How to beat Google? What if Facebook and Apple decide to join together?

This is just a thought but i might happen.

Yesterday on Facebook I read a post from Mark Zuckerberg: "I’m excited to announce that we’ve agreed to acquire WhatsApp and that their entire team will be joining us at Facebook"

Well, as online marketer, I have huge respect for Facebook and Mark :) (he helps me with paying my bills!!)
I am addicted to WhatsApp (don't use sms anymore) and I always wondered how these guys made money without advertising and without "using" users data (now I know!!!!).

On the other hand.. there is Google! Yes, Google helps me paying my bills.. BIG TIME! Google is always with me: my tablet, my browser, my maps, my Hangouts with my family and colleagues! Love it..

And then there is my mobile (which is not really a mobile device, given that the battery life is less than 3 hours when I use it): my IPhone 5: I use Google, WhatsApp, Facebook and more with it! 

So..what's the story?
The story is that whilst Google is the big big big boss of the Online Wonderland by owning Search, Hardware (Nexus, Motorola... Social (G+), Android, maps and more & more.... there is the "little" Facebook, ambitious enough to fight against the colossal Google - making the world more open and connected! (I personally adore the concept of social search).

Apple? they are cool, they used to be innovative.. but there is something missing now.. or maybe just somebody!

I have a vision: Facebook + Apple together against Google ... will this ever happen? Let's see...



 PS: Thank you Paulina for inspiring me. Paulina.. inspiring people!

Valentine's competition on Izabel.com

Facebook applications: how to make a Facebook page engaging? A promotion ran on facebook app che be the right way to collect fans and reward loyal customers :) Feel free to join the competition: £200 izabel.com shopping voucher could be an amazing prize to win

SEO#2: How to measure the success of your SEO strategy? Set the right KPIs!

Today we speak about KPIs: Key Performance Indicators.
What's the difference between Goals/Objectives and KPIs?
I am sure many of you will find this question very easy to answer.
You will be surprised to know how many senior managers don't know this difference.

The presentation below will help you running the right SEO reports listing the most relevant SEO KPIs related to your strategy.

It's very common to see huge reports (please note that nowadays most of them are automated) with metrics that don't have absolutely nothing to do with the strategy of the company.

An advice for senior managers and business owners: NEVER TRUST HUGE REPORTS!

As usual I try to keep things easy: the objectives will tell you the direction and the KPIs will tell you if you are on the way to reach your destination.
To know more about SEO objectives and how to set them, read the SEO objectives goals I wrote for you.

So, if your objective is to go from Paris to Milan in less than 12 hours spending less than £200, your KPIs will be something like:
- Average Speed
- Average Consume
- Planned breaks
Many marketers will include also "Number of autovelox in New York": although this information is very interesting, it's not relevant to your objective so.. let's take this out!

So, how do you measure the success of your SEO strategy?

PS: thank your www.smartinsights.com for teaching me so many things!

SEO#1: How to set SEO goals?

Here we go: my first SEO guide!

I want to follow the same approach I had long time ago with PPC: training myself to train somebody else.

The 8 slides below quickly and easily describe the common mistakes that usually people do when setting SEO goals and my suggestions.. ok they are not 100% mine but the result of a long research ;)

On purpose I decided not to use technical words as this guide is not for digital marketing expert and.. I am a fan of the KISS strategy (Keep It Simply Stupid).

What are your SEO goals?

1) BRAND AWARENESS

2) PRODUCT/SERVICE AWARENESS?

3) AWARENESS/REACH OF CONTENT?

4) INCREASING LEADS, SALES and NEW CUSTOMERS

5) SOCIAL REACH OF CONTENT

Would love to read your comment.

PPC - Something to consider when evaluating and optimising a campaign

I built a simple table where you can easily see the relationship between CPC (cost per click), CPA (cost per acquisition) and CR (conversion rate) when evaluating and optimising a PPC campaign.
 The table below answers for example to the following questions: 

1. Given a cpc and a max CPA, what's the minimum CR we need to have a successful campaign? This means:If you pay an average cost per click of £1 and you don't want to spend more than £10 per conversion --> check the table --> your campaign and landing page should guarantee at least 10% conversion rate (= every 10 clicks, 1 conversion.
2. The conversion rate of my campaign is XX but I am spending to much per conversion. How much should I low the cpc in order to match my target CPA?This means: If your current CR is 10% and you want to spend 5£ (instead of £10) for your conversions --> check the table --> your cpc from 1 should go down to £0.50 I hope this helps.

