A presentation posted by Lee Odden on Nov 18th, 2013 has given out some inspiration of B2B social media marketing trends & Tips for 2014.

Attached is the short presentation he will be giving this week in Moscow (in addtion to a 3.5 hours social media marketing workshop)

While there are flavorings towards a Russian audience, (Yandex, Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki) there’s also plenty of good advice for any B2B company that hasn’t fully embraced opportunities on the social web.

In particular, He thinks newer B2B marketers will appreciate the Social Media Marketing Maturity Model that outlines various stages that companies will experience as they gain more experience and confidence with social media.

Back in those days, the term microsites had often been used interchangeably with mini-sites, those one page stand-alone Web pages used by direct marketers in the 90s.

Microsites are perfectly acceptable to serve as landing pages or hubs for search engine advertising. This is one main reason for creating microsites –  to create a hiper-focused website that meets the needs of a specific search query – and to satisfy Google’s Quality Score criteria.

Pros of using Microsites:

• Visitors can quickly navigate to the content most relevant to their search
• Marketers can use the data from those choices to naturally segment their audience
• Build around a set of reusable templates that let you leverage the design assets of one microsite concept across a number of campaigns
• Microsites live outside the formal framework of your main website, they can often be deplyed quickly
• Use A/B testing to compare the performance of one microsite against an alternative single-page landing page.

Cons of using Microsites:

• Forces users to adapt to different user interfaces when they stumble across the microsite while exploring the main site
• May cause confusion
• A poorly designed microsite can actually reduce conversions
• To  make a microsite effective, requires long-term maintenance, which can be expensive.

 

Read more about microsites:

Content Marketing With Microsites: Pros, Con, Examples & Best Practices

 

According to a study by Lab42, the No.1 reason people like a Facebook page is to receive a discount or other promotion. To utilize this finding to drive online sales for your business, images and graphics that feature discounts and promotions are an engaging way to give your Facebook fans what they want.

Here are the six ways for commerce brands to boost online sales using graphics on Facebook.

#1: Offer Promotional Codes for Holiday Sales

• Include a promotional code allow company to track revenue from your campaign.

#2: Reward Fans Who Tell a Friend

• Unlock a special promo code IF your image receives a certain number of shares
• This also increases organic engagement

#3: Show Off Product Features
#4: Give a Free Gift with Purchase
#5: Countdown to a Deadline

• A Countdown promo keeps your fans hyper-engaged for an extended period time.
• Create a graphic that reveals, for example, a 24-hour sale on a different popular product from your ecommerce store each day for 10 days.

#6: Promote a Limited-Time Offer

• An image that promotes a limited-time offer helps create the sense of urgency needed to drive sales now.

For more detail, please go to:

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-sell-on-facebook-using-images/#more-49515

 

I recently read a post named “Social Media Doesn’t Hurt My Offline Social Abilities, It Helps Them” by Daniel Etcobitch. With curiosity, I read through it and found that the author use following points to support his argument.

• With social media, we can get feedback on the value of what we’re saying, such as Facebook ‘likes’ or Twitter ‘favorites’.
• Get a more genuine metric of the quality of your post as people often engage in an unprovoked action in a no-pressure environment.
• Use social media to learn more about the people we want to interact with.
• Social media gives us more practice in social interactions.

I agree with most of the points that Daniel listed. However, we should also consider the downside of social media. Social Media is like a two-side sword, if we use it properly, it would help us expend personal networks and maintain better relationships; however, scandal or gossip can also spread quickly and broadly throughout the network. Those rumors may not be real but can bully anyone in the network. Social Media is no difference than any other conversation happens in real life; it does have impact on people’s day-to-day life.

If people can utilize social media properly, they will certainly get some valuable abilities which can be transferred to real life, if not, then don’t use it. In a word, whether social media can help offline social abilities, depend on the personality and civic virtue of the user network.

 

Reference: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-etcovitch/social-media-doesnt-hurt-_b_4289032.html

 

 

One day when I was on YouTube, an advertisement caught my eyes. It was introducing the Chromebook. The dynamic background music and fresh-looking animation first got my attention. But soon I found out the idea was really awesome!

Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVqe8ieqz10

• Chromebook is defined as something neither a laptop nor a computer but a “web in a computer-like object”.
• There are no programs – you don’t need to start up, and just seconds and you are on the web. You can do everything on the web such as using Google document, Google map etc.
• No desktop and not even a desktop background
• Is portable
• Everything is saved to the web “since it has more space than any computer”
• Doesn’t need virus protection and systems are updated automatically

Despite the brilliant ideas, I have got some concerns for it.

• Security Issue:

Everything you do will be recorded as some form of data to the web which means there is risk they will be exposed.

• Backward Compatibility

How does Chromebook understand data generated by other devices such as laptop or computer? it seems that it is designed only for people who just want to surf the internet and that’s all

 

 

 

Here are some of the most interesting digital marketing statistics we’ve seen this week.

Stats include mobile adspend, hotel search volumes, jobs at tech startups, Google’s dominance of web traffic, big data, retargeting and social media.

For more digital marketing stats, check out our Internet Statistics Compendium.

1. Mobile adspend up 127% to £429m in first half of 2013

– Mobile adspend in the UK grew to £429.2m in the first half of 2013, an increase of 127% compared to the same period last year.

2. UK boutique hotels prove to be a popular holiday choice

– There were three times as many online searches for lifestyle and boutique hotels in the UK than there were for those located in short-haul and long-haul destinations combined, according to analysis of specialist hotels search data from Greenlight.

3. Social media trumps focus groups

– A new Crimson Hexagon survey of 170 digital marketing and advertising professionals found that 72% of respondents said that they now consider social media to be a more reliable source of public sentiment than traditional focus groups.

4. UK jobs figures show tech startups’ hiring up 44% year-on-year

– A new survey by Silicon Milkroundabout has found that there are more jobs than ever before in UK tech startups, and the competition for tech talent is intensifying.

Tech hubs around the country, including east London’s Silicon Roundabout/Tech City cluster, are hiring for 4,753 positions, up 44% since 2012.

5. Google takes one in twenty web visits

– In the UK Google Search has 86% market share and the story is pretty similar across the other countries.

6. Average UK family home contains 10 devices

– Families in the UK are using instant messaging and video calls to talk to each other in the home, according to new research from Microsoft Advertising.

The average family home contains 10 different devices, with almost six (57%) of these connected to the internet. These devices are encouraging family members to second screen, with three quarters (73%) of those surveyed saying they use a separate smartphone, tablet or laptop while watching TV.

7. 7% of marketing departments take responsibility for big data

– The Stibo Systems survey revealed that, bbig data, despite being used across different business units, 61% of senior managers said their company’s data was held by the IT department, with only 7% saying it was the property of marketing, 21% saying finance, and 9% admitting to not knowing who owned their business’s data.

8. Retargeting FTW

– The survey of 2,000 online shoppers found that 88% of people say they are open to online retailers following up by email after they abandon an online purchase and over a third (35%) say they actively welcome the assistance.

9. Consumer use of online maps

– An Infogroup survey of almost 1,000 US consumers found that between a third and half of consumers using navigation systems (48%), smartphones (40%) and online maps (32%) for driving directions get lost at least once a month

10. Concerns over site speed

-A survey by PEER 1 Hosting found that 50% of respondents admitted that the speed of their site was the factor they were most concerned about.

 

Reference: http://econsultancy.com/ca/blog/63566-10-interesting-internet-marketing-statistics-we-ve-seen-this-week

Foursquare, a location-based services company, said in a blog post today that it’s expanding a pilot program to encourage businesses to buy ads through its self-service platform.

The platform allow local businesses to connect with people nearby by building their ad  on Foursquare’s website : frousquare.com/ads. The ads will live for people nearby to see.

Meanwhile, Foursquare also provide data for merchant to know how many people access their ads, how many have tapped on it, and how many actually came into their store.

Jeremy Kagan, chief executive officer at online marketing firm Pricing Engine, who has been keeping tabs on the beta version of the ad program. “It’s about as close as social media can get to measuring return on investment without going into the point-of-sale system,” he says.

