Tag Archives: web content

How Much Value Does Social Media Really Have?

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Many clients and conversations we have with marketers ask us: Is social media worth any investment? The answer is yes, but maybe not from every channel that’s available.  Just make sure you set up measurement data points, implement tracking tags from Google Analytics (or some other program), and post relevant content to your audience(s) and not just “clutter.”

You also have to look at what you deem as having value to your organization. If you see your audience, followers, comments, “retweets” are growing, and your Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube/Vimeo, Linkedin and Instagram are all growing in numbers and in some cases driving people to your website, then it’s valuable and driving awareness. More than likely, you will find a few of them are not worth any direct time investment.
social media marketing
True, social media doesn’t allow you to measure it as closely as other Internet marketing pieces such as banner ads, Pay-Per-Click, or email marketing, but you can track direct leads and/or sales from each social media medium you use – if that is what you need to make sure the time, money, effort you spend on it is worth it.  One key piece…don’t be lazy.  Don’t just use a feeder system (like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite) that cuts off posts or uses hashtags where it’s not appropriate. Dedicated users will know you did not intend that message for that medium and it can lose some impact.

You also have to find what works for your organization – every business is different based on size, geography, client demographics, etc. You need to watch the data and optimize for what works specifically for your business.  We can tell you – just a bunch of self-promotion is NOT going to generate social media strategy that will maximize the efforts you are putting into it and there is no “cookie cutter” solution that will maximize results.

Social media also allows people to use the Internet on their terms.  They may never leave Pinterest or Facebook until they are ready to transact.  If you aren’t there in that space, you could be missing 10-20% of your desired audience that didn’t know about you because you weren’t there and part of “their conversation.” If you could get 10% more sales from having a solid strategy here, that could be a lot of growth – but it won’t happen overnight.

The ultimate goal is to get a post in front of thousands through their networks – through the use of tagging, timely posts, and community/industry cross promotion. Marketing is the sum of all parts and the number of touch-points – something known as frequency – the number of times someone has to be exposed to something before they are willing to take an action.  Through social media, you can increase those touch-points and be in front of them more often, which helps speed up the frequency time-period until an action will occur.

With an agency/resource who can monitor and report on social media for you (and also bring some creativity to your strategy), it can be the most effective $500-$1,500 a month (local-to-national type budgets) you spend out of your marketing budget and go a heck of a lot further than any advertising dollar could with reach.  Just make sure you give it a few months and your resource for this is showing you the data and how it is moving in the right direction on the way there.  Happy posting…

Coming To Grips With Your Websites Content Strategy

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I’d like to take some time and focus on the content strategy for your companies website.  Why does website content seem to be an after thought for a lot of businesses?  It seems like a lot of businesses brush over the fact that their website actually needs to have a strong message and a valuable content strategy.  The content for your website needs to be able to drive a visitor to take some kind of desired action.  Whether that’s making a purchase, becoming a lead or coming into your business you want your visitors to feel like they can take that next action.  Websites can serve a variety of purposes, but for the most part businesses want to take their website visitors and turn them into customers.  So how do we do this?

Describe Your Products Or Services In Depth

I’m sure you have more to say about your business than you think.  No matter if you are a local business or a Fortune 500 company.  I would bet that you could expand the content on your website or make it better.  If your website is on the smaller side then you need to think of each product or service that you offer as a unique page on your website that is completely dedicated to that product or service. A lot of times I’ve spoken with companies who think a single page on their website labeled “Services” is going to list out and describe all the different things their company offers.  You should really push yourself to consider more than 1 services page as a general role of thumb.

If your website is on the larger side then you should have more resources and offer more, which means more pages and a larger site.  Don’t just think too that the answer is always adding more pages just to get your page count up.  You always want to approach content by adding value to your website visitors.  Larger websites can do much more with their content and add even more value by evaluating a larger content strategy.  If you need more ideas think about developing content then think about playing the recency card.  Develop something timely that is relevant to your audience.

Blogging For Your Business

Blogging is a great way for anyone to develop content on an ongoing basis very easily.  Blogs present unique opportunities to create interaction with your audience whenever someone comments on your post, and posts are often shared more often than other standard website pages.  Most of the time your blog posts are ordered by date, but you can also do things like assign categories and tags to your posts it often makes it easier for users to navigate to the content they are looking for.  Most people think that writing for a blog is either too much work, or that they aren’t going to be able to come up with new ideas for posts.  Here is just a small list of content ideas we’ve compiled over the years:

  • Changes or additions to your companies products or services.
  • Company or industry updates.
  • News that is relevant to your industry.
  • Discussing the most frequent problems that your customers bring up to your sales department or customer service department and develop answers to those questions.
  • Joining an internet community for your industry and blogging about topics that are presented often within that community.  Examples could be:
    • Social Media
    • Forums
    • Reddit

Developing Local Content

We work with a variety of local and regional clients that often come to us with this same problem about developing content relevant for their audience.  If you want to develop content or optimize content for a local audience think about how your business relates to those local consumers and integrate your web content with the interests of their local region.  Maybe you should start breaking out pages individually for each region you service and merge that content with how your company has serviced or been involved in that local community.  Work with a local journalist who reports on the area you service and help develop content that can be promoted on a local news outlet as well as your site.  Find local bloggers who live in your area that write content that supports your industry and present them with a guest blog post.

