smart lists, like:

• Family members and relatives
• Colleagues, boss, and friends within same company you mention on your profile
• Classmates from school, college, university or other institutions
• Friends and buddies in the same locality/city that you currently live in.

When you mention multiple companies and education institution, you also get smart lists for each company and institution. Family members are filled by the various relationships defined on your profile. But, you also have the freedom to go to the Family Smart List Page and add new family members without defining any relationship. In Facebook, you can not mention more than one city. So, the list for local friends can have just one listing.

Optimizing Custom Friend List

Custom Friend Lists is an old feature. But, since you now have smart lists, it is better to merge some lists and remove the unnecessary custom friend list from Facebook. However, for getting better updates, you can still have some custom friend list to serve your purposes. With the new changes, you can optimize them to serve your needs. Some Custom Friend List optimization techniques are:

Merge Friend List

If you have already defined a list before, you can go to the close friend, acquaintances, smart list pages and merge the existing list to make a separate channel for various types of Facebook friends you have.  This will help you to utilize the predefined friend list by Facebook better.

Delete Some Custom Friend List

Since you already have some predefined friend list, it is wise to delete some of the custom friend list. This will help you to avoid duplication. But, make sure you merge the lists before you delete them.

Create Some New Custom List

For various purposes, you have the freedom to create more custom friend lists. One of the problems with the new friend list feature is that, you cannot see all colleagues and classmates together. But, you always have the freedom to create new custom friend list for them and merge them together from the previous lists.

Restricted Friends

The friends that you keep in Restricted Friend list will not see all your updates on their homepage, but they will get to see all your public contents that you tag them in. Otherwise, you are mostly mute to them. Unless, they define you as restricted friends, they are not mute to you. Facebook friends that you can put in this list are:

• Your boss
• Your competitors
• Friends from other companies, always trying to spy on you
• Your opponent or political contender
• Someone you don’t want to get any idea about what you are doing, etc.

Subscribers and Subscriptions

Facebook also rolled out the Subscribers and Subscription feature in the new update. This makes Facebook more like Twitter and Google Plus, where you can have followers and follow people without adding them as friends. Subscribers and Subscriptions are not actually friend lists as they are not ‘friends’.  In another word, you can define them as your personal celebrity and followers.

Subscribers: When someone subscribes on your profile, s/he becomes your fans and follower of you public posts only. In analogy with Twitter, this is the list of “Followers” you have.

Subscription: When you subscribe someone on their profile, the Subscription tab in your Timeline shows the people you are subscribed to. In analogy with Twitter, this is the list of “Following”. You will get updates on only their public feeds on your homepage.

You can activate subscription from the Subscribe Button Page. Celebrities who have large fan-base, they can use this feature to make their Facebook profile as the major media of communication or public updates. The public updates, however remains within the walled garden of Facebook. And to see them, you need to be logged into your Facebook Account. So, this is a bit different than Facebook Fan Pages for celebrities.

There can be 4 types of Subscribers:

Regular Subscribers

These are the people that hit only the “Subscribe” button on your profile. They are your followers that have interest in your public feeds. I am quite optimistic that, many marketers will come up with tips and tricks to increase your subscribers in near future.

Friend Subscribers

When you add a friend now, through friend request, you automatically subscribe to his/her public updates. But, when they add you as friend, they also subscribes to your feeds. This type of mutual subscription is called Friend Subscribers.

Unfriended Subscribers

Your friend is also subscribing to your updates. When you remove or unfriend a friend, you automatically unsubscribe from his/her updates. But, the subscription to your public feed is not changed at your unfriended friend’s end. So, s/he still remains subscribed to your feeds. So, these types of subscribers are called Unfriended Subscribers. When you plan to remove unwanted friends, you will eventually increase the number of Subscribers.

Pending Friend Subscribers

When you hit the “Add as friend” button on your new friend’s profile or somewhere else, you automatically get subscribed to his/her public updates, even if s/he  does not add you back as friend. However, you will not see his/her updates, unless you add him/her or subscribe to his/her feeds. And once s/he adds you, you don’t remain a “Pending Friend Subscriber”, you become a “Friend Subscriber” or just friends.

