Mediastreet
Author

editor

Browsing
In News

Why social media platforms need to lose the deadweight of fake users and engagement

No Comments

By YUVAL BEN-ITZHAK

Using machine learning to weed out fakery on social media is just the beginning; a lot more needs to be done before influencer marketing on these platforms can live up to its potential – argues Socialbakers’ Yuval Ben-Itzhak

Ever since social media became a critical component of the marketing strategy for any business, the platforms have come under scrutiny. The reasons range from possible interference in the United States’ electoral campaigns to issues around content integrity. ‘Transparency’ has become a major point of discussion and social platforms have taken steps to reduce inauthenticity.

Particularly in an era of fake news, authenticity is key to all social media content and interactions. With Instagram surpassing the billion-user milestone and becoming a leading hub for collaboration, users want to know that the content they see comes from credible, trustworthy sources.

The social media site’s latest move to remove inauthentic likes, followers and comments from accounts that use third-party apps to boost popularity, has been welcomed. This move raises the bar for authenticity.

Similar to Twitter’s blue badge, Instagram has released its own verification system. Its blue tick is currently available only to notable public figures, celebrities, global brands and other entities. Introducing this update was a great example of a relatively small change that can have tremendous results.

A simple check mark at the top of a profile can communicate to users that the profile is exactly what it says — no strings attached. Updates like these put the user first, which helps create an authentic experience.

Developing a machine learning system, however, is only half the battle won. Instagram will need to continuously evaluate each profile, as they can quickly turn malicious due to third-party apps. With the sheer scale of Instagram profiles, it’s possible that the frequency of evaluations could pose a threat to this new system. One solution could be to provide the date and time of the last review. This allows users to get an idea of how recently the profile in question has been verified.

The fact that Instagram has taken steps to limit undesirable behaviour is sending a message about the platform becoming more vigilant about eliminating illegitimate activity. By doing so, Instagram is showing its commitment to delivering an authentic, “digital pollution” free environment.

It will also have a positive impact on influencer marketing which is expected to become a $10 billion market by 2020. We imagine that marketers able to search for viable influencers confidently, focusing their activities on interacting with real audiences.

However, Instagram isn’t the only platform raising the bar for authenticity. Twitter has also become more vigilant about eliminating illegitimate activity with plans to remove all fake accounts.

At first glance, dwindling numbers for any social media platform can seem concerning. Fortunately, most brands are on board with Twitter’s stance on reducing the number of fake profiles on the platform. And why wouldn’t they be? While it may come as a surprise for brands to see a huge drop in Twitter followers, it’s actually extremely beneficial.

Removing dead weight from their following increases their chances of acquiring meaningful interactions. It gives them the ability to rebuild a loyal audience that they can count on. It’s true that numbers look good, but, in this case, they’re only for show.

While it is important for brands and influencers to have a solid follower base, the key here is quality – not quantity. Authenticity is increasingly pervasive when it comes to social media marketing. Fake accounts lead to inflated reach and performance numbers which aren’t helping brands or influencers engage in genuine conversations with their audiences.

With so much money on the table, however, it’s no surprise that fraud has become so prevalent. Rooting out fake influencers is a great move. But brands will also need to keep an eye on fake engagement and fake interests.

They can do so by looking at two key data points: the influencer’s performance over an extended time period, and their engagement level per 1,000 fans. In addition, benchmarking the performance of a few influencers over time can help to identify anomalies resulting from fraud.

There is no clear-cut answer that can be prescribed to all social media platforms. Seeing as they have different business models, we can expect that each channel will experiment with different solutions. We’re at the beginning of a new era that will indefinitely evolve as we learn more about what works and what doesn’t. What we’re seeing now are simply the first advancements in online transparency; we can expect more in the near future.

Yuval Ben-Itzhak is the chief executive officer at the analytics firm Socialbakers and is based in Prague, in the Czech Republic

By YUVAL BEN-ITZHAK

Sourced from Mumbrella Asia

Read More
By
In News

Learn How To Measure The ROI Of Your Social Media Campaign

No Comments

By

What’s the best way to measure Return on Investment when planning social media campaigns? How can you justify the time and the budget spent on them?

Ever since social networks showed up in our lives, there has been an ongoing discussion among marketing teams surrounding whether social media is worth the time and effort invested into it.

Many of us recognize its benefits as part of a digital marketing strategy, but it isn’t always easy to measure its effectiveness. This has become even more challenging as budgets have grown larger.

As social networks have grown (both in size and in number), so have the expectations from their usage. It’s no longer enough for a company to justify social media marketing by counting the number of likes or comments they receive.

There is a need for a proper analysis of each platform, along with the right use of metrics that can establish which are the most effective social networks for each company.

