The Key To The Holiday Sales War? Winning The Social-Media Battle With the holidays quickly headed in our direction, virtually every marketer realizes that, now, more than ever, social media MUST be an integral part of any campaign. It’s no longer the trendy thing to do--it’s simply a necessary component of doing business. Consider the following 2011 statistics: * 66% of Black Friday purchases resulted from social media interactions When you combine those convincing numbers with the fact that 61% of holiday shoppers research their gift buying choices through social media, it creates a compelling picture that merchants ignore at their own peril: The holiday sales war can easily be won or lost on the social media battlefield. With every big company bombarding social media users with daily deals and requests to “like” and “follow” them, how do you make your holiday campaign stand out from the pack? #1: Ramp Up Your Responses Brands only respond to, on average, half of the posts on their social media pages. [Image: Flickr user Arti Sandhu]
The secrets behind social content: Social Media Week Special - Content Creation Collective (London, England September 26, 2012 · 6:15 PM Welcome to the The Content Creation Collective, a meetup for all creative types with a penchant for digital - writers, bloggers, editors, journalists, videographers, designers and producers - involved in the creation of content. This Social Media Week special will be taking place on the 26th September at 6:30pm aboard HMS President. We've got some great speakers for you who'll be revealing some of the industry's best kept secrets behind social content. Emma Gannon (@girllostincity) is a digital journalist and social media strategist living in London. Philip Calvert (@philipcalvert) is an award-winning social networking entrepreneur, social media speaker and author. We'll be holding this event on the HMS President, which is one of the permanently moored ships on Victoria Embankment, and an amazing venue for meetups as anyone who's attended our sister event OMN London will attest to. See you there, Natalie
Google snaps up Waterloo startup BufferBox Parcel pickup kiosk operator BufferBox Inc. is moving on up to Google Inc., quite literally, after being acquired by the huge tech firm. That’s because home base for the team behind the Waterloo, Ont.-based startup is the VeloCity Garage inside the Communitech Hub startup incubator, located in the famed Lang Tannery building in the warehouse district — downstairs from Google’s regional office. We’re really excited to be able to build out that vision quite a bit quicker than we otherwise would have without them on side On Friday, Google announced it has acquired the not-quite-two-year-old startup for an undisclosed sum, which means the team at BufferBox will be moving their operations up a flight of stairs to join the Google team on the upper floor of the building. “Being a small company and a startup, there’s obviously a lot of challenges,” BufferBox chief executive Mr. We think there’s a real exciting space beyond this amazing start with boxes “We’re going to keep doing BufferBox,” Mr.
Content Creation Collective (London, England This is a group for the best, brightest and most passionate content creators in and around the UK. We'll focus mainly on online content, but I'm sure the old offline to online to offline again debate will come up from time to time! We all work in a time when there's a focus on quality content like never before... the convergence of journalism, design, SEO, copywriting, music supervision, blogging, PR, videography, software dev and social media has made content creators the new superstars of the online stage. Purpose: To meet and network with others who share your passion for great content creation, and for whom normal working hours just aren't enough time to spend talking about editorial, copy, videos, infographics and just generally quality creative output. It's also for those who believe fervently that a couple of drinks and good company are a definite bonus when discussing all the exciting opportunities that exist in this industry. Why?
For Customer Experience, "Just OK" Is Not OK Excellent customer experiences fuel growth, drive loyalty, are emotionally rewarding, and inspire people to become vocal champions of brands and the organizations behind them. In 2012, three out of every four organizations recognized this and told Forrester that their goal was to “differentiate on the basis of customer experience.” In real life, most brands scored in the “OK” or “very poor” categories, according to Forrester’s 2012 customer experience index. Only 3% were ranked as “excellent,” a sharp decline that started in 2007 and is now at an all-time low. Going into 2013, we are finally at a place where despite nonstop and accelerating change, we have a better grasp of the ways in which people’s behaviors and attitudes continue to be reshaped by the digital age. Here’s a snapshot of what we know about the 3%: First and foremost, these organizations have a clear purpose that is visible and understood by all. We also know that getting started is often the key barrier. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Social Media Week 2012: A Bird's Eye View - Online Marketing Network Following on from the partnership between OMN London and Adobe for our hugely successful Social Media Week 2012 event in February, I’m belatedly posting the infographic that the guys at Adobe created using their Social Analytics platform to extrapolate some interesting data from the buzz around the event. There’s some fascinating stuff here, I particularly like the fact that there were enough tweets on Monday the 13th February using Social Media Week hash tags to create 12, yes 12! 40,000 word novels! Here’s another one: during the week, the overall reach of #SMWLDN was an incredible 39.9 million! Check out some of the other stats and key influencers in this infographic brought to you by @AdobeUK #AdobeSocial.