Ultimately Trying To Provide Value

At the end of the day whatever content you are producing with your website or for your company you need to be adding value to your visitors.  Also remember that you shouldn’t be running out of ideas.  Try to come up with creative pieces of web content that will help your audience and be pertinent to your business.

Facebook Marketing & Fan Interaction 101

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Guest author Brandon Williams writes for AdMedia.com covering Internet Marketing, Remarketing, PPC and more.

Facebook is a wonderful way to utilize your personality to interact with fans and to simply show them you’re not just a big-time company that isn’t concerned with their customers’ needs. How you fully go about keeping these marketing efforts going will be unique to your business, but there are some simple tricks to keep the interaction going and build your brand through Facebook.

Get your fans involved and interaction flowing with these Facebook tricks.

Real People & Real Personalities

First, it’s beneficial to know that Facebook is a great promotional tool on multiple levels because it allows you to connect with customers, potential customers and even other companies in the industry that can help you increase your exposure. When you take to Facebook in order to promote your brand, understand that the people on there are all real and they expect you to be as well. This is a great way to show your personality and show that you care about facilitating their needs when it comes to your services and products.

It’s Not About the Hard-Sell

facebook fan interaction

Be sure to let the interaction flow for purposes that involve your business and even some that don’t. This goes along with showing your personality as you can simply engage in contact with your fans by writing a status on just about anything relevant, asking for their input or what they think about certain things. When you engage with the fans, it builds a comfortable rapport between them and your brand which can help convert them into buyers.

One of the more entertaining methods of marketing on Facebook is the use of yourwebsite to conduct scavenger hunt type deals in order to promote a new or hot item that you may be selling. Simply use Facebook to post photos of places in and around your city and have people search for what you are giving away. This allows the fans to be a part of your businesses promotional plan, get something for free and see the true quality of your product.

Deals like this and “Facebook Exclusives” get fans talking and word of mouth can bring in a lot of business.

Above all else, the biggest tip on making Facebook marketing successful is to interact. Give the fans a reason to notice you and feel that they can trust you. If you let questions, comments or suggestions go without a response, you’re not using the full potential of what social media networks can offer businesses.

Have Fun

Finally, have fun. Rarely are people going to take Facebook too seriously, so enjoy the interaction and promote what you want to promote. When you’re having fun with the fans that means they are having fun with your business, and that is an easy way to increase conversion rates and profit.

Making Social Media More Valuable for Your Business

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So you have dabbled in this. You get some people to follow you. How do you know if it is worth your time and really, what can you do to maximize what kind of web traffic you get from these mediums?

What if you changed your website experience based on how the visitor found you? The data is there to do this, you just need to interpret it and adjust accordingly. Set up correctly, you would be able to profile how your Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, YouTube/Vimeo, Google+, Pinterest, and Blog readers all use your site and based on looking at your traffic’s referring source. You can then change the experience, path, content, etc that they have to maximize your conversions and exposure by utilizing what that data tells you.

Social Media 2.0 & Web 3.0

This is Social Media 2.0. This is web 3.0. Create a unique experience for every web visitor based on how they got to your site. Combine the social media elements listed above with Search Engine and Content related marketing – you have groups of keywords within a segment to promote something – based on keyword you could adjust what they see and the content they would get – changing their “path”. If they were from Organic search results – same thing – we all know that paid traffic typically differs 25-35% in what they do versus unpaid traffic – create specific content based on those patterns.

Every person, every way, every avenue and it allows them to use the web the way they want while still allowing you to reach them. Will every person do the exact same thing that visits from Facebook – no, but if you study the analytics, traffic patterns , implement goals, and adjust based on history – over time you will be able to predict relatively accurately what 70% of them do and improve their experience with your Brand and site.

5 Things About Using Social

You also need to realize the following things about social media:Social Networking by Device statistics

1. It might not work for you - not everyone gets the value they need out of it for the investment they make. Just make sure you give it a good try and analyze before making any decisions.

2. People access from Mobile devices most often - so everything should be mobile optimized and easy to consume – especially if you have a global reach.

3. The bulk of social media time is spent on Facebook, - with newcomer Pinterest climbing rapidly. It should be treated as the dominate force it is for any consumer related marketing efforts. B2B marketing should have more of a mix – but the referring traffic reports and analysis will tell you what you need to know and where to best spend your time.