The Challenge of Finding a ROI for Social Media

Return on Investment (ROI) has rapidly become a buzzword among marketers: a phrase that is often used, but rarely defined.

Not every company will see the same ROI from using social media. In fact, not even every campaign will yield the same ROI for a specific company. This makes it harder to answer the question:

“What is the ROI of social media campaigns?”

Measuring Return on Investment doesn’t have to be about putting an absolute figure on the value of a social media campaign; it’s more about gauging whether or not your campaign has achieved the goal that it set out to achieve, to an extent that justifies the resources you invested into it.

Thus, the best way to respond to this question is by splitting the answer into three types of campaigns. This makes it easier for every company to find the goals that fit their campaign and thus, the ROI that they should expect from them.

Image: Quicksprout

Brand Awareness

A campaign that aims for brand awareness is attempting to increase a company’s exposure to a particular audience.

The KPIs for a brand awareness campaign are usually an increase in:

  • reach
  • followers
  • traffic

The idea is to use the campaign to reach a wider audience that might be interested in the brand’s particular product or service. As social media users become more demanding year on year, it’s important to create such campaigns to try to grab their attention, until they are ready to start the process of becoming customers.

The ROI in this case has to do with the time and the budget spent on brand awareness, and the change in KPIs that resulted. Campaigns that aim for brand awareness may require a large budget invested in reaching a wider audience, so it is crucial to be able to show results that justify this.

  • Did the campaign actually increase the number of followers and interest towards your brand?
  • Did traffic towards your site increase during the time of the campaign?

Increased Engagement

A campaign that aims for increased engagement for a brand is trying to spark discussions about that brand in the most genuine way.

The aim of increasing engagement in a brand’s social network has to do with a wider attempt to boost social media interaction among the target audience. Engagement serves as a good indicator of a user’s sentiment and interest in a brand, and it can be monitored through:

  • number of likes
  • number of comments
  • number of shares
  • type of reactions (on Facebook)
  • brand mentions

The ROI for the campaigns of increased engagement has to do with the proof that the time spent towards engaging with the audience had an actual value.

  • How has the engagement increased during the time of the campaign?
  • Was there a genuine interest from social users towards the brand?
  • What are the chances that these people will continue interacting with your brand in the future?

Lead Generation

A lead generation campaign is one that uses a tangible hook to direct social users towards a specific landing page. Whether it’s a free gift, a report, or an ebook, brands use lead generation campaigns to increase:

  • traffic to the site
  • number of email subscribers
  • number of downloads for a specific piece of content
  • number of form completions

Lead generation campaigns can be used to grab the audience’s attention and make it easier to have a further discussion with them. The other advantage of running lead generation campaigns is of course gaining the “lead” – the customer’s contact information – that gives you a means of marketing to them more over the long term.

It’s important to aim for relevance and value when generating leads, as these two elements combined increase the chances for a social user to turn into a customer further down the funnel.

The ROI for this type of campaign is to justify the budget spent on the hook and the actual campaign, towards the set goals. It’s good to start the campaign with specific numbers in mind, as the ideal metrics that a campaign can reach. This estimate helps a brand have a clear goal without losing the focus on metrics that are not the primary goal.

For example, if a brand offers a free ebook in a lead generation campaign with the goal of increasing the number of email subscribers, the key metric is the actual number of people who were interested enough in the content to volunteer their email addresses.

If there is an increase of social followers along with it, that can serve as an additional success, but it’s still not the primary goal that the brand was seeking to achieve.

When examining the ROI for such campaigns, it’s a good idea to ask:

  • Is my brand closer to reaching its established goals?
  • Was the hook effective for the particular campaign?
  • Did I set the right goals to measure the effectiveness of the campaign?

Social Media ROI Is Not A Myth

During the early years of social media marketing, establishing ROI was more challenging, and this led to the misconception that social networks are not as effective as other forms of marketing.

However, times have changed and we’re lucky enough to discover every day all the creative ways that social media marketing can be part of a wider digital strategy.

As social media usage increases, it’s more exciting than ever to come up with the best campaigns that will help you get closer to your goals.

All you need is the measurement that will justify your efforts.

By

Sourced from Jason Houck Media

Read More
By
In News

Buyer Intent and Predictive Analytics – Unified Through Data Science

No Comments

By Kevin Blackwell    

When the concept of buyer intent was first introduced, the mathematics behind it were fairly basic. Practitioners would choose an available stream of web hits, then determine which accounts’ traffic indicated a propensity for interest in a category of product or service. Occasionally, a divide would normalize the account’s size, or a multiply would magnify a signal of poignance. But while the process was strong in data, it was weak in Data Science. It took time to be able to leverage true Data Science to account for a multi-stage buying journey and the massive quantity of buying intent signals available in today’s advanced buyer intent models.

