Ally Manock

By Dan Zarrella

I like Peer Index. They’re helpful, friendly, quick to respond and improve their system….and now they’ve given me a free book. Yay!

I’m not sure what your PeerIndex score has to be to be considered influential for PeerPerks. Give it a try…see if you are eligible for a free copy by going to: http://www.peerindex.com/vip/pear-shaped  …and fill in your Twitter or Facebook details.

Looking at the impact on brand metrics is a preoccupation of any social media manager or digital planner worth their salt. Likes and shares are great, but those interactions have to actually mean something!

Trouble is, there isn’t much research around. BzzAgent (social media marketing arm of dunnhumby) are trying to rectify that.

Beginning in summer 2010 they began studying the immediate and lingering results of several social media marketing campaigns involving consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands in the USA (or FMCG as we call them here in the UK) and brand advocates.

Purchase Intent in Social Media

Before the campaign, 38% said they would purchase as would recommend the brand.

Immediately after the campaign, the number shot up more than 30 percentage points and remained at 69% for three months. After a year, purchase intent was still elevated as high as 61%.

Read the full article at eMarketer.

Whoops!

2012 search predictions: the experts’ view | Econsultancy

I don’t think that prediction is all that crazy  ;-)

Some basic (but handy!) tips from Flowtown.com on improving the SEO for your local business. If you do own a small business, make sure you are getting each other these right:

1. Get Links From Local Sources Sites that link to you help bolster your presence in search rankings, and sites associated with your location that link to you will help connect your business in search engine algorithms. Case Ernsting of Search Engine Journal recommends submitting your business info to local directories, community databases, and even your hometown’s Wikipedia page to get encourage links to your site.

2. Work Under One Domain Name Sure you want to be recognized and use different online outlets for different thing, but having multiple websites for different services or aspects of your business can confuse the consumer—and reduce your overall search engine pull, says the Small Business Administration. It’s wiser to keep all online activity under one name.

3. Encourage Reviews Though many small business owners shy away from reviews for fear of a bad one, search engines factor online reviews into your ranking. Think of it this way: The more people are talking about you, the more popular you are. Ask friends and customers to review you on sites like Yelp.

4. Add Content to Your Site Whether it’s a blog, industry news, announcements, or event recaps, adding new content your site is imperative. This creates new pages that can be optimized with new keywords, expanding your company’s reach in the eyes of search engines. You can then encourage links to that content from other sites.

5. Include Content Links on Your Social Media Sites Post links to your site on social sites like Facebook and Twitter. As Search Engine Land notes, search engines are starting to crawl and track these links back to your site.

6. Title All Web Pages Many SEO rookies forget to make a separate title for each web page, losing an opportunity to give search engines more content to review. SEO expert Andrew Shotland recommends putting the most important keywords at the beginning of the title and adding your city name to the titles to hone in on local searches.

7. Make All Titles SEO-Friendly Whether a blog post headline, URL, or file name, use keywords in all titling. Rich Hargrave of Local Search Source notes, however, that a URL with more than three hyphens can look like spam. Keep naming conventions simple but relevant.

8. Add Text to Audio and Visuals Search engines scan text to determine relevancy. If your fancy website is heavy on audio, video, or pictures, it may be visually appealing, but search engines won’t recognize anything. Make sure to include text in the form of captions or transcripts with any of this type of content.

9. Input Correct Keywords Keywords are the lifeblood of your site’s SEO, so make sure yours are accurate and relevant to the type of consumer you want to attract. You can review Google’s Keyword Tool to find applicable terms. Also take the time to target keywords for individual pages on your site. The SBA recommends three targeted keywords per page.

10. Use Google Analytics Google Analytics is a free analytics software package that offers data about your website traffic and how it’s performing in search engine rankings. Periodic review of this can clue you in to trends or areas you can improve.

1. Use video

2. Initiate your video automatically

3. Match the ad with the site content

4. Use richer, more visible ad formats

5. Use synched ads

6. Take advantage of dynamic creative optimisation

7. Integrate exchanges into the media buy

More from Ariel Geifman (principal research analyst, MediaMind) at http://www.brandrepublic.com/research/1109742/Seven-best-practices-building-smart-ad/

The Sun Online has made the decision to replace pre-roll advertising with InSkin Media’s consumer-controlled wrap-around ad format, as part of its wider strategy to focus on sponsorships and drive traffic to the site. The ads wrap around online video and remain visible for the viewing duration. As soon as a user interacts with the brand messaging, the video content pauses and won’t restart until the ad has finished

Interesting article on TheNextWeb

Online affiliate marketing is a proven way in which brands and marketers can drive sales, transactions, and awareness about their products through a third party partner.

The affiliate marketing gurus advocate the benefits of this performance-based tactic as an opportunity for advertisers to pay only for proven results. At the same time however, seasoned marketers warn that its cost-benefit analysis does not always pan out.

Digital Media Curation, Dilbert style.

A recent study of eight major FMCG campaigns to measure cross-media advertising on short-term sales.

It showed that Online Advertising is best for ROI

“The average short-term online sale for digital advertising is calculated at 75p, compared to 66p for press, 53p for outdoor and, a surprisingly low 43p for TV.”

For more info, go to: http://www.brassagency.com/blog/online-advertising-overtakes-tv-for-best-roi/

The Evolution of the Transaction: How Humans Have Paid For Things Over the Millennia (by Flowtown)

I’ve just got a new ‘contactless’ debit card…eager to try it out!

In discussions about new media, you will often hear the division of media opportunities as Paid, Owned, and Earned media (P.O.E.M.)

Brian Solis believes that using Paid, Promoted, Owned, Shared, and Earned is a better way to categorise.

He has once again partnered with JESS3 to visualise this:

Introducing The Brandsphere

Social networks and channels present brands with a broad array of media opportunities to engage customers and those who influence them. Each channel offers a unique formula for engagement where brands become stories and people become storytellers. Using a transmedia approach, the brand story can connect with customers differently across each medium, creating a deeper, more enriching experience. Transmedia storytelling doesn’t follow the traditional rules of publishing; it caters to customers where they connect and folds them into the narrative. In any given network, brands can invest in digital assets that span five media landscapes:

1. Paid: Digital advertising, banners, adwords, overlays

2. Owned: Created assets, custom content

3. Earned: Brand-related conversations and user-generated content

4: Promoted: in-stream or social paid promotions vehicles (e.g. Twitter’s Promoted products and Facebook’s Sponsored Stories)

5. Shared: Open platforms or communities where customers co-create and collaborate with brands. (e.g. Dell’s IdeaStorm and Starbuck’s MyStarbucksIdea.)

Any combination of the five media strategies defines a new Brandsphere where organizations can capture attention, steer online experiences, spark conversations and word of mouth can help customers address challenges or create new opportunities. Each media channel connects differently with people and thus requires a dedicated approach integrating tangible and intangible value. Doing so ensures a critical path for social media content: relevance, reach and resonance.