Transparency in Business: Why It’s Important
Brand transparency is the key to success in the digital world. Being open in business has never been more important, whether it is content marketing, customer service, business model, or responding to a crisis. Transparency is a great way to gain customers’ trust, following, traffic, loyalty, sales by converting visitors into customers.
In the digital age, customers and your competitors have tons information online available to them than ever before. Brands that follow the model of being transparency win. Companies slowly understand that customers want honesty which begins with knowing your customers or audience by building a community and by engaging in an ongoing dialogue. Customers research and look into different resources before making a purchase. What it means is that people look for the truth and the marketing jargon is becoming outdated.
Companies that take the leap absolutely see the rewards. For example, Moz, a company that sells inbound marketing and marketing analytics software subscriptions. Moz is one of the most recognized marketing technology company and the company is known to be very transparent and authentic. In 2012, Moz published their funding and results in full detail for everyone to see.
Another example is Buffer, a social media management software company. Buffer published the salaries of every employee, including the CEO. This move was very bold and I am sure this move made some of their employees uncomfortable. The results of this transparency were quite amazing, the company was praised for its bravery and they were flooded with resumes and gained a tremendous traffic and engagement on their site. Besides displaying how much each employee is making, but also the formula for how they arrived at such a salary. For example, one blog post received more than 381 comments.
In 2008, Domino’s Pizza surveyed their customers and shared the results/news publicly, which included negative feedbacks. As a result, Domino’s Pizza used the negative feedback to ask their customers to help them fix the problems. By 2009, the company’s stock jumped from $7.73 to $105.11.
There are many other companies that could have changed the outcome of their crisis through being transparent. For example:
Qantas – Twitter Nosedive
Microsoft (Xbox One) – Online Service
Volkswagen- Emissions
Transparency is becoming a cornerstone of brand communication and one of the most important factors in customer engagement. Brands can no longer afford not to align what a brand says and what a brand does. Consumers are becoming more interested in what a brand stand for and seek more information about the brand.
One particular example stands out, during Xbox One launch in the midst of the confusion and anger about their online subscription. One employee tweeted ‘’sorry I don’t get the drama around having an ‘always –on’ console. That’s the world we live in. #dealwithit.’ This angered a lot of customers, and the employee was fired.
This shows that brands should dismantle silos, build a customer centric and transparent business model that must be followed by the entire organization, not by a single department.
So, what do you think about transparency? Share your views.
Beats by Dre
“People aren’t hearing all the music.”
Beats electronics founded in 2006 by legendary producer Andre Young, known as Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine. The company slogan is “People aren’t hearing all the music.”Beats family (products) includes headphones, ear buds, speakers and beats music.
In a social context, whoever wears or owns any Beats products are seen as a fashionable, flashy music enthusiast. Beats products are considered fun, trendy, good quality and high-performance products.
In the marketing world, Beats is known for its compelling campaigns and creative marketing strategies. Beats uses its product a certain image which allows the consumers to interact with their products. Beats use an image of quality and style of their product to attract desire. By making their products “cool” and trendy, as one of the strategies that make Beats stand out.
Strategy
It is unusual to see headphones or audio equipment advertising because many companies in this industry relied on the retailer’s recommendation to their clients.
Celebrity Influencers
Beats uses celebrity influencers in their campaigns (musicians, athletes, actors), they believe young people might idolize them. Below are the examples of celebrity influencers:
- JustBeats Solo by Justin Bieber
- Heartbeats by Lady Gaga
- PowerBeats by LeBron James
Compelling Campaigns/Visual Branding
Ambush Marketing
During World Cup 2014 and summer Olympics in London 2012, Beats used ambush marketing to capture their customers. To get its message across at the Olympics, Beats sent every athlete a pair of Beats headphones. Beats was also banned by FIFA at the World Cup 2014 and players from all 32 teams. Sony was the official sponsor. This generated a lot of buzz for Beats and although Sony sent free headphones to every team, players stuck with Beats. Just because the Beats was not the official sponsor, it did not stop them from spreading its message and have a presence. Beats is a fearless brand and it turned a negative situation into an opportunity. Beats used this Ad below:
Emotion
Beats uses emotions in most of their campaigns. For instance, “Hear What you Want” campaign, it uses real stories from athletes. Emotions play a huge role in marketing, and an effective way to connect with your audience/customers. Other companies like Dove have also used this strategy. Even if your product or brand is not emotional, it is important to implement a story that will connect with your consumers.
