Social Media Optimization & US President Election

Mr. Barack Obama was not only the first Black American to become the president of United States, but also the first social media president.  Anyone who has noticed the way how he used the web to his advantage would agree with this statement. Social media is so powerful??, can it take a person to winning podium?? Let us see…

Mr. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were the favorite candidates for the presidential post.  Before contesting the election, Barack Obama led an ordinary life as a citizen of the U.S, while Hillary Clinton had been the First Lady of America.  She was a known face and had made her impression on a number of American citizens through public appearances as the First Lady.  These aspects of her personality and her familiarity as a public figure was indeed a huge advantage and Mr. Obama was faced with the challenge of drawing public attention and winning their hearts.  He used the web to do this and it was indeed very well received.

Apart from having an official website and canvassing online like other candidates did, he harnessed the power of social media and used it as a platform to share, communicate and connect to people.  This not only gave him a wider scope to be visible, but also offered him a medium to connect to people and converse with the common. He used blogs, Twitter, MySpace and Facebook to propagate and reach out to people.  This created trust in the minds of people and gave them a chance to learn the prospective development Obama as a president could make. The communication was two way, winning people’s heart to great deal.

The Stats go like “ Since February 2007, Mr. Goodstein, who is the External Online Director for “Obama For America“, has helped attract nearly two million supporters on MySpace, about 6.5 million supporters on Facebook, and 1.7 million supporters on Twitter. This strategy of using social networking tools worked well, enabling the Obama campaign to out-maneuver Hillary Clinton’s campaign, which was enjoying the support of the institutional base of the Democratic Party.“

There is no other low-cost promotional method out there that will easily give you large numbers of visitors, some of whom may come back to your website again and again. If you are selling products/services or just publishing content for ad revenue, social media marketing is a potent method that will make your site profitable over time.

NIk!

[Via http://infozoneinc.wordpress.com]

Why New Year Greetings are Better than Christmas Cards

Savvy B2B companies stand out with differentiated communications

Did you notice a change in the assortment of “holiday” and “Christmas” greetings you received this year? No doubt you saw many more electronic greetings, as did I. How did these electronic greetings differentiate their sender? Did you see any stand-outs?

For me, there was only one e-greeting that stood out from the pack, and it wasn’t even a card sent specifically to me! It was, in fact, a card by Eloqua that had gone viral: http://holidays.eloqua.com/index.html.

Chances are your organization doesn’t have the budget for a production at the level of Eloqua’s. So how do you stand out in the sea of holiday greetings? Send a New Year communication instead!

Here are 3 reasons I believe New Year greetings are much more appropriate in the B2B setting:

Reason #1: It’s About Business Going Forward

Christmas and holiday greetings are considered year-end communications. In essence, they’re a company’s last-ditch effort to communicate with a customer before the year ends. Wouldn’t you much rather be perceived as forward looking? What better way to enforce a “thank you for your business, now let’s do more” message than to say it upon the New Year?                                          

Reason #2: Everyone Has a New Year

In today’s global marketplace your holiday message will reach people who celebrate the “holiday season” in a myriad of ways—or even not at all. But everyone has a New Year! Around the world the calendar year begins on January 1, which makes it a universal holiday that will leave your message little room for social error.                                           

Reason #3: Being Last Will Make You First

At the end of the year the chances that your message will reach the recipient are small. Even if your greeting is opened, it will be opened by someone who is preoccupied with all they have to do before they can dodge out the door for their year-end vacation. And by the time your customer returns from his/her vacation, your holiday greeting is long forgotten. On the other hand, business goes back to full swing the first business week of the New Year, meaning that your customer will more than likely be in the office and freshly focused. Wouldn’t you rather communicate with that person?

Bottom line: there is a virtual sea of competitors battling for your customers’ mindshare, so it’s imperative to stand out amongst the crowd. In my opinion there is no better way than to communicate a business-centric message at the opportune time; otherwise, you risk having your message fall by the wayside.

[Via http://staceyholleran.wordpress.com]

Why doesn’t my website show up in Google or other search engines?

This is probably the question I get asked most from people who have put up websites and then sat back waiting for the world to find them.

“Why doesn’t my website show up in Google or other search engines?“

As much as we might like to think otherwise, the world is not looking for you specifically. If they were, they could just type your web address i.e. briancurrin.com directly into the address bar of their favourite browser and up would pop your website.

What people on the internet are looking for is solutions to their problems, and if your website offers the right solution, then it needs to appear on the first page of search results.

For example, I would like to have music people (musicians, studios, labels, shops) who live in Cape Town, and who are looking for help with online marketing, find me.

Search “online music marketing cape town” on Google and see the results.

And then search on Bing, another popular search engine.

Or Yahoo.

And try searching for “marketing south african music on the web“

If you are into Tourism, try searching “online tourism marketing cape town“.

Or Fashion, online fashion marketing cape town

So who are you talking to about your online marketing?

Contact me on brian@currin.co.za

http://briancurrin.com

Further reading

[Via http://briancurrin.wordpress.com]

High Definition Denver

High Definition Video Denver

VS Video Productions a Denver based video company with over 18 years of experience offers our clients uncompressed high quality High Definition video production services at a reasonable price. We utilize the Panasonic HVX-300 P2 High Definition camera. This camera has a variety of options, being able to shoot in 1080,720 in AVC intra and DVCPRO HD codecs and can also shoot in DVCPRO standard. The camera allows us to quickly transfer your footage from P2 cards directly to the editing system, thus saving our clients many hours of digitizing footage before you can start the editing process. To find out more information call us at:

303 671-7308. Visit us at http://www.vsvideoproductions.com

[Via http://vsvp1262.wordpress.com]

This is also called Marketing

I had been to Spencer’s one fine Sunday, two weeks back. Two men were blocking almost every person trying to enter into Spencer’s. And they were distributing some forms for filling it up.

