-
Video by Dr. Michael Wesch – Kansas State University.
The Web 2.0 machine may be using us, are you using it?
Archive for November, 2008
Is Customer Engagement On Your Agenda For 2009?
Friday, November 28th, 2008
A survey report published this week by UK-based online publisher E-consultancy – Online Customer Engagement Survey 2009 – shows that around half (51%) of organisations have placed a greater focus on engaging with their customers online, reacting to the current economic climate. The surprising thing is that this number is so low – in a tight marketplace, I would have thought that a majority of businesses would be looking at how they can reach customers more effectively.
The report was commissioned by digital agency cScape, and is available from their website for free for a limited time. Some highlights from the report:
“Areas associated with Web 2.0 and social media such as user ratings & feedback (41%), user-generated content (37%), blogging (36%) and brand presence on social networks (36%) are also expected to attract significant sums of investment.”
“More companies are viewing tactics such as blogging, user reviews and on-site video in the context of a broader customer engagement strategy and pulling only those levers which are most appropriate for their business model and customers.”
“Despite the relative novelty of micro-blogging utilities such as Twitter, it is interesting to note that 7% of companies say they have improved their customer engagement through this channel.”
With the current state of the economy, and fears of a recession looming, finding new ways to reach your audience on-line should feature in any business planning for the coming year. The Web is a fantastic tool to cultivate communication with customers. How are you planning to rise above your competition in 2009?
Seth Godin’s Rule Of Sore Thumb
Monday, November 24th, 2008
Seth Godin has a sore thumb.
He has also just lost KitchenAid a sale. Given the popularity of his blog, KitchenAid may have just lost a lot of sales, actually.
Here’s my reason. My wife Laura and I bought a chalet-apartment in the Alps. Over the summer we took out a cheap kettle we had bought. It took so long to bring the water to the boil that I used to set it going before I walked to the local bakery for bread and croissants etc. If I stopped for a clumsy exchange in French with the bakery staff, the water was past tepid by the time I returned. It also failed to sing, squeal, whistle or any other of the comforting noises you want and expect from a kettle.
In other words, we got what we paid for.
So, this coming Christmas holiday trip to France, we plan on buying a better quality kettle that will make noises and heat the water quickly. The KitchenAid kettle was one of the options.
No more.
Do I feel I need Seth Godin to tell me what kettle to buy? No. Do I think Seth Godin is a leading expert on kitchen appliances? No.
But when Seth Godin tells a story about customer service, I listen. It isn’t because Seth said his kettle melted that I won’t be buying a KitchenAid kettle. Hey, Seth may be careless with how he positions the kettle on the gas, for all I know. No, the issue is that if my kettle were to melt – or go wrong in some equally basic way – I don’t want the customer service experience he had.
I like the look of the Le Creuset kettle in my local kitchen shop.
Small Businesses Increase Sales Via The Internet
Monday, November 17th, 2008
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has released its biennial survey of members. One of the most interesting findings – for those of us who beat on about exploiting the benefits of the internet for business, anyway – was that 43 per cent of respondents had improved sales figures after linking to suppliers and using their website to advertise their firm.
This simply underlines the value of using the internet for business transactions. Even more, it highlights how improtant this will be during an economic downturn.
As John Walker, the FSB National Policy Chairman, says:
“The number of small businesses who have their own website has grown over the past two years, which indicates that small firms are becoming increasingly internet-savvy. Despite the onset of an economic downturn, all small firms should look to the internet to maximise their sales and increase efficiency.”
The FSB report is called Putting the economy back on track: Transport, Environment and ICT and was written by Professor Oswald Jones and compiled by the University of Glamorgan.
As a final comment on the way that businesses are now turning to the internet, the report reveals that the number of small businesses who now have their own web site has increased by a quarter to around 70 per cent since the last survey.
Businesses who are still deciding whether the internet is something in which they should be investing energy, focus, or finance take note. Your competitors are doing it and they will be gaining market share.
I’m New To SEO, How Do I Improve My Site?
Friday, November 14th, 2008
If you feel that your web site just isn’t working as hard as it could be, are envious of how well your competitors are ranked in the search engines, or want to make sure your site is doing all it can to promote your business effectively, you may be happy to learn that Google have just released their Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (PDF – 550KB).
Primarily aimed at webmasters, if you’re prepared to roll up your sleeves and make some minor and (in most cases) straightforward changes to your web site, you’ll find the guide to be a great help and a useful resource even if you don’t know how to develop a web site. The guide offers this description on the importance of SEO:
Search engine optimization is often about making small modifications to parts of your website. When viewed individually, these changes might seem like incremental improvements, but when combined with other optimizations, they could have a noticeable impact on your site’s user experience and performance in organic search results. You’re likely already familiar with many of the topics in this guide, because they’re essential ingredients for any webpage, but you may not be making the most out of them.