Beats remain authentic while they take risks, think outside the box and using an emotional feel to their products to boost their brand.
Social Responsibility
Beats by Dre fights for an Aids-free generation by creating (RED) merchandising. Beats contributes $5 from each Solo2 (PRODUCT) RED Special Edition. In addition, $17 from every purchase of Beats Loves (RED) Special Edition T-shirt.
Apple acquired beats music & beats electronics for $3.2 billion. Bingo!
Email Marketing
Email marketing is still one of the most effective marketing tactic. A research by Experian states that $1 invested in email marketing initiatives still yields roughly $44.25 return for marketers. Email marketing has the ability to create leads because most consumers find comfort with email marketing. When it arrives to lead generating, it is significant for marketers to decide their lead. For instance, your goal might be for consumer to fill out a form on your website or to download an e-book or an invite to attend a webinar.
I decided to check all the emails I receive on various accounts. I actually have many promotional emails are shopping related, mostly from shops I visited or made a purchase. These e-mails are personalized for me and the call to action is either to visit the site for a deal or to view my cart. Some shopping emails have the same pattern for mobile and desktop, but mostly the invention is different on mobile. The placement of the images is arranged narrow compared to desktop. I realized many emails have auto-downloaded images and the call to action is very clear.
Most of the marketing emails I receive on my NYU email are about digital marketing. For instance, free webinars, networking events and job recommendations.
The call to action of these emails is either to subscribe, apply or RSVP for an event and subject lines are very precise. The integration of social media networks on these emails is very crucial for my action as a consumer.
Email marketing is not the prettiest marketing tactic, but it is nevertheless one of the most efficient in acquiring leads efficiently. As a marketer, it is important to implement these steps: engaging subject line, relevant images, call to action, follow-up steps, integrate social links, and be concise. If you take these steps you will see an amazing lead engagement.
Marketo Blog – My Favorite Blog
The Marketo blog is one of my favorite marketing blog. This blog has so many features and categories to choose from social media to marketing automation as a digital marketer I find that very useful. The blog doesn’t have a lot of comments which is very un-usual for a blog of this magnitude, but most of their articles are shared on social media.
The most intriguing part of this blog is the fact that I can spend hours digging into the archives. On top of the page they have different sections like the new post, featured posts and hot posts. These features give me an option to which section I would like to visit. On the side of the blog, you can see the most shared articles, top articles and how a reader can connect with them on social media.
In addition, they offer podcast with different episodes plus their expertise on free tools and best practices for marketers.
This blog is very informative and as a reader, I feel a connection with the writer. This blog is a perfect example of “simplicity”.
“The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity” ~Walt Whitman
Digital Marketing Trends and Predictions for 2014
I would like to share with you all this info-graphic (2014 digital marketing trends and predictions). This info-graphic from Position2′s was too good not share with my followers and visitors/guests.
I believe in 2014 Marketers need to focus on Mobile, Content Marketing, Email Marketing, Marketing Automation and Social Media.
Share your thoughts about this info-graphic in the comments section?
Zappos Real-Time Marketing
Zappos, an online clothing store. After Kanye West lashed out against Zappos in a radio interview; defaming the company by telling the world that the company sells “Sh*t products”. Zappos’ quick response was a toilet plunger: new product line named “Zappos.com Gear Sh*t Product.”
I applaud Zappos for a quick response to a crisis mixed with good humor. The art of real-time marketing is making sure you’re always ready.
See the picture below.
Thanksgiving openings are the new normal, get with it or get left behind
Thanksgiving brought a huge crowd, with most people substituted turkey for a discount. Every year companies review their competitive market and how consumers are changing their shopping habits, what other retailers are doing and what methods they are espousing.
More than a dozen major retailers from Target to Staples opened on Thanksgiving. The Thanksgiving openings come despite planned protests across the country from workers’ groups that are against employees missing Thanksgiving meals and spending time with their beloved ones at home. In the past few years, many retailers were warming to the idea of opening on Thanksgiving night as they have now pushed up discounts that were reserved for Black Friday into early November.