Predictive Analytics, often misunderstood as an alternative to buyer intent, commonly had the exact opposite problem. While affording powerful logistical regression models based on any data that it could see, predictive analytics models suffered from near data blindness, as marketing departments struggled to feed anything more than CRM, website logs, and basic firmographic data to it. By definition, they could only predict what a prospect would do after they had entered the sales funnel, since little information prior to that point was available. Strong in Data Science; weak in data.

  • Make sure buyer intent partners have the Data Science capabilities necessary to model the results you are looking for, but can also relate their findings to non-technical audiences.
  • Build and buy buyer intent capabilities using a wide-focus model that includes statistically significant sample sizes. Focusing on just a few web properties won’t provide enough data to sort true signals from noise.
  • Strengthen your team’s statistical understanding so that they can accurately interpret results from vendors and maximize your ROI. You don’t need a data scientist on staff, but a deeper understanding will help.

Do you know which specific companies are currently in-market to buy your product?

Wouldn’t it be easier to sell to them if you already knew who they were, what they thought of you, and what they thought of your competitors?

Good news – It is now possible to know this, with up to 91% accuracy. Check out Aberdeen’s comprehensive report Demystifying B2B Purchase Intent Data to learn more.

By Kevin Blackwell    

Sourced from Business 2 Community

Read More
By
In News

10 Ways to Update Your Small Business for 2019

No Comments

By Annie Pilon

You don’t need to wait for a new year to update your business’s processes. But when the calendar changes, it serves as a good reminder to evaluate some of the tech and platforms you use so you can modernize your business and become even more effective. Here, members of the online small business community share some of the trends and changes that you should be aware of as you bring your business into 2019.

Keep an Eye on PPC Changes

The world of PPC advertising is always evolving to better target relevant consumers. So if you want your ads to have the biggest possible impact in the new year, you need to stay up on all the latest trends. This Search Engine Land post by Ginny Marvin features some of the changes you should know.

Approach Analytics Differently in 2019

If you haven’t updated the way that you approach your business’s analytics in several years, 2019 could be the perfect time to re-think some things. Today’s businesses have access to more data than ever before. Here, Lane Ellis of TopRank Marketing discusses some of the ways you can approach analytics differently moving forward.

Learn These Google Analytics Terms

Google Analytics is perhaps the most popular tool for measuring website activity and traffic. But for those who are new to the online business world, some of the jargon used may be a bit tough to understand. So check out this Search Engine Watch Post by Robin Sherwood to get a handle on all the essential vocabulary.

Consider These Social Media Trends for 2019

If you want to stay on top of the ever-changing social media landscape, you need to constantly learn about the upcoming trends. In 2019, there are likely to be several evolving platforms and features that could impact your business. Learn more in this Prepare 1 post by Blair Evan Ball.

Keep Up With These Social Media Changes

And that’s not all! In this post on the Inspire to Thrive blog, Hugh Beaulac offers even more social media trends that should be on your small business’s radar in the new year. And members of the BizSugar community also shared their thoughts on the post here.

Build Your Small Business Credibility

Sometimes, small companies don’t have the same type of trust and credibility as big brands. But even though your business may be small, you can still reassure potential customers about your brand. This SMB CEO post by Matt Shealy includes some tips specifically for small businesses.

Protect Your Trademarks on Social Media

Just as it’s important to protect your business’s intellectual property in other areas of marketing and operations, it’s also important to do so on social media. There are plenty of accounts that may try to copy or emulate your trademarks. To protect them, read this Social Media HQ post by Christian Zilles.

Check Out These Landing Page Design Trends

Landing pages are very useful for targeting new customers and getting them into your sales funnels. The design choices that you make for these pages can have a major impact on your conversion rates. In this GetResponse post, Brea Weinreb details some of the upcoming trends that could impact your landing pages in 2019.

Become Gainfully Self Employed

Entrepreneurship is more popular than ever. Plenty of people are realizing the freedom and excitement of owning a business or becoming self-employed. If you’re interested in taking the leap this year, check out this Copyblogger post by Claire Emerson. Then see what BizSugar members are saying here.

Get Your New Business Idea Off the Ground

When you’re first jumping into the business world, you need a plan for developing and getting the word out about your new venture. There are many different factors that go into this process. To get started on the right foot in 2019, learn from this PERK Consulting blog post by Lucy Reed.

Feature Image Credit: Shutterstock

By Annie Pilon

Annie Pilon is a Senior Staff Writer for Small Business Trends, covering entrepreneur profiles, interviews, feature stories, community news and in-depth, expert-based guides. When she’s not writing she can be found on her personal blog Wattlebird, and exploring all that her home state of Michigan has to offer.

Sourced from Small Business Trends

Read More
By
In News

How Intent Data Reveals the Anatomy of an AI Buyer

No Comments

By Michael Lock    

Among the many uses of web-based intent data is its ability to profile the buyer’s journey for B2B technology.

