Video is how we see the world – Harry Davies from Google at #iStrategy

Harry’s humorous panel session contined in this workshop focusing on Emotional videos.

Video plays an essential part in our learning and news consumption.
Thinking back to how we all huddled around the TV to see 911 unfold.
We turn to video to understand the world around us. It’s the closest experience to real life.

Brands for most of our lives have been riding on the back of emtional video content, sliding in ads around the tv programs we love to watch. And now the fast decisions we make as to if wr like something are easily charged by an emotional video.
The focus today being on how to fashion emotional video as online video watching according to comscore is now at almost an hour a day per person and 47% ignore or jump out of ads. The click to dismiss ads on YouTube means you’re only reaching this that are interesting and don’t click to skip, and you only pay for those that view your ads.
They are also working to run these in display and search results. Of note is that in TV 20% is advertising and on YouTube it’s 0.7% Harry then dropped thedollarshaveclub.com video. Around 3m views and a startup kicked off. A testament to how video can deliver great returns.

Note: To harp from Brian’s keynote yesterday. Create compelling content that people just HAVE to share!

TIPS FROM HARRY

YouTube trends highlights famous videos with background as to why they trend. The trends dashboard shows what’s interesting for a particular audience, eg 18 to 24 year old men in the UK. You can also compare demographics. With a rolling weighted average of a months views.

You can even see some shared covers outperforming originals? Like the Gotye Somebody that I used to know video on YouTube.

Under the analytics you can see the device used, and the entry channels, where they came from and where they ditch the video. You can see if you video is engaging for it’s length – compared to others. – Emotional advertising works.
- Follow the users and split spending across TV and online. 4/5ths Perhaps?
- Pay for only the ads clients engage with. And start to think creative!

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Ask the Experts – Stephane Lee from Dimelo #iStrategy

Stephane introduced a Peugeot case study where they launched an ask the experts forum where prospects could ask employees about their up coming cars. Designers, engineers and real staff at Peugeot were there answering any questions potential clients had. They ran a microsite and also a Facebook tab that featured all the QandA. Barklays also ran an ask the experts area in their elite card club, where you could post investment, stocks, mortgage questions etc. Loyalty, proximity and affinity to the brand grew as there were real faces behind the brand. Many others were also into it, Danone, French rail, and health orgs.

BNP Paribas had experts open for recruitment, answering questions of potential candidates and new grads

It’s a great opportunity to:
- Seize an interest space and rank well for it in search.
- Improve trust
- Help with complicated sales
- Justify price
- Build affinity with your brand.

And its nice way to build content thats relevant to your audience.

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Microsoft – Building a global brand in the social space. #iStrategy

A Microsoft case study with @SimonHughes from Microsoft and @chadestes at Vitrue.
Many organisations with the boom of Facebook “face” (sorry) the challenge of multiple “rogue” social media properties and trying together the brand and experience.

And it’s difficult to run multiple campaigns in local areas and have analytics to compare and evaluate campaigns to form best practice. Finding that fine balance between brand control and tailoring to the local Market is key. Microsoft focused on the external UI and how to educate marketers internally. A global change mgmt campaign was set up to take local marketers from their own pages and tactics to brining them into the central tool and hub of learning. Highlighting the additional value of analytics and comparison or benchmarking that a consistent analytics platform can give. DOUBLE PIVOT

They created a Facebook page that allowed visitors to “tab” to local Market content. They also allowed followers to choose between, student, business, developer or all. Through Facebook open graph they set up the pages to let you follow specific segments. They then created one common global calendar that allowed flexibility for local markets but also leveraged global campaigns. And then checked for what is resonating to ensure content was targeted to their audience.

With the analytics, their metrics focused around a common dashboard that included: fan/followers stats, impressions, share of voice and sentiment. They take that into a feedback loop on a daily basis to evaluate their content marketing. They then compare across continents and campaigns.

The results of centralising their Facebook presence to one page?

Since the start of the year they’ve seen double to 5.7 million fans globally for the windows brand, which is their most “engaged” brand. Well done Simon and team!

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LinkedIn More Than Just A Resume – @NealSchaffer at #iStrategy

LinkedIn – “It’s where the business is”. A great opening tweet nugget from Neal as we hear about LinkedIn.

To set the level – LinkedIn is the 12th most visited website in the world, loads of eyeballs and really a mainstream social media platform. Its also the 6th most visited website in NL. And for most European audiences its in the top ten. UK with the second largest group of users after US.