This year, retailers made headlines on Thanksgiving Day in a greater number than ever before. Companies like Wal-Mart had adopted this method before, and more companies are following suit. Wal-Mart said more than 22 million people showed up to its stores on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, with an estimation of 10 million register transactions between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving. Toys ‘R’ Us in Manhattan had more than 200 people stood in line before its 5 p.m. opening.
Mall stores such as Old Navy and Abercrombie & Fitch also opened Thursday night. Some stores had people waiting to go into specific stores as early as 11 a.m., nine hours earlier than opening. Last year Macy’s, J.C. Penney and Kohl’s didn’t partake, but this year Macy’s drew a record-breaking crowd on Thanksgiving.
Target said it saw lines stretch for several blocks before its 8 p.m. openings. And Toys ‘R’ Us saw crowds gathering at 4:30 p.m. The online sales were also robust, with Adobe says online purchasing surpassed $1 billion for the first time. IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark said Thanksgiving web sales rose 20% from 2012, with an average order value of $127.59. Social media platforms like Instagram announced that Thanksgiving 2013 in the US was the busiest day on Instagram so far.
Thanksgiving opening is getting more popular, and it has in fact taken a bite out of Black Friday sales since last year. Sales on Thanksgiving were $810 million last year, an increase of 55 percent from the previous year as more stores opened on the holiday, according to Chicago research firm ShopperTrak. And sales dropped 1.8% to $11.2 billion on Black Friday, even though it was still the busiest and the biggest shopping day last year.
How Productive Social Media Managers Spend Their Day [infographic]
How Social Media Marketers/Managers handle their day-to-day challenges?
Social media marketing is becoming increasingly popular, as more and more businesses are warming up to social media. The social media battle is huge, and the demand for social media managers is on the rise. As a social media marketer, managing and maintaining all social media platforms is a challenging task. It requires keeping with industry news, trends and posting refreshing contents from a lot of resources. Another important aspect is engaging with others in the industry with regular chats, for instance, #brandchat.
For those who are still unsure how social media marketers spend their day-to-day challenges and work. Take a look at this info-graphic by RazorSocial that shows how a productive social media marketer spend their day, including social media management tools. If you want to be a smart social media marketer learn how productive social media marketers spend their time.
Courtesy of Razor Social.
Favorite Commercial
After I viewed most of the Ads (new and old) I picked Apple’s 1984 Mac Ad as one of the greatest, even though the budget was $900,000, one of the most expensive advertisements in television’s history. This ad was the birth of Apple; Steve Jobs thought that it would generate a buzz for the Macintosh without even featuring the product itself, this was a genius idea from one of the greatest thinkers ever. The storyboard was amazing, from hundreds of men listening to Big Brother on a huge screen to the model running into the room and destroying the screen with a baseball bat and freeing the men from Big Brothers grasp.
I read online that the response to the ad was so strong that Apple bought months of ad time on ScreenVision, a company that sold ad time in movie theaters. Some owners reaired the ad for months after Apple’s contract ran out with ScreenTime because they were so enamored with the commercial. Great ad and great concept.
Social Media Analytics Tools
Social media analytics is the practice of gathering data from social media websites, blogs such as Twitter, Facebook, Digg etc., and analyzing that data to make business decisions, ideas or solutions. Social media analytics are mostly used to support marketing or customer service activities, but this depends upon your type of business and your goal.
The first goal is to determine what are you trying to analyze and what is your end goal. For instance, some companies use analytics to find better ways to engage with customers, to reduce customer service costs, to determine the return on investment, feedback, or amending the public opinion of a particular product or service.
Once you identify your end goal, key performance indicators (KPIs) for objectively assessing the data should be placed. For example, on Twitter customer engagement might be measured by the number of followers, retweets, mentions or clicks on a link.
There are so many social media analytics tools that measure performance. Below are different social media analytics tools.
Works with all major social media channels
Facebook, Twitter, Vine, Instagram, YouTube, Google+, Klout, and Google Analytics; Tumblr, Pinterest, and LinkedIn is coming soon. With Simply Measured, analysis doesn’t stop with one profile. Measure the cohesive relationship between each network, your competitors’ social profiles, and how your audience interacts throughout the entire social space.