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Designing Infographics with the 10 Second Rule

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Guest author Christopher Wallace, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Amsterdam Printing, has more than 20 years experience in sales and marketing. At Amsterdam, a leading provider of personalized pens, promotional pens, and other personalized items such as imprinted apparel and customized calendars, Christopher is focused on providing quality marketing materials to small, mid-size and large businesses.

Make Your Point, Fast! — Designing Infographics with the 10 Second Rule

It’s no secret that in today’s information age, where everything we need to know is literally at our fingertips, there’s an accompanying problem. With so much to take in, we’re forced to throw on our blinders.

Imagine if you took the time to read every word of every email — even spam and junk — that arrives in your inbox. That’s a full time job. Instead, we’ve learned to filter, at lightning speed. In less than one second, we can identify emails that deserve the ‘delete’ button before they’re even opened.

That same principle carries over into every facet of our lives, from media to advertising to thumbing through a magazine. Enter the infographic — in a world where we value aesthetics and the quick digestion of information, there’s no better way to tell a story (especially one with numbers) than in a picture. With attention spans at their lowest point in history (I’m just observing – there’s no science behind that claim), those pictures need to convey their primary message in ten seconds or less.

Let’s start with a recent infographic from CertaPro Painters in Louisville, Kentucky. Give it a ten second gander and then check back with me here.

designing infographics

There’s a lot going on there, but it’s very simple at the top. Where the roof awning peaks, we’re told ‘What colors to paint your home and why.’ That leaves six more seconds to notice that we’re being given reasons to paint each room a certain color — blue equals productivity, red encourages appetite.

You can click away from that without ever examining the rest of the infographic below the house, and you know the basic point: different colors have an effect on the mood and purpose of a room.

“Someone can look at it and go, ‘That’s neat,’ and then move on, but still get the message,” says Randy Krum, president of infographic design firm InfoNewt and the founder of CoolInfographics.com.

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What exactly is a bad website & how do you fix it?

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On my way into work this morning, I passed a local computer repair shop and they have one of those messaging signs. This one said “we fix bad websites”.  Obviously that got my attention, but I am always on the lookout for such things as a marketing executive.  It did however get me to thinking, “what exactly is a ‘bad’ website?”

Is a bad website something that looks like it was built in 2001?  Is a bad website something that is so overwhelming with content that you “click off” the moment you get there because you don’t know where to start?  Is a bad website something that drives you no traffic on its own?  Is a bad website something that nobody can find unless they search for your company name?  Is a bad website something that makes you click 4 times before you get to what you want?  Is it when you go to visit examples of their work and they look old or in some cases you can’t FIND the references they give as “testimonials or case studies”?  Just what does a “bad website” mean and look like?

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Analyzing your audience’s web habits to improve website performance

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How much actionable information do you have about your web visitors? Can you predict their wants, goals, needs and behavior? Are you using analytic data to improve website performance? Do you utilize any re-targeting, ad networks, Search Engine Marketing (PPC and Display) and social media to be collecting data across multiple external sites and clickstreams? If so, the potential to deliver targeted content and offers based on their previous behavior and referring traffic source is possible.

You can construct detailed matrix that serve up content based on the family of sites they have visited and the predicted traits and interests that visitors to those sites demonstrate. However, if the first known point of contact with your visitors is their arrival at your site, then predicting their targeted area of interest is a much more tricky proposition, unless you study your own analytics and data (Sitecore, Webtrends, Quantcast, Google Analytics, etc) to come up with them and improve website performance.

Do you perform any A/B testing of two broader offers or content paths on your enterprise level site visitors and see which performs better (ie they look at more pages or end up as a conversion more often).  That is a good place to start, but more organizations have never consider split testing their own website. Doing this would ensure no audience gets excluded or misdirected–and it requires less historical data to drive the offer but allows you to profile how each “path” behaves.

Coming from purchased media like PPC or Facebook, can also shed light into keywords that have “special” needs to be effective, landing pages that get them to take desired actions and demographic profiles of who is visiting based on reporting. Again, this allows you the create a profile on each type of visitor and adjust the “path” accordingly – which will improve website performance .

You tie all of this data together to make the necessary changes to your website and content, navigation paths to drive more usability, click patterns, desired “conversions” that you have established for your website and/or campaigns.  Interpreting data is extremely important to ongoing web success – find a resource to work with that understands this to help set benchmarks and foundational strategy and it will help educate yourself and give you insights to things you could use across all mediums with your marketing and advertising.

Social Media Strategy – trigger interaction & response

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You do not have to be consumer oriented company to be able to use social media to advance your Brand, thoughts, products, and engagement with your audience. There are plenty of people professionally that look for helpful information for their jobs and will share valuable information with their peers when they find it. It some cases, it is even “cool” to be the first to find a great deal or share relevant information for others.