Feel free to contact me if you want the xls file or if you simply need help reading the table.

Social Media Tools: Monitoring, Engaging, Reporting. How to select the right tool?

I have to select a Social Media tool to make my life easier (automating manual jobs) and to add quality to the info I provide my clients with.

There are lots of tools available in the market, some of them are for free, some are paid, some are very expensive!

Internet is full of information, guides, comparison tables and so on.

Where to start from?

Well, first thing I did was reading my bible (http://www.smartinsights.com) and I came across very interesting articles, I would highlight one in particular about "Requirement for Social Listening tools".

Then I shortlisted 3 tools and tested them for few hours each and this is my feedback:

- Radian 6: although is considered to be one of the most popular tool, especially after it was acquired by SalesForce, I haven't tested it because I was very disappointed with the sales team. I sent them an email requesting info and trial account and they replied with few lines about the the features and the different product they have with relative price. They also added link to 1 minute Youtube videos in case I was interested in getting more details. Poor customer service, very expensive product: Radian 6 out!

- HootSuite: I use it every day and I think it's one of the best social networks management tool, I would go for a pro account ($9.99/month) just to have the possibility to upload content by using the bulk uploader. In terms of report, I have found it a bit poor and sometimes not accurate.

- Sysomos: it was suggested to me by my colleague Simon and so far it's my favorite tool. Michael, the sales guy who came to give me a face-to-face demo (different type of service compared to Radian 6), in less than 60 minutes, gave me a complete training on how to use to
he tool. I had a trial for few days and I have found it easy to use and useful: the amount of data offered, coverage, data latency, data export, and types of reports available were exactly what I was looking for. Unfortunately Sysomos doesn't have yet an alert system, but I am sure they are working on it.

Anyway, the budget allocated for the Social Media tool was not enough to buy Sysomos, so next week I have to test 3 different tools: I think I will go for http://simplymeasured.com/, http://sendible.com/ and ... do you want to suggest the 3rd one?

My advice to you is: before testing any tool, make sure you know what you want to listen, measure and report on, then test the tools accordingly.

Back to the blog: Social Media.

After a long break, here I am: back to my virtual digital land.

I will write today about social media.

Few days ago I was reading news, opinions, business cases about Social Media and I came across the following sentence:

“Social media is like teen sex, everyone wants to do it. No one actually knows how.” – Avinash Kaushik

I have found it so real. Social Media are everywhere: on my desktop, on my mobile, on the cup of my coffee in Starbucks and I find it so exciting.

The digital marketing land is full of experts, people ready to give you advices about what to do there, what to post, how to engage with you clients and stakeholders.. how to make money out of that.

And then there are these "gurus".. they talk about viral campaigns: how to make your campaign viral. I am listening to and reading about people who want to create viral campaigns. Ok, there might be few common ingredients.. but let's be honest here: nobody knows the secret of "virality" (virality itself is a word that doesn't exist yet).

Even the big Google is trying to create a social network viral like facebook.. but.. money cannot buy it!

Did facebook predict its success? Were Angry Birds developers "genius"?

Here there is my opinion.

Personally I think that Social Media reflect the real world in a different environment: there are many cases that show how things are difficult to control over there, as it's difficult to predict people reactions in general. Considered this, they are an open environment without any control and with the total freedom to express and share content, ideas etc, where everything is searchable, reachable and possible. Well.. this is the BIG challenge.

At the same time I think we now have the right tools to listen to our audience and understand what they really need, think and look for.

From a business point of view, Social Media involve all the functions: Marketing, PR, IT, Finance, Logistic, etc.

All of these functions need to be coordinated and follow a unique direction: set objectives behind social media activities (what are these activities? Is it just content? mmm... I don't think so).

Creating a page with Facebook takes 2 minutes, creating accounts in Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter etc. is not that complicated.

What to do with all these DIFFERENT tools, when, how, who... why? This is the main point and I personally think that this is a Marketing issue!

Ok ok.. I am a marketer, I am not neutral.. but.. this is my blog! I don't have to be neutral :)

During the following days I will do some researches and I will write about pro and cons for all the social networks. Stay tuned.

That's it for now..

Actually no.. there is one more question: Who owns Social Media? MArketing or PR? Feel free to be neutral :)

Best,

Antonella