Hootsuite is one of those multi-function social media tools.
The leading social media dashboard to manage and measure your social networks. You can manage multiple social networks, schedule messages and tweets. Track brand mentions. Analyze social media traffic. 7 million+ satisfied users. You can post updates on a wide range of social media accounts: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube. Tumblr, WordPress.
Social marketing is all about relationships. With the new Adobe® Social, marketers finally have a comprehensive solution to build stronger connections through the content that’s guided by tangible data. Create the most relevant posts, monitor and respond to conversations, measure results, and connect social activities to business results.
Social Mention is a social media search engine that searches user-generated content such as blogs, comments, bookmarks, events, news, videos, and microblogging services. It allows you to easily track what people are saying about you, your company, a new product, or any topic across the web’s social media landscape in real time.
PageViral tracks real-time user behavior, sentiment, engagement and interaction patterns in 41 different languages. PageViral is one of the very few multilingual social media analytics platform in the industry. Multi-Lingual support is a subset of our natural language processing technology, which analyzes audience interactions in their own native language. You get to identify key influencers and understand your audience better, including how they feel towards your brand, how they engage, their active time intervals, etc.
Conclusion
In social media, it is important to determine if you’re reaching the right audience and connecting with them. Regular reports and metrics enables you to figure out the best solution and gain insights for your company or brand.
YAHOO! New Logo
Yahoo! Has unveiled its first major logo change in 18 years. Yahoo logo has been mostly the same since 1995, but the last logo update was 2009 (18 years ago). Yahoo spent the month of August releasing teaser designs one a day, which was a setup for a more exciting swerve on day 30. This new change is trying to breathe new life into the brand.
The new logo retains many of its predecessor’s qualities, but unless you have studied design it’s hard to differentiate the new logo with the old one. The logo retains the traditional elements, the color remains purple, though a bit darker, the letters capitalized and rounding off with the signature exclamation mark. In some versions the exclamation dances around. Overall the look is sleek, cleaner with a new sans-serif typeface. See the previous logo below.
The unveiling generated a lot of an unfavorable buzz on social media platforms. Most of them were in favor of the old logo and widely viewed the new logo as a let down. More than three-quarters of Internet users prefer Yahoo’s old logo to the new logo, according to a survey of more than 400 online respondents Thursday from Survata, a market research group. See below.
My $0.02
Most people hate change, I would have guessed even before the release that consumers would vote for the old logo. This new logo is close to the old one, and I may not be a designer but that is a good outcome for Yahoo and its customers because they haven’t made a major change. Consumers can still identify with the color purple as well as the exclamation mark, and these two are the most important symbols for Yahoo.
In most recent years, companies like Gap, J.C. Penney, MasterCard, Microsoft and Tropicana have experienced disastrous logo changes. Yahoo will not experience a similar fate because it has clearly communicated through the change with the 30-day rollout. Most importantly Yahoo is not a physical product that consumers need to locate in stores. I doubt somebody will quit using Yahoo because the logo is so “a decade ago”.
The new logo shows a more serious look, signaling to consumers, investors, others in the tech world and employees that change is occurring. The 30-day rollout was successful in creating a buzz about Yahoo and sharing these variations prepared consumers for the change.
Even though this new logo generated a lot internet hate but if you think about it, a bad Yahoo logo made everyone talk about it. It was a successful campaign to get the media and consumers stay afloat for 30 days. On the whole, people are paying attention to Yahoo again. I believe in no time consumers will get used to the new logo. By the way, I like the new Yahoo fantasy football (soccer) layout. I Play for fun with people around the globe.
New Yahoo logo live stream.
The logo concept..
Placebo Effect in Advertising
This A new study suggests that the placebo effect can be invoked by advertisements.
As with all kinds of placebo effects, the placebo effect plays an important role in advertising especially during drug trials. The strongest factor behind the placebo’s in advertising is that it can influence the actual effectiveness of a product.
The expectations play an important role in the placebo effect; companies use the placebo effect in advertising to influence customer buying behavior. For instance, a placebo effect on price, you’ve probably had discovered that many companies sell items at $99.99 instead of $100.00 or at “25 percent off the retail price.