Other Types of Friends You Can Have on Facebook

Mute Friends

What happens when you hit the unsubscribe button on a friend’s profile? The result is a mute friend. This is will turn off all the updates from a friend. This is why it is a bit different than Acquaintances. Acquaintances are semi-mute friends whose important updates are shown to you. But, without un-friending a friend, you have the freedom to mute a friend by unsubscribing from their friend as well as public updates. However, as a friend you will have the freedom to visit their profile or timeline to see their updates.

Deaf Friends

This is the just the opposite affected party who mutes friends. These types of friends totally unsubscribe from your updates and do not respond to any. But, just like mute friends, your updates can be seen by your unsubscribed friend on your profile.

Subscription in Friend List

In case of pending friend subscribers, you have public updates of a person that is not yet your friend in Facebook. But, Can you add a subscription in Friend List so that the updates come to a specific friend list? The answer is no. I guess Facebook needs to open up this feature.

Posted by Asif Anwar
Posted in blog, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »
Tags: facebook, facebook fans, facebook friend lists, facebook friends

Welcome back Delicious! September 27, 2011 – 4:53 pm				Damjan Arsovski

The two YouTube co-founders, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen through their mutual company Avos, are now restarting the famous Delicious, web service for bookmarking and sharing that they recently bought from Yahoo.

The refreshed version of this service keeps a lot of the same characteristics that in the past attracted millions of users, but it also features a lot of new additional settings and options, making this good-old website even more attractive to active web users.

The YouTube co-founders consider this website a new one, completely redesigned with new homepage and interface. They add that the idea behind Delicious is to keep it’s original purpose, but they seriously plan to fix the way users find out new links and web destinations.

Through settings and features such as “Stack”, users will be able to group their favorite links, which later they can share with other friends and Delicious users. The collection can be public and other users can subscribe to it and get notifications every time new website is added to the stack. Each of the stacks can feature their own profile images and description.

The new Delicious also introduced improved tags and keeps all the past API calls the same.

As an active Delicious user, I’m very happy to see this refreshed version and even happier to know that this website is no longer in the hands of Yahoo, which is really surviving some tough times… but that’s really a discussion for some other times.

Check out this video with on the new Delicious.com:

Posted by Damjan Arsovski
Posted in Business News, Interactive Marketing, Social Media Marketing, web 2.0, Website Design | No Comments »
Tags: avos, bookmarking, chad hurley, delicious, delicious welcome back, delicious.com, new design, web, web 2.0, web designw, web service, YouTube, youtube co-founders, youtube cofounders

Social Media Analysis: ‘Beliebers’ September 21, 2011 – 4:17 pm				Cristiana

The entertainment industry is often perceived as just glitz, glamour, and stars. At its core, it is comprised of thousands of business entities, effectively running cohesively to generate a significant stream of revenue. The gradual rise of the internet and the lack of preparation for the coming changes within the entertainment industry have brought significant troubles for them in the past decade. However, it has also created several new opportunities for the industry. If used effectively, it allows for a more personal experience, and has the ability to tap into the voyeuristic qualities that many are drawn to.

Social media as a marketing tool has allowed the average person to get a first hand glimpse of their favorite celebrity’s lives. The advent of smart phones has integrated pictures and movies into this experience, broadening interest and allowing for a more personal experience. The direct influence and manipulation of knowledge via a VIP’s social stream has also allowed these savvy business-men and women to market themselves and their brands in a whole new way. Entertainers participate in social media to promote and market themselves, by using their lives for content development. They keep their base engaged and responsive to push their product; be it music, movies, books, etc.

An illustrative example of this is Justin Bieber. The teen pop icon recently hit 12 million followers on his Twitter account. These ‘Beliebers’ as he calls them are so engaged in his daily activity, it is said that his account alone requires 3% of Twitter’s server.

The success of his account is largely due to his already popular music fame. How he uses this is what makes the account a great example of Social Media use. The account fundamentally enables conversation and sharing. This is the basis of social interaction. It is also what businesses strive to achieve by partaking in social media marketing.

Bieber shares his preferences, encouraging users to follow suit. The realm of influence he holds in the minds of consumers is where his real marketability and ability to generate revenue comes in. He recently did so by promoting his adoration for Sean Kingston’s album. By doing so, he opens up the conversation by stating his personal preference, and persuades others that the album will also be to their liking based on his ‘stamp of approval’ of the work. He further allows conversations by asking his followers to let him know about THEIR daily activities and preferences.

The result is an attentive and engaged audience, increasing the likelihood that they will become conversions to a desired action (sales, attendance). Building an engaged community is essential is any social media marketing strategy.