Consider today’s most talked about technology – AI and Machine Learning. If you were interested in deploying this technology in your organization, how would you go about that process? Would you look for analogous examples of the technology being used in organizations similar to yours? Would you plan out a resource roadmap for how you might staff up to support such an endeavor? Would you explore vendors and solution providers that you might partner with?

Aberdeen’s intent data tracks buyer behavior and content consumption across millions of websites to connect web-based search activity to discernible buying intent signals. Not only does the data provide intelligence about topics and concepts of high interest to B2B buyers, it will provide URL-level detail to demonstrate the exact content being consumed, as well as visibility into the number of devices (i.e. individuals) consuming it.

Given the current level of hype surrounding AI in today’s business and consumer environments, it would be reasonable to assume a high degree of browsing based on news-worthy human-interest stories, and Aberdeen’s data confirms this. However, limiting the data to present-day, business-relevant content, the findings reveal an interesting breakdown of topics. Measured by the number of unique device IDs interacting with content of three main types, Aberdeen’s breakdown of the top 50 most visited websites is as follows (Figure 1).

Figure 1: What Are Buyers Reading? Top AI / Machine Learning Web Activity

Each category depicted above is described in more detail below.

Vendor-related. Content that discusses vendors active in the AI / Machine Learning sector. From Amazon and IBM Watson to smaller start-ups, this includes companies actively solving business problems with AI & Machine Learning technology. Uses include: early stage vendor exploration, technology consideration.

General education. Content discussing definitions of terms and technologies within the AI / Machine Learning sector. Also includes content providing present-day news, statistics, and general information about the business landscape for AI / Machine Learning technology. Uses include: hiring and talent acquisition, skill building.

Practical use case. Content exploring different ways to utilize AI / Machine learning in a live business environment – by industry, job role, or functional area. Uses include: business problem solving, evaluating organizational fit.

In the face of these findings and the strong slant in favor of vendor-related content, one might be compelled to ask – is this what people want to read, or is this simply what’s available? It’s been said that content consumed doesn’t necessarily equal content desired, and Aberdeen’s additional research in the Analytics and Big Data space shows that there might be a greater desire for practical examples bubbling up within our workforces. According to a recent survey, more than 80% of companies see value in AI that ranges from future potential to present-day strategic priority (Figure 2).

Figure 2: A Strong Outlook for AI in the Enterprise

The buyer’s journey is not a cookie-cutter process from company to company, but there are certain elements that remain common experiences. Findings from Aberdeen’s large pool of intent data demonstrate a slant toward vendor-related content, but additional research findings validate the need for more educational content that can guide buyers along a more savvy path toward implementation.

By Michael Lock    

View full profile ›

Sourced from Business 2 Community

Read More
By
In News

SEO tips, tools, and how to’s: Best of 2018

No Comments

Sourced from sritutorials

It’s that time of the year again: reflecting on the year that’s past as we prepare for 2019 lurking around the corner. In this article, we have a roundup of some of our fan favorite pieces from 2018 on SEO.

From how to’s to tips to tools, these were some of our highlights from the past year. SEW spark notes, if you will.

If you missed these pieces throughout the year, they’ll be worth a read. And if you’ve already read them, never hurts to refresh!

On Monday, we’ll have a roundup of our top articles on search industry news and trends.

1. How to force Google to recrawl your website

If you have launched a new website, updated a single page on your existing domain, or altered many pages and/or the structure of your site, you will likely want Google to display your latest content in its SERPs.

While Google’s crawlers are obviously pretty good at their job — indexing countless new pages simply from natural traffic and links from around the web — it never hurts to give Googlebot a little assistance.

In this article, we look at a few ways to alert Google’s crawlers to new URLs on your site.

2. How to set up event tracking in Google Analytics

Because one can never have enough Google Analytics insight, right?

One of the most useful features in GA, event tracking lets you capture all kinds of information about how people behave on your site.

In this article, we go step by step through two different ways you can set up event tracking: first, by adding the code manually, and second, by using Google Tag Manager.

This is a great tutorial for anyone looking to familiarize themselves with the task.

3. A quick and easy guide to meta tags in SEO

Meta tags help search engines and website visitors determine what the content of your page is about. 

They’re placed in the <head> section of a HTML document and need to be coded into your CMS. Depending on the platform you use, this can be quite less intense than it sounds.

Many “out of the box” solutions provide extremely user-friendly, labelled sections such as “meta description” calling your attention to exactly what goes where.

In this article, we take a look at why meta tags are important, along with the six main types of meta tags to focus on for SEO.