In the B2B world, you can also help aggregate content for your customers, clients, and prospects, by being a filter for them. You can share relevant information with them that has already “passed” your approval or relevance rating. This becomes almost like a value added service for them. They turn to you, a trusted resource first, before they go hunting on the Internet. You want them to say – “if they haven’t said anything about it yet, then I probably don’t need to pay attention to it yet.” And any savvy Internet person can tell you that just because it comes up “first” on Google, doesn’t make it accurate or right.

If you can get your people to interact with you, you can get valuable information about their habits, wants, desires, and interests. If you can get them to follow you or be involved, you can help your message get in front of thousands with a single click or post because it will not only reach your direct followers, but also post to their network of people because they are following you.

You can choose to have different message via each social medium (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, etc), or choose to broadcast your message, which will allow your audience to follow you via the medium they like to use the most and you still get your message out to the masses without requiring them to visitor you website. That is power and potentially all from a single article or click.

If you don’t know where to start or what you should be doing we have several tools on our website to help and we have created an great tool for measuring social media success and value of social media efforts to your organization. This will help you determine which social media efforts should be continued by your organization and give you some ways to help measure return-on-investment.

Social Media allows you to listen like never before & respond appropriately

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Social Media has made it easier than ever for consumers and business people to get their opinions heard and get them into circulation faster than ever before. It also creates challenges – like should you listen? or what should you respond or how do you get quality responses and exposure?

You have all heard the phrase that the “squeakiest wheel gets the grease”. These are the people who will be everywhere just posting about their experience – especially if it was not a good one. Does that make them less credible? If they are an active poster and only have “complaining” on their mind, they are already less credible and you cannot be worried about everything they say. You should also look to see if they have people agreeing, “liking”, or responding to their posts. If they do, then you have to take action.

If something positive happens, respond and ask for more by more people. If something negative happens, address it and find a way to take care of it – then ask them to post (or update the previous post) after you fix the problem about how you took care of it. Actually have your customer service people ask if you can share their experience with they solve or problem or get a rave from an interaction – it will go a long way to helping you have an unlimited supply of content to use for your blog, Facebook, or social media channels.

Build your brand around building your community of followers and dialogs – the ones utilizing social media are most likely to share experiences and they will be most likely to share – giving you further reach through their network and you definitely want them on your side.

Using Your Web Analytics To Make Actual Business Decisions

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I have spoken with a number of people who have websites, and some who even have Analytics. (usually Google Analytics, because it costs $0.00) One of my favorite questions to ask is “what do you most enjoy looking at in your analytics that helps you?” and usually the response to this unfortunately is “how many people are coming to my website.” That’s all and well and good, but lets take a minute to look at the concept of “Segmenting Your Data”.

I doubt that you are looking at an overview dashboard and are actually going to figure out anything you’re ready to make a decision on. So what should we as internet marketers be looking at that will actually help us make decisions.
I often speak with people who are spending a gob of money on various online marketing opportunities, and I want to to see if what they are getting for their hard earned money is actually worth something. Lets take this a step deeper. One example is to look at conversions rates and/or goals (if you’re using Google Analytics) and segment by either the traffic sources and/or the campaigns associated with those traffic sources. If you’re not passing in variables for traffic source, medium, and campaign with your various advertisers(for example, a banner ad) I would recommend starting to do that right now. The variables below apply to Google Analytics, and are very useful when passed into your destination URL’s:
  • utm_source=
  • utm_medium=
  • utm_term=
  • utm_content=
  • utm_campaign=
And this would be an example of using these variables to establish where some traffic actually came from using our website. bevelwise.com/?utm_source=ourblog&utm;_medium=textlink&utm;_campaign=using-your-web-analytics. What this will do for measurement, is assign the following variables when you click as such:
  • source=ourblog
  • medium=textlink
  • campaign=using-your-web-analytics
You could then reference all the clicks that came in through any campaign online/email campaign to goals that you have pre-determined and set up for your website and use them to further drive your marketing objectives and strategies.
Getting back to the concept of segmenting you would always want to be drilling down into your data and breaking out specific variables and sections of that data that mean something to your business. Having someone who is experienced with reading your web analytics is just as important as having a CFO that knows how to read a balance sheet and it can help produce better financial results. I’ve heard someone say before, “oh we know what our website is doing, because we put analytics on our website.” Interpreting those analytics and helping to make actionable decisions for your organization involves much more than knowing the basics of what analytics tells you. Do you know what areas of your website’s content is delivering the best results? Do you know where your advertising $$ are being best spent?
Bevelwise does seo from grand rapids, MI which includes Google Analytics measurement and will put our skills up against anyone out there in the Midwest. Would be happy to help you with your search engine optimization, web strategy, web analytics and all marketing from a measurement perspective. You will get insight to drive all your marketing initiatives if your website done and measured correctly.