In the case of his personal account, promotion doesn’t come from Bieber as much as it comes from his fans; a welcomed return for his interactions. Followers will generally tag him in their post of unrelated activities throughout their day. Bieber is alerted to the post and responds to his follower, as they were personal friends. His comments on their daily activity spark excitement amongst those following him, and tend to follow up their new message with tweets of praise and /or excitement. On many occasions, this feeling of inclusiveness in his life and his ability to reach out to them and make them feel special and has strengthened his core fan-base, making it easier for them to inadvertently promote on his behalf by tapping into their own realm of influence. This is often done through either social means, or word of mouth marketing.

Bieber’s Twitter account makes people talk. Companies thrive for the level of personality and influence that he has. Bieber has followed the first rule of social media. Listening. He makes people talk, and in turn, they spread the word about the Justin Bieber brand world-wide; an integral part of his own marketing and source of revenue.

Communication and content development are not only two vital aspects to the 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing, they hold true consistently throughout several alternative marketing means. This is the manner in which Social Media was meant to used. It’s most likely how we use it as individuals. It’s when a corporate approach overwhelms your instinct, reaching people on a personal level becomes difficult. Bieber’s account is what many businesses intend on accomplishing, and illuminates the ideals of a ‘community’. Your sales, branding, and reputation management can all begin with listening. Try it.

Posted by Cristiana
Posted in blog, Social Media Marketing | 1 Comment »
Tags: 7 pillars of digital marketing, beliebers, Branding, community, Justin Bieber, reputation management, Social Media Marketing, twitter, word of mouth marketing

Facebook continues to copy Twitter with “Subscribe” September 15, 2011 – 3:11 pm				Damjan Arsovski

Facebook introduced a new feature that will enable users to follow public content from other profiles, even if they are not friends with them. The new service is called “Subscribe”, and is almost an exact replica of Twitter’s “Follow” function.

You will be able to find the “Subscribe” button right on user’s profiles, on the right side next to the profile name.

When you press the button Subscribe, you can choose which updates you want to receive, and Facebook gives you 1) All Updates, 2) Most Updates, 3) Only Important as main options, with filters available per update category (life events, status updates, photos, videos, games…).

And of course the subscription option doesn’t work for every status update you publish, but only for the updates that you make public.

To active this new feature, head out here.

Posted by Damjan Arsovski
Posted in Interactive Marketing, Social Media Marketing, web 2.0 | No Comments »
Tags: facebook, facebook profile, facebook users, follow, Interactive Marketing, new features, smm, social media, Social Media Marketing, subscribe, twitter, twitter users

Is Twitter Faster than an Earthquake? September 9, 2011 – 11:30 am				Cristiana

Social media’s impact on marketing is ever changing. The reach of its development is only limited by the manner is which people currently, or are willing to use it. What makes Twitter so exciting is the real time interaction and responses of its users. With over 100 million active users, Twitter sees numerous weekly trends develop. Within these weekly trends are sudden bursts of activity surrounding hot topics at the moment. One of the topics that continuously gain rushes of activity are natural disasters. They are covered for a relatively short period of time, especially within the few seconds and minutes surrounding the event, until they dissipate with interest. In the case of natural disasters, the longevity of the topic is dictated by the uniqueness or impact of these natural occurrences. In the case of the earthquake that was felt along the eastern United States, we saw thousands of tweets per minutes.

This occurrence has pushed some companies and government agencies to structure their social media strategy to this. The US Geological Survey reports and monitors earthquakes. Before formulating their market strategy, initial research included monitoring Twitter activity to see how people addressed, approached, and spoke on the topic. They found that after a natural disaster, people immediately began to tweet about it. They identified (or reaffirmed) Twitter as one of the fastest, if not THE fastest information channel and decided to use this information to their advantage.

The USGS gathers and re-uses tweets to quickly locate earthquakes. The agency has developed its own Twitter-based application which indicates tweet counts from the cities that were affected, and list these tweets almost instantly. The USGS application geo-codes tweets, allowing them to tell the difference between an earthquake area and those that comment on the occurrence but do not experience them. The concept of listening and offering information to users has brought the agency over 147,000 followers.

Posted by Cristiana
Posted in blog, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »
Tags: geocoded tweets, nyc, Social Media Marketing, strategy, twitter