4. An SEO’s survival guide to Single Page Applications (SPAs)

For anyone who’s ever had questions about what SEOs should do with Single Page Applications (SPAs), this article is for you. Long, thorough, entertaining, and full of resources.

We start out looking at how the popularity of SPAs, Angular, and React have spiked in the last several years. Many developers eagerly embrace JavaScript for website development — and while that may have been rather inconsiderate of SEO ease (what else is new), it seems JS really is here to stay.

This article is bit of a coming to terms with that reality, accepting SPAs as part of our SEO future, and even dipping our toes in, if you will.

We look at what developers like about JS, how it was never intended for web page content delivery, common SEO problems of SPAs, and a host of other questions you might be asking.

Finally, we end with eleven recommendations for further reading — really, this could become the whole rest of your holiday break — on how Google treats SPAs, core principles of SEO for JS and for SPAs, and more information than you could want.

5. How to check your Domain Authority: 4 tools to use

Domain Authority (DA) serves as a handy heuristic in the SEO industry. It helps tell us how likely a site is to rank for specific keywords, based on the SEO authority it holds.

Many SEOs use Domain Authority to sense-check the quality of their inbound links and to understand how these are affecting their own’s site’s SEO health.

In this article, we round up some of the best ways to check out domain authority. We look at what factors go into DA, and how these tools go about calculating it.

‘Domain Authority’ was devised by Moz and they have naturally taken ownership of this name. Their suite of tools (some of which are discussed in this article) will reveal the authority of particular domains, but dozens of other free tools use Moz’s API to show these scores too.

6. 15 actionable SEO tips to improve your search rankings

This is another quite popular deep dive into SEO tips. We know “improving search rankings” gets a lot of fluff, but this is not that.

Here, we look closely at what makes RankBrain tick, and 15 ways to use that to your fancy.

Sections cover tips around optimizing keywords, optimizing title tags, optimizing descriptions, and reducing bounce rates and dwell times. Fun fact: research by HubSpot and Outbrain found that titles with brackets performed 33 percent better than titles without.

Questions about how to add LSI keywords? How long should long-form content really be? Benefits of long-tail vs medium size keywords? How much difference in clicks will a few characters too long in a headline actually make? All of that and much more (along with lots of screenshots) here.

7. 30 ways to market your online business for free

This article is a roundup of exactly what it sounds like — 30 ways to market your online business for free. It covers everything from emails to social media, from Google Analytics to Search Console, from forums to guest posting, from metadata to Schema.org.

While a few of the ways could be updated — posting to Google+, for instance, might be less helpful anymore — the list still provides some hefty inspiration to anyone needing a little boost of ideas for what to do online.

8. Four tools to discover and optimize for related keywords

This was a quite recent article that has soared. As we know, for SEO these days we need content that includes related concepts, satisfies intent, and provides value. The days of exact keyword matching are far behind us.

In this article, we have four great tools to use when optimizing for related keywords — and of course, how to use them.

For instance, the first tool in the list is TextOptimizer. It takes a term you give it, looks at the Google search results page, extracts snippets, and applies semantic analysis.

With that, it ouputs a list of all the related topics, terms, and concepts that form your topic cluster. From that cluster, it recommends you choose 15-25 of the words for a higher rank.

9. How to optimize your Google My Business listing

Lest we forget: local search.

For those looking to rank higher in searches tied to a user’s location — i.e. users that might be quite near your store and itching to buy something — a Google My Business listing is an essential first step.

This article gives a how to guide for first setting up your listing, claiming and verifying your business, filling out the information, and adding photos. From there, we go over gathering reviews, posting updates, monitoring your profile, and tracking data from Insights.

Of all the many, many things to do in SEO, optimizing a Google My Business listing is very straightforward. It can have a profoundly positive effect on your SEO — a whole wealth of ranking opportunity up for grabs.

Sourced from sritutorials

Read More
By
In News

2019 productivity gut check – don’t let metrics squeeze your value

No Comments

By Jon Reed

Holiday season is an unwanted necessary view of what we got done in last year – and what we didn’t.

The modern productivity problem boils down to this:

How many transformative projects did we actually complete last year?

I’m guessing few people like the answer to that question. I certainly don’t. Oh, we got plenty of things done. We swatted emails like flies. We texted like champs. We put out fires and paid close attention on every conference call. We were nothing but diligent on the tarmac. That’s because we were strong on task productivity. We hit our deadlines (I hope). But we were mostly reactive.

We were not so effective with what Cal Newport calls value productivity. Alas, value productivity is how our work is ultimately assessed. It’s how we transcend the to-do list and put our dent in the universe.

Yes, productivity is an employer problem. Especially when you consider this troubling reality: all our wondermuss tech innovations have not resulted in collective productivity gains. Over the holidays, I worked through the bulk of Done Right – How Tomorrow’s Top Leaders Get Stuff Done, by Workfront CEO Alex Shootman. He has plenty of field tips for rethinking workplace productivity.