 

Reference:

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-14/foursquare-uses-skepticism-about-online-ads-to-lure-main-street

http://blog.foursquare.com/2013/10/14/big-news-today-were-opening-up-foursquare-ads-to-all-small-businesses-around-the-world/

 

Snapchat is a photo messaging application developed by Stanford University students. Using the app, users can take photos, record videos, add text and drawings, and sent them to a controlled list of recipients. These sent photographs and videos are known as “Snaps”.

Snapchat announced Snapchat Stories Wednesday, a new feature that allows users to compile photos and videos taken through the app into a montage of sorts that will live on for 24 hours. Now when users take photos and videos, they can elect to include them in their Snapchat Story, which is viewable an unlimited number of times by any of their friends. (You can also make stories available to the public.)

The new update could mean a handful of positive changes for Snapchat as well as a menetization conversation for the startup. In many ways, the new feature changes the nature of the app, moving ti away from private sharing to a more public, Instagram-type function.

 

Reference: http://mashable.com/2013/10/04/snapchat-stories-future/

 

Brand marketer mobile budgets surged 142 percent between 2011 and 2013, according to IAB analysis of figures released in this new IAB study, produced by Ovum, which updates the landmark “Marketer Perceptions of Mobile Advertising” survey of 2011. This finding supports the prior study’s prediction that brand marketers’ mobile advertising budgets were on the uptick. In addition, the survey showed that the number of marketers who maintained annual mobile budgets exceeding $300,000 more than quadrupled, rising from merely 7 percent in 2011 to 32 percent this year.

• This is the second survey based study that Ovum has produced for the IAB’s Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence, building on the first, ground breaking survey conducted in 2011. Both surveys were conducted among marketers at 300 US companies active in mobile advertising.
• This 2013 iteration uses a fresh sample, provides a B2B and B2C perspective and introduces new questions, reflecting changes that have taken place in mobile advertising over the last two years.
• The findings presented in this study provide a unique insight into mobile advertising from a buyer perspective, and the results are once again both positive and challenging.

 

Reference: http://www.iab.net/ovumstudy

As social media has stepped into many areas in our daily life, it is essential for hospitals and health providers to rethink their healthcare marking mix to include social media. According to research data from How America Searches: Health and Wellness, 34% of consumers use social media to search for health information.

To help understand the possible applications, consider these five examples of how the social web can work for hospitals and others in the healthcare industry:

         1.  Tweet Live Procedures

Last February, Henry Ford Hospital became one of the first hospitals to Tweet a live procedure from an operating room. Doctors, medical students and curious non-medical personnel followed along as surgeons tweeted short updates on the kidney surgery to remove a cancerous tumor.

         2.  Train Medical Personnel

Weaving social media into healthcare training initiatives can provide multiple benefits, including:

• Giving trainees a forum to ask questions and quickly receive answers
• Providing presenters with immediate feedback from trainees (i.e., if trainees have mastered a concept of if more guidance is needed)
• Enabling organizations to complement healthcare marketing efforts by sharing slideshows, video or pictures from training sessions on social sites like YouTube or Flickr

3.  Reach Mainstream Media

As part of healthcare marketing efforts, organizations can use social media channels – including blogs, forums and microblogs – to share success stories from out-of-the-ordinary operations or treatments, medical research or other significant achievements. For example, when Aurora Health Care tweeted a knee operation in April, it received significant media attention, both from mainstream media and industry publications including Good Morning America, the local Milwaukee public radio network and Hospital Management Magazine.

4.  Communicate in Times of Crisis

Widman shared with Found In Cache Blog the results of the social media crisis communication efforts:

• Twitter followers increased 78% in just three days
• Scott & White Healthcare was listed on the front page of Twitter as a “trending topic”
• The hospital’s YouTube channel was ranked the 79th most viewed non-profit channel during the entire week surrounding the crisis

5.  Provide Accurate Information to Patients

73% of patients search for medical information online before or after doctors visits, according to this video from the HealthCare New Media Conference. With the magnitude of health information available on the web – both accurate and inaccurate – it’s likely that these patients can easily be misinformed. Continue reading →