From a scientific standpoint, it’s a positive response which does not derive from the actual ingredients but from the patient’s perception and expectations. These expectations can lead to inappropriate and excessive prescribing. Just as placebo (Latin word) means, “I shall please”
http://io9.com/bizarre-study-shows-that-advertising-improves-effective-992610371
Infographic: Over 7.5 million Africans on LinkedIn; South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt account for over 60% of users
Africa is the world’s second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. Social media in general is taking Africa by storm . Over 7.5 million Africans use LinkedIn, over 20% are entry-level, and the majority of the users are ages 18-34, most of them are male. LinkedIn is quickly gaining popularity among working class professionals in Africa though it is still far less popular compare to Facebook and Twitter. Other countries with the fastest growing number of users include Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Algeria, Morocco, and Cameroon as seen in the images below.
Social Media Marketing Strategy
Social media marketing refers to the process of gaining traffic or attention through social media sites. Social media can also be viewed as a monitoring tool, widely used to inform customer service, product development and marketing activities.
Social media marketing uses technology to build relationships, drive repeat business and attract new customers through friends sharing with friends. Social media marketing not only increases branding and website traffic, it is a powerful influence in overall search engine optimization.
Social media marketing can help you increase the activity around these top goals:
- Website traffic and user behavior (external and internal tracking)
- Conversion and sales tracking
- Page views, ad exposure
- Raising brand awareness
- Creating a positive brand association and keeping it there
- Broader customer reach
When shifting gears from traditional marketing to social media, it is important for a company to prepare a scheme. The strategy begins with a focus, which include goals. And those goals can include short and long-term goals. When you think about social media, it is important to remember to set realistic business goals. For example: Are you going to generate leads, answer complaints, engage with customers, or something else? Will you be doing all the above? How will this relate to other functions and tools, like the rest of the marketing plan or the rest of customer service? Try to stay focused and be specific.
Social Media Marketing Strategy (Influence and ROI)
Social media can be used for different goals. For example, Oprah’s opinion on literature has inspired millions to choose titles from her book club. But you don’t have to be Oprah to have influence. You influence your friend when she listens to a song you recommend on Facebook. You influence your coworker when he checks an article you posted on LinkedIn and shares it with someone else. Social actions like these are reflections of influence.
As a company you can influence one customer to another. For example, a loyal customer can act upon others by a simple tweet, feedback or an RT (retweet) that mentions the brand. It is important for organizations to focus on cultivating the engagement and not figures.
Define your target audience and find specific areas of expertise. Don’t try to cater to everyone. Alternatively, if you are really keen to progress to power users, key decision makers and influencers, your content should be designed around your market. Social media is simple and yet complicated.
It’s complicated because you have to know your audience so well that you know exactly what social media platforms they use regularly. Is it Facebook? Twitter? YouTube? LinkedIn? The focus should be which social network is generating more audience and engagement, see the example:
ROI = (Gain from the Investment – Cost of Investment) /Cost of the Investment
Marketing VS. ROI
Social media marketing should never be done as a stand-alone campaign, and it should always support your other marketing initiatives. Social media is not an activity that can exist on its own. For social media to be beneficial, it is important to co-exist alongside other activities such as offline marketing, digital marketing, public relations, and advertising.
Social Media Strategy (ROI and Audience)
Social Media Marketing is not necessarily a direct sales tool, but is effective at engaging your audience, conversations, expand web presence, build brand awareness, generate expose and provides SEO (Search Engine Optimization) benefits.
Some marketers say social media has no ROI but is great for:
- Brand building
- Relationship management
- Product development
- Reputation management
- Customer interaction
- Customer feedback
- Customer support
- Community building
Jeffrey Hayzlett, former Kodak CMO said: “Social media is not a campaign. It is a commitment.” Meaning a social media plan should cover your immediate and short-term while keeping an eye to the fact that technology changes all the time, if not daily. Don’t be surprised that some of the tools you chose are outdated by the time you get around accessing them. Flexibility is the key to success in business today.
One of the most frequent questions is that how do you measure ROI on social media? It is possible, but it’s not black and white. The same question could be asked about how can you measure ROI on organizational emails. The absence of social media, a striking example: an email in your organization would lead to an implicit cost of being in business. You can get greater profits using social media marketing that can help cut expenses and increase revenue.