But productivity is also personal. We can’t wait for our employers to implement better collaboration tools, or improve their project methodology. Productivity is a “you” problem. That’s liberating/terrifying in equal measure.

Productivity winners for 2019

Here’s how I see productivity in 2019:

  • Keep task productivity under control. Get the needful done efficiently – without creating cycles of accelerated busywork (e.g. responding to non-urgent email threads five times a day only increases its velocity back to your inbox).
  • Advance your value productivity via projects that enhance your topic authority, or you/your company’s IP.
  • Bonus: avoid having a work meltdown as you hit a burnout wall.

I hear what you’re thinking: “That sounds freaking lovely, Jon – but easier said than done. I can’t get away with that highfalutin value stuff with my employer/project/pressurized situation.”

Yep, it’s not easy out there. Let’s not sugar coat it. However, there are proven ways of increasing your chances:

1. Prioritization is today’s essential productivity skill. With so many notifications and tasks flying at us, our work days are perpetually unfinished. Those who can adapt on the fly, and prioritize the right things daily and weekly, have an edge over the task-chasing “inbox zero” crowd.

2. Those who consistently protect time for “deeper” research/creation/planning have the edge. Add training and continuous learning to that mix.

3. A flexible filtering system that can raise or reduce notification levels is necessary to accomplish the first two. That includes everything from email filters, to phone notification control, to social network presence and withdrawal. Those who pride themselves on being “always on 24/7” are at a value productivity disadvantage.

4. Team communication and “how to reach me” preferred access is needed, to ensure that projects march on during team members’ protected time.

5. Incorporate sharing of work-in-progress – even beyond company walls. Collaboration software can help, marking tasks and milestones for us. Sharing work-in-progress with teammates – and even exposing work product outside company walls, via social networks and advisory groups – can be impactful. External feedback sets up a so-called iterative work cycle that is much more likely to result in relevant output. One classic example: your deep research fuels your public content curation.

Productivity in the real world

Let’s get real: not every employer is going to support our value productivity efforts. For every company that allows employees ten percent time to work on their own projects, another expects employees to take their deadlines with glee and get to work. The employee-as-worker-bee mentality is still too pervasive, though it gets dressed up these days in bogus KPIs.

Whenever possible, it’s important to get buy-in from employers on deeper projects. Whether it’s building mobile apps, or publishing books, it’s worth hammering out an agreement on IP ownership and creative time allotment.

Failing that, your projects may have to be relegated to weekends until you have momentum – or a new employer. Call it staying ahead of the robots or personal branding. Whatever it is, this deep work needs to get done. No job title is immune from the value productivity imperative. Yes, even sales. Give me a salesperson who builds their own collateral or competitive analysis slide deck any day. Or maybe a sales proposal to target a much bigger fish.

Even if you have the go-ahead on a deeper work project, there is the problem of notification fatigue and interruption culture. Some companies have downright oppressive expectations about “always-on” email. Thankfully, others are moving towards team collaboration tools that reduce that email load, or instituting email off hours.

In most work environments, I’ve found that if you educate team members on your “off email” times, or make sure they have an easy alternative way to reach you, then you’re good. Yes, you may miss a few important pings here and there as you fine tune those filters, and who has access to you. But hey – it’s better than missing out on a better career. It’s better than blowing yourself out on inbox whack-a-mole.

Yes, we do have to filter news notifications as well – particularly to keep sketchy and inaccurate info at arm’s length. But, we should also build in a surprise factor into our networks. It’s important as we design our filters not to become too insular. There are ways to build discovery into our filters.

I’ve breezed past crucial points in this article, such as how to put email filters to work. If you follow the links, you’ll find deeper dives.

A final word on measuring productivity. Workplace productivity metrics are in vogue. Applied sensibly, some are useful. The same holds true for measuring against your own goals. Just be careful the metrics don’t become the sole arbiter of your output. KPIs can be one heck of a creativity stifler. Try to cultivate something that isn’t subject to a KPI – or that has a chance to incubate before its value is assessed.

A productivity motivational message from yours truly

When I wrote my first piece on deep work and value productivity in 2014, diginomica was still in its early stages. Since then, robotic automation has intensified the threat of skills commoditization. Productivity requires a certain ruthlessness. I don’t know about you, but I find that the fear of becoming irrelevant is a darn good motivator.

But it’s the upside that should motivate us the most. As Newport put it:

It’s not that task productivity lacks importance — it has saved me much stress — but I think the value variety is what will rule in an increasingly competitive knowledge economy.

To which I added in 2014:

I jumped to the same conclusion Newport reached. Any competitive advantage I have achieved in the last five years is directly tied to the creation of high-value deliverables.