Who Needs Y Combinator, Anyway? Not These Two Dropouts The words “entrepreneur” and “dropout” are often associated; think Mark Zuckerberg, leaving Harvard for bigger things, or the young people goaded and funded by Peter Thiel. It’s easy to imagine a college student planning to drop out of school to join Y Combinator; rarer, though, is the person who has gotten his startup into that famous accelerator, only to abandon it. Yet that’s what Noah Ready-Campbell did. Not long after withdrawing their micropayments company from Y Combinator, the team decided to further pivot into a completely different business, a secondhand clothing marketplace for women called Twice. If The Shoe Doesn't Fit, Ditch It Ready-Campbell and Calvin didn’t bail on Y Combinator because of any real animosity for the program; it just wasn’t the right moment, nor was it the right fit. There was something else that irked them a little about Y Combinator. “No one dropped out,” Ready-Campbell says of their investors. A couple of bros were going to sell cute dresses online.
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3: K.I.S.S. (KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID) | 5 Trends That Will Shape Digital Services In 2013 At Fjord, we work across domains like media, health care, retail, education, and banking, and the work always involves an element of “new.” A new platform or technology, a new business proposition, or new target users. We work at the front edge of mainstream, where innovation meets mass-market appeal. The constant presence of “new” in our work feeds our curiosity, and makes exploration a necessity. In order to guide our work and inspire our clients, we constantly think about what tomorrow will bring. 1. Connected objects start to take their place--right by your side. The growing number of devices and sensors that we incorporate into our lives will set the scene for what Fjord calls “living services”--the point at which individual smart objects interconnect to form a support network for their owner. The past 18 months have seen the beginnings of mass-market adoption for a select few connected objects, driven by the services that make them meaningful. • Design for adaptability. 2. 3. 4.
Engage, don't broadcast: the need for authenticity in social media | Technology There is no charge for posting on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter or Google+, and, at first glance, they seem to offer a perfect opportunity to broadcast your marketing messages. But this is useless as the basis for a social media marketing strategy. "It seems obvious, but so many brands ignore the highly interactive – and, indeed, personal – nature of social media," says Liam Houghton at mobile app company Yuza. Successful social media marketing is about authentic interaction that inspires advocacy for your products and services, yielding trusted recommendations that are more effective than other forms of advertising. This is true whatever the size of your business. Peter Bassill, managing director of Hedgehog Security, says: "We are in a niche business sector, providing penetration testing and outsourced information-security services, so referrals and praise from customers via social media hold a lot of weight." How, then, do you win authentic advocates?
Online Marketing Networkers - London (London, England Online Marketing, talks, drinks... and all on a ship! This is a group for London's best, brightest and most passionate online marketers, with a particular focus on the more exciting areas of the digital marketing mix including content marketing, social media, SEO, digital PR, native advertising, mobile... actually it's all pretty interesting at the moment so we'll cover everything at one stage or another I'm sure! Purpose: To meet and network with others who share your passion for online marketing, and for whom working hours just ain't enough time to spend talking about digital. Who should join: Anyone interested in online marketing and up for talking about it. Why: If you're right for this group then you'll know why discussing link graphs, content distribution, new online brand awareness techniques , video marketing, SMO and mobile search over a few drinks is a good way to spend an evening!