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Showing posts with label digitalmarketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label digitalmarketing. Show all posts

Tuesday, 15 March 2011

Network Based Papers

paper.li
The use of social media aggregation to publication has been around for some time.  One such example is the Swiss company Small River, whose Paper.Li  which takes your daily tweets and creates an online publication from them.

I have used this platform to segment thedigitalconsultant tweets into three distinct publications.  Paper.li also has edition control - daily, weekly or morning & evening.. With the rapid growth in tablets such as the iPAD, this format has many attractions for spreading your content still further.

There are four types of Twitter account based papers a user can create, and one Facebook account based:

1. Account Based Paper - a paper created on your Twitter account
2. Hashtag based Paper - a paper based on a #tag you want to follow
3. User List Paper - a paper based from a twitter user list
4. Create a Custom Newspaper - advanced options for customized Twitter newspapers
5. Facebook based papers - giving you the ability to create a paper based on simple search terms. These papers are created on public posts.

All of the above offer ample opportunities for event marketing and target segmentation.

LinkedIn Today
News today that another social network, LinkedIn, is taking this 'entry to journal' principal a step further. As it prepares to list publically, the company has upgraded its web site with a new feature, LinkedIn Today.

With more than 90 million professionals using its network it is certainly time to try and broaden the companies public appeal and try and boost user activity.

LinkedIn Today allows the user to tap into articles that are being shared by their connections or by people in their industries.

According to the company's media release LinkedIn Today informs you of the following:
1. What your connections and coworkers – people you know – are sharing.
2. What your industry peers are sharing
3. What stories are interesting to a wider audience, outside of your industry

Offering users a personalised news stream is seen as a way of encouraging users to spend more time on the site. Only time will tell if this is so.

Being able to see who followed a topic headline provides insight into LinkedIn users who share a link publicly.

This content distribution also points to the advantage of having your content propagated and shared, as opposed to spending money on online advertising.  Your messaging is not diluted and the reach potential is as great, or greater, for less cost.




So will LinkedIn Today prompt me to use the social network more often?  To be honest, I doubt it. I find Paper.li's functionality far more engaging with greater editorial control over what I wish to publish or view.

LinkedIn's niche is professional networking and while job seekers make full use of it, most of them will still get their news from other media sources, Facebook and the more immediate source Twitter.
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Monday, 10 January 2011

Is There Still A Place For Email In 2011?


As this presentation shows, email is predicted to grow from 2.9 billion accounts to 3.8 billion by 2014.

So although social networks are clearly the fastest growing communication technology, email remains a potent weapon in the digital marketing arsenal.

Business receive twice as much email as they send in a day and spam remains a constant problem. 

The rule of thumb is to try and send out 70% of  useful or fun information and 30% which could be termed hard-sell.

All email 'blasts' should integrate social media tools such as Facebook 'Like' buttons, tweet, or Stumbleupon options to push content beyond the original recipient.

Email should have click through options to build engagement and do send a welcome message or series of messages to engage new email subscribers.  It is surprising how few businesses (1%) do this at present.

A prime motivation for people to give their email address to a company is to receive discounts and promotions. More than half expect to  get a "freebie" in exchange for their address.

Old habits die hard and 58% of consumers still start their day by reading their email.  So time your email releases to hit them fresh each morning, before the drudgery of the day dilutes the effectiveness of the message.

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