I should have gone further. This approach saved my career. I still consider myself a student in this quest, learning and failing and trying to get better. So – let me know what’s worked for you. I hope there is something here you can apply in 2019.

End note: this piece is from my semi-occasional diginomica series on productivity, filtering, and beating the noise with curation.

By Jon Reed

Sourced from diginomica

Read More
By
In News

Email marketing trends to expect in 2019

No Comments
By 

This year the email marketing landscape will continue to focus on personalization with a focus on quality over quantity as well as expanding loyalty programs.

Many exciting trends and developments hit the world of email marketing in 2018 as email turned 40 years old – from the emergence of AMP for Gmail to mobile email reaching its long-awaited tipping point.

As we head into 2019 and marketing budgets “refill,” it’s our chance to give our email programs a restart and refocus our efforts on innovation and speed to keep pace with the demanding customer. In 2019 we can expect consumer expectations for quality content to increase – it’s become an annual tradition. Marketers will need to leverage new technologies and disciplines to continue to push the boundaries. Email programs will become even more personalized and more interactive, and as a result, more effective at driving revenue and brand loyalty.

To achieve these lofty goals and marketing dreams, below are my predictions for 2019 changes in the email marketing landscape you should be most aware of.

Personalization will put the right content in front of the right customers

Email marketing content can and should be more deliberate based on customers behavior, and I believe in 2019 we will see this become more prevalent in marketing strategies. Marketers have no excuse not to personalize email content based on the plethora of data they capture from browsing, purchase histories and email preferences.

The use of this data is becoming less “creepy” and using it in a deliberate way can deliver success. If you haven’t done so already, you should make it a priority to collect and use more data for personalization in content execution. Marketers should implement/expand their current preference centers for content choices or follow browse, purchase, click and open behavior to identify the content that piques subscribers’ interest most.

This process will get even more scientific as marketers push vendors for perfection. In 2019, marketers will continue to test AI platforms, while pushing vendors to handle their AI needs and automate at a larger scale. This innovation in technology should enable marketers to identify content combinations that perform better, faster and more efficiently.

The growth of mobile average order value

Historically, mobile average order value (AOV) has lagged behind its desktop counterpart because consumers are less likely to make big-ticket purchases (e.g., large, expensive items) on-the-go. In 2019, we’ll see this gap close. In fact, Yes Marketing data from Q3 shows significant growth in mobile average order value (AOV) for the first time in a long time. In Q3 of 2018 mobile AOV was $66.40, just $20 less than the $86.20 desktop AOV – and this is just the start.

In the year ahead, it will become more common for subscribers to purchase larger orders on mobile devices as the user experience gets better. To take advantage of this trend, brands will need to gain subscribers’ trust by offering detailed product content, more images and videos, or customer testimonials to push subscribers over the edge.

The continued rise of interactive content

As in 2018, I’m a firm believer in interactive content and I’m predicting it will continue to take off in 2019. Emails that contain games, quizzes, image carousels or simply “fun’” clickability (my word for 2019) allow users to interact with the brand without leaving the email itself. The more brands allow subscribers to engage within emails in new ways – whether it’s a personality quiz or the ability to book hotels without leaving email – the more engaged and ready to purchase subscribers will be with the brand.

The use of interactive content can help boost sales or simply educate and entertain. Fun games are a great way to get subscribers in the habit of opening your emails. The ability to actually make purchases within email makes the buying process even faster, and will boost sales for the brands that embrace interactivity.

Quality over quantity (deliverability + greater spend in targeted digital acquisition)

Deliverability has become a serious concern for marketers. Due to poor data management and increased standards from major ISPs like Gmail, Yahoo and AOL, emails can quickly land in the SPAM folder, making all that hard work in creative useless. To reach the inbox every time and maximize revenue from email marketing campaigns, marketers need to ensure they are sending relevant content to high quality value email subscribers and stop focusing on the total quantity of emails sent. In the coming year, that means embracing best practices even more, such as segmentation, data hygiene, email verification and preference centers.

In addition to reaching current subscribers/customers, smart marketers will use data to drive their digital acquisition efforts and better target new subscribers. Again, quality over quantity in acquiring new subscribers will pay dividends for your email program down the road. Model out your digital acquisition by appending the right types of data and finding look-a-like versions of your best customers instead of just paying your standard cost per lead. Yes, this approach may and most likely will cost more to successfully acquire quality subscribers. But in the end the lifetime value of higher quality customers is worth the additional investment. Smarter acquisition = greater ROI.

Loyalty programs will further expand to collect customer data

Many marketers already embrace loyalty programs and in 2019 these programs will become much more sophisticated. Smart marketers will use loyalty programs to collect customer data and better understand customer behavior, allowing them to reach loyal customers with better personalization and acquire new customers with the same characteristics.