When I tried to walk past them, S called out to me with forms in his hand.  I looked at him questioningly.

Fill up these forms and get a free gift from Spencer’s – S told me, as that was what that sales man had told him.

I was hesitant. If Spencer’s is giving a free gift to all the customers, they’ll do it inside, where you bill the things.

But S was insistent and put a pen and a form in my hand. They only need our name and phone number was his argument – it won’t take a lot of time to fill.

I am again against giving my phone number to Tom, Dick and Harry on the road. And there was no indication on the form, that its Spencer’s who are doing this free gift promotion.  No Company Name was printed on the form. Why does S take it so easily ?????

So, we filled up two forms, one in my name and one in S’s name, but I wrote S’s number on both the forms.

After a fortnight, yday, one man called up.

“Sir, you filled up a form sometime back at Spencer’s. Remember ?????  Congratulations, Sir !!!! You have been shortlisted among the top 20 winners. And I am very happy to inform you, that you have got gifts, not one, not two but three. They are Kitchen set worth 5000/-, One week stay at Munnar and a One Night stay at a Beach Resort on the outskirts of Chennai.  Can you come over to our Office by 5pm today and collect your gifts ?????? “

Now, I am sitting stunned listening to all these.  Who on this earth will give three free gifts, to the top 20 shortlisted winners, just for filling up a form ????? What do they want from us ???????

Then, when I checked out their Office Address, I found that they are a Holiday Resort Company, trying to sell the holiday shares to people. They make a few people attend a meeting and talk and talk and mesmerize the crowd into buying holiday shares.

And when we didn’t turn up at the meeting, at the scheduled time, they kept on calling us.  Even after politely refusing the gift offer and clearly telling them that we cannot attend the meeting, the calls continued.

Then my Dad told me that he had attended one such meeting and Thank God, he got some urgent call, he left half-way through.  Only if you buy the holiday shares, you’ll get all those free gifts, was explained later in the meeting, I believe.

It’s such a cheap marketing initiative, is my opinion.

[Via http://umsreflections.wordpress.com]

People and Systems

While startups are constantly creating and tweaking their systems and processes within their own organization, most larger organizations are entrenched with them.  Whether you operate within a large company or you are selling to them, learning about the people who influence/make decisions and understanding how to address the constraints the systems and processes of their organization place on them is crucial to a successful selling process.

In simplistic terms, there are two buckets you need to become more familiar with, people and systems.

• People address: hierarchy, influence, decision making, early adopters, and subject matter experts.

• Systems address: hardware, software, procedures, and necessary steps to get sign-off for sales.

Together, these buckets help you identify the who and how to move your agenda forward.  Perhaps even more importantly, if you understand an organization’s people and systems and you can develop a sales map that will identify potential roadblocks and lead you to replicable workarounds resulting in a more efficient sales process.

Plus, you can incorporate common findings from the sales mapping process into your product and service offerings to better serve your customer’s needs.  Now that’s a win if I’ve ever heard one.  I’d recommend you learn the people and systems in your product and sales process landscape to improve your hit rate and reduce your sales cycle time line.

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[Via http://sharris.wordpress.com]

Email Marketing Budgets to Rise in 2010

Four out of 10 marketers reported that their email budgets in 2010 would increase, and nearly half (47%) said their budgets would stay the same, according to a survey of 300 email marketers by SilverPop – despite the fact that nearly nine out of 10 (88%) said the recession continues, and three-quarters said it’s hurt their business.

Marketers, however, will be refining strategies and goals in response to the ongoing tight economic times. While the majority (52%) expect to focus on increasing customer loyalty, 51% of marketers expect to drive incremental revenue with their email program – a number that increases to 65% among companies with larger email budgets.

Signs of Success

Email open and click rates experienced year-over-year increases in Q309 vs. Q308 as the industry headed into the traditionally busy holiday season, according to a separate report – the latest email benchmark report from Epsilon.

Epsilon’s Q309 North America Email Trends and Benchmarks study revealed that email open rates increased from 19.8% in Q308 to 22.0% in Q309 (an 11% increase), while 12 of the 16 industries Epsilon tracks had an increase in open rates over Q308.

Click rates were 6.2%, an increase of 5.1% from the same time last year (5.9%), the analysis found.

Additional Q3 findings:

• The average volume per client increased 7.5% from Q308. The non-bounce rate dropped slightly from Q209 (93.5% compared with 94.1%), but was virtually unchanged from Q308 (93.6%).
• Six of the 16 industries measured saw an increase in all three metrics – opens, clicks and non-bounce rate – compared with last year.
• The retail landscape improved greatly compared with Q308. Of the four retail subcategories, 11 of the 12 metrics increased compared with Q3 of last year.
• Emails from financial services companies continued to enjoy the highest open rates among industries measured. Though click rates were down vs. Q308, emails from consumer products companies enjoyed the highest click rates in Q309 among industries measured.

“As we enter the holiday season, a time when email volumes increase substantially, it is extremely important that email marketers incorporate best practices to break through the clutter,” said Kevin Mabley, SVP of strategic & analytic consulting at Epsilon (via Marketing Charts).

“Timely, relevant offers that reflect customer preferences and behavior will drive the most opens, clicks and conversions. In addition, marketers should consider strategies that incorporate triggers and transactional messaging as part of the purchase cycle.” Mabley added that email marketers who remain focused on a data-driven email marketing strategy continue to outperform the rest of the pack.

Source: http://www.marketingvox.com/email-marketing-budgets-to-rise-in-2010-045829/?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_source=mv&utm_medium=textlink

[Via http://tanericten.wordpress.com]