For example: more traffic equals more profit.
Social Media Strategist (Return On Investment)
Measuring Social media ROI is like asking a sales person what is the ROI of a phone call. They only way to discover the answer is by tracking a volume of phone calls and looking at the conversion rate, understanding those converted and those who replicated the effort. It can be applied to customer service as well, what’s the ROI for great customer service? We know companies that have great customer service tend to be more profitable than those without it, but is it a truly quantifiable return on dollars spent?
The Return On Investment in social media can be measured by looking at:
- Mentions — people are talking about your business and your product.
- Traffic — track the number of people who visit your site or blog, Fan your Facebook page, or follow you on Twitter.
- Positive feedback — look at what people are “saying” about your product. Engage with your customers through social media.
- Tracking promotional codes — How many people are clicking on a link? You can track clicks on specific urls by using url shortener: bit. ly.
- Other sites like Google Analytics, Spring Metrics, Facebook Insights, Tweetreach
Solution:
A company can measure their ROI from social media by tracking which posts and tweets are driving traffic to the site, converting these trends to sales number.
It is important to keep in mind; social media is about sharing and connecting, creating a meaningful conversation around relevant content and encourage feedback.
There is a difference between traditional marketing and social media marketing. In traditional marketing, you throw out a message to millions of people who couldn’t care less. In social media marketing, you find the people who are already talking about your message and join the conversation.
Without a well thought social media strategy, is worse than neglecting social media altogether.
Facebook and Mobile Users In Africa
Facebook is most popular social media platform in Africa. Facebook is playing an integral part of the lives of over 1.15 billion people across the globe (Social media usage). Facebook is the world’s largest social networking site; it has over 50 million users in Africa. Egypt is the takes first place with 13,010 580 Facebook users in Africa, followed by South Africa and Nigeria rounds of the top three.
Most would agree that Facebook wasn’t so popular in Africa before the advent of Smartphone. Social media and internet usage is on the rise, statistics show that Africa is enjoying the highest subscription growth rate in the world. The estimated growth is about 60% to just less than 1 billion by 2015, from 800 million subscribers up from 500 million in 2010. These are impressive figures for the African economy.
The Internet and mobile technology are transforming the lives of many people in Africa. It’s worth to mention that Africa has surpassed Europe and the U.S. in the number of mobile phone users (Africa has more mobile subscribers than the US and EU). In Africa, mobile phones are so popular that most people own a cell phone than landlines.
Click on the link below to view more about mobile and internet usage in Africa
Small business owners and social networking
600 small business owners are engaging in social networking and 90% are actively engaging, meanwhile 74% find social networking as valuable. Social media opens your business to different opportunities and it builds great foundation for your business. Over 300,000 businesses have a presence on Facebook one-third of these are small businesses. Google alone has about 2 billion searches a day. It is very important for small business to utilize social networking and engage with customers. You have to make sure that your social media strategy goals are met and using social media the right way means you will also have to listen to your customers/audience. If you a small business owner and taking advantage of this, I urge you to do so because the benefits are huge.
The Marketing Explorer 
I Got Schooled: Blogging and Content Tips
Great lessons from Todd Giannattasio, President, CEO The Tresnic Media.
Once you have established your content and SEO, the next is to promote your blog content on various social media channels. This is a great way to get your blog in front of the right audience by creating awareness. When your content is shared on different social media channels it will be reached by current followers, reposted, or retweeted which will help you reach a new audience. As a blogger, you should have an email list, this is a great way to provide consistent traffic from those subscribed to your updates.
One great platform, that is very useful to cross promote is LinkedIn groups. Keep in mind the most important is owning your platform, but LinkedIn is very good when it comes to engaging with members of the group. This can create an opportunity to be recognized as “Top Influencer” in the group which builds visibility. Later on you can start your own group and invite others to join the conversation. One should also remember it is extremely important to avoid promoting, a better way to do this is posting articles that solve problems and not sales-related materials.
Final recommendation from Todd is to have a long-term goal. For instance; Todd’s goal is to become the number one content marketer on twitter. Last advice is comments that you can choose to turn comments “off”. It becomes are a matter of preference whether you allow comments or not.
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