The guide includes the following sections, each containing a concise overview introducing the topic, clear examples showing the techniques in use, and a guide to good practices – including what to avoid:
- Create unique, accurate page titles
- Make use of the “description” meta tag
- Improve the structure of your URLs
- Make your site easier to navigate
- Offer quality content and services
- Write better anchor text
- Use heading tags appropriately
- Optimize your use of images
- Promote your website in the right ways
- Take advantage of web analytics services
If you don’t feel like getting your hands dirty with what goes on under the bonnet of your web site, being familiar with what goes into making an optimised site is still a great idea. You could always treat the guide as a checklist for how well your site measures up, or refer to it when hiring in a company to develop or modify your site. If your web site is important to your business, being able to perform your own web site health-check, without the need to call in the experts, will pay huge rewards to your web presence and give you an idea of where you need to invest precious time and resource.
If you think your site is failing to measure up, or think you don’t have enough of the guide’s suggestions in place, Google have also put together some helpful tips for hiring an SEO company, so you can make sure your making the right decision when calling in the experts to fix it for you.
You can read Google’s announcement on their webmaster blog, and grab the Google SEO Starter Guide here.
Going Green And Reaping Profits With SEM
Friday, November 7th, 2008
The economic climate has pushed the long-term problems of the ‘other’ climate off top spot as far as the news is concerned. However, many businesses are finding the triple whammy of rising energy costs, cash flow squeeze, and global warming a reason to increase their use of internet marketing.
A good example is Foneshop.com, which is one of the UK’s leading online mobile phone retailers. When they launched their web site in 2003, they managed about 10 orders a day, according to the company’s Group Marketing Director, David Hyett. Their goal was to reach 100 orders a day. By using an AdWords campaign in conjunction with SEO techniques and landing page optimization, Foneshop.com has seen its total orders rise by about 56% and, more importantly, the average value of each order has risen by 54%. They invest about 60% of their monthly advertising budget in AdWords. The result? Over half of their customers find Foneshop.com through Google and the conversion cost per customer has decreased by 29%.
In stark contrast to this, research by Microsoft last year estimated that UK small businesses are spending £3 billion annually on invisible web sites. In a survey of 400 UK SMBs, the research uncovered that
“44% of SMBs not doing search marketing think it is too time consuming; 56% think it is too expensive; and 33% too complicated. However, 76% of SMBs promoting their website on search engines see an immediate increase in sales.”
It’s no surprise, though, that companies that do ‘get it’ are choosing to switch from paper-based advertising campaigns to online marketing. And those that do are reaping the benefits, not only of being first to exploit the potential of reaching a wider market for less cost, but also of grabbing the kudos of being environmentally friendly.
LinkedIn, Your Business, and You
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008
I know I know, I’ve talked a lot lately about using LinkedIn – in part, because I’m really beginning to feel a shift there from a contact-list kinda-place to more of a networking tool, or a shop window for businesses and smart people (OK, maybe not exclusively smart people – I’m on LinkedIn, after all). This follows the announcement of LinkedIn applications last week.
So please bear with me while I indulge myself with another (great) list about how to get the most from LinkedIn, this time by Brian Wallace of Mashable – How to get the most out of LinkedIn.
Brian lists seven LinkedIn features that most businesses could benefit from using:
Quick Lookup – Look up who you are having that next business meeting with. You’ll be able to break the ice right away.
Q&A – Post questions to others in your industry. The Yahoo Answers look and feel of this feature has definitely made LinkedIn more active and interesting. A public question can be responded to by anyone that works in really any discipline. Such was the case where Derek Edmond spotted a discussion occurring about the trustworthiness of SEO.
Recommendations – Have clients or co-workers post recommendations, which future employers and clients can view to gauge your skill and level of trustworthiness. Conversely, if you’re an employer, these imply trustworthiness for a potential freelancer or new hire.
Background checks – Look up potential new hires or freelancers. This should be right up there in an HR manager’s toolbelt.
See what your competition is up to – Keep track of what others in your industry are up to. Network updates gives you a feed of recent activity, so you can see who your connections have friended, groups they have joined, and the people they have recommended. You’ll even be able to see when people are switching jobs.
Introductions – Use people you already know to help make introductions. It’s a great way to get in the door with a company you need to contact.
Open Networking – Go out and become a LION! You are an open networker.
Brian also links to a great post by Jennifer Laycock on Search Engine Guide about why LinkedIn is the one social network she would always recommend – the post gives some compelling, real world examples of the power of using LinkedIn. A great read for those who are unsure whether to bother investing their time and energy into the LinkedIn network.
So, there you have it. Even more reasons why LinkedIn could be good for you, and your business. And yes, I promise not to go on about LinkedIn for a while…