What will this look like? Email marketers can track the behavior of their most loyal customers (e.g., those who engage with loyalty emails most frequently) and better understand their needs when it comes to email. What time of day do they want to receive emails? What types of products do they typically browse and purchase? What promotions work best for them? Then, marketers can take this data to encourage subscribers with similar behavior to join the loyalty program. Additionally, strong brands are already leveraging loyalty points as an incentive to receive data from their customers. This combination will lead to greater engagement in the inbox and more revenue for brands who execute flawlessly.

Over the past year, it’s been fun watching email marketing turn 40. While many in the past have claimed email is dead and ready for replacement by a shiny new channel (*cough* Sheryl Sandberg *cough*), we’ve yet to see a true successor. That’s why I’m challenging all marketers to keep up the strong work in 2019 to make it even better.

As you ring in the new year, consider tactics such as AI for personalization, interactive content, improved loyalty programs and spending a little bit more in acquisition so next year at this time, you can give yourself the greatest gift of the holiday season – a bonus or raise.

By 

Kyle Henderick is Director of Client Services at Yes Marketing, a single solution provider who delivers relevant communications across all channels for mid and enterprise-sized companies. Kyle is responsible for helping major clients implement new programs, processes, and data-driven strategies to create campaigns that truly drive revenue. With a passion for technology implementation and a background in database, email, web, and social media marketing, Kyle turns his real-world experience into executable tactics to help clients see an incremental lift in revenue, subscriber engagement, and customer retention. A lover of all things Chicago, when Kyle is not reading up on latest marketing practices or focusing on improving client programs, he can be found enjoying the city’s great restaurants or wearing his heart on his sleeve while rooting for all Chicago-based sports teams. A curious individual willing to try any and every food that does not include raw onions, he is always looking for exciting dining options and new adventures around the city.

Sourced from Marketing Land

Read More
By
In Jobs

Online Marketing Manager

No Comments

Flipdis, First Floor, Heron House, Corrig Road, Sandyford, Dublin 18

Marketing Manager
Base salary + equity

B2B2C

Perfect English speakers only.
Must have business to business marketing experience, in SaaS preferably.
The successful candidate will receive equity.

The candidate must be technically adept and understand modern internet and modern online marketing technology and best practices.

Flipdish.com


Flipdish is one of the fastest growing startups in Europe. Flipdish powers ordering websites and apps for restaurants, take-aways, cafes, and convenience stores in over 10 countries. Some of our customers include Centra, Mao At Home, Bombay Pantry, Chopped, and Base Wood Fired Pizza.
At Flipdish we are dedicated to becoming the global leader in white-label online food ordering, with a focus on client and employee success.

About This Role

  • Increase revenue for Flipdish by way of marketing.
  • Get Flipdish more customers, and get our customers get more orders.
  • Will be expected to build a team.

The Ideal Candidate

  • Will have 1+ years specialising in online marketing
  • A track record in growing inbound leads through various channels
  • Proven ability to increase company revenues and client success
  • Interested in working in a dynamic high growth start up.

Click HERE to apply for this job

Read More
By
In Jobs

Social and Web Writer – Fitness industry

No Comments

CoachWho, Grand Canal Square, D2

We are looking for a Social Media and Web Content Writer intern on a part-time basis for 4 months. A strong understanding of the fitness industry is a must.

Our team helps people discover talented fitness and wellness instructors and coaches in various disciplines in their city. We are looking to grow our team with people who share our energy and enthusiasm for fitness and for creating world class digital content to feature on our platform and on our social media.

This is an unpaid internship offering the right candidate the opportunity to progress into a permanent position. Travel allowance and some expenses will be provided.

Key responsibilities

  • Understand the voice, audience and goals of CoachWho to produce social media and web written content that inspires engagement and builds trust.
  • Create relevant, original, high-quality written content for social media, web blogs and other digital communications
  • Research, and obtain information as needed to complete projects to best of ability
  • Follow calendar of projects and requests and deliver the written content in a timely manner.
  • Brainstorm and implement creative ideas and strategies to further promote social media engagement.
  • Welcome feedback, edits, and changes to content while maintaining a detail-oriented eye
  • Contribute to the building of our digital content strategy through competitive analysis, benchmarking and capturing best practices

Key Skills & Requirements

  • Minimum 1 year of content experience within an in house marketing department or advertising/interactive agency environment
  • BA in English, journalism, communications or related field
  • Minimum 2 years experience in web/social content writing for the fitness industry
  • Passion for building brand awareness and thought leadership through storytelling
  • Impeccable spelling and grammar
  • Previous experience of social management tools preferred
  • Knowledge of digital marketing tactics, including SEO, email marketing and web analytics preferred.

Click HERE to apply for this job

Read More
By
Load More