It also has the largest demographic of household income over USD $100000, and 4/5 are decision makers in their organisation.

To also dispel the other myth that its all Headhunters – It’s not only recruiters, as they really only represent 1 to 2% of the user base. Tip: Of note for those with a developed content strategy – LinkedIn today is also accepting applications from blogs to share their content on LinkedIn today.

Neal then brought us some great 101 tips for anyone to try

PROFILE
Here’s Neals top tips for initial profile setups.

1. Be real: use your full name
2. Be complete, not just your profile but are all your sales team on LinkedIn. Have a profile pic! 3. Be branded, link to your company website and give contact details.
4. Be searchable – the keywords on your profile matter! 5. Seek recommendations. Remember people believe what others say about you, more than what you say.

Consider aligning yourself, even your location and industry settings to match your target market.

CONNECTIONS
Step two gain connections. Your goal should be 10 times your age to start with. Think: colleagues, professional networks, classmates or people you’ve met at iStrategy!

An interesting case study was Darrel Rhea, CEO of Cheskin went round connecting with his network and it resulted in 15 mins of consulting and a million dollar deal.

Common connects can also give relevance if you’re trying for new business. LinkedIn is obviously narrowing the 6 degrees of separation.

Here’s an neat search tip. Find those with the most connections in advanced search for the Market you are trying to target. Read their contact settings and connect as a path into that topic.

ENGAGE
There are many options to engage: share status updates, amazon reading list, groups, questions, events all become openers to conversations with potential leads.

Join 50 groups, to be easier to be contacted and to reach potential clients. And think big groups for most value. Try local groups and alumni groups if you are short of industry or topic groups.

Neal also reiterates that successful LinkedIn groups are about good content and commitment to engage. Traditional marketing messaging will flop!

Having explored personal engagement, you also have the services pages of your company to highlight recommendations of your specific services. Tip: See who has shared your content from LinkedIn today. Filter to see how your content is performing, and or compare competing content.

Of note: Click thru rates on LinkedIn are low, but valuable, and obviously convert more than other networks. And like any network, target people who are members of linkedIn groups, and mix up your images and ad copy.

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Turning followers into profit – @brucedaisley at #iStrategy

Twitter having just cracked its 6th birthday Twitter is evolving and Bruce opens with, “it’s a discovery tool”. Like all of us Twitter is exploring Big Data, and implicit signals is their take. People on Twitter don’t follow things they are not interested in, so they’re exploring this with the discover tab. It’s also used for targeting their ads.

On the interesting stat side Bruce shares that 40% of twitter users don’t tweet, but they do listen. Effectively Twitter is a news feed in your pocket, keeping you up to date with what you’re interested in.

Continuing the iStrategy buzzwords, Bruce is another reiterating the mobile first anthem Bruce quotes:

If your business isn’t treating mobile as the front door, just close shop ~
@brucedaisley #iStrategy

As a second screen to your TV trending topics in Twitter is an impressive tool for measuring the success of mass media. Also – 2 in 3 users that follow a brand say it is likely to influence their purchase.

Their targeting and even different ads for different platforms was impressive. Perhaps another way to use Twitter to reach your audience or new followers.

DUAL SCREENING

Dual screening, or using Twitter hashtags to have feedback on TV shows gives instant feedback. Each week Britain’s got talent actually gets re-cut for the next week based off feedback.
Week on week programs that trend actually build views of a show. So there’s a direct correlation between a successful hashtag and the success of a show.

And it’s not just TV, radio plays are also effected – Florence and the Machine trended all day in the UK, from a simple #nowplaying hashtag

With that said its not surprising that your @handle is now the new phone number or email address for emerging brands and personal brands. I know @nickwallen comes first on my business card.

To leave us with some fun case studies: A simple way that restaurants are using Twitter is the: Tweet before you eat for a treat! @handle Amex ran a campaign connecting your card to twitter, where you tweet about what you want to save for. See http://sync.Americanexpress.com/twitter for details. But as you tweet about your purchases or intended purchases you earn rewards.

Two ideas worth checking out.

Finally in the QandA

A member of the audience asked how to promote his book. And Bruce had some good ideas such as tweeting nuggets from your book or getting influential tweeters to mention your book.

And if you’re looking for the best time to tweet TBG and Brand Republic have researched the best time for ROT.

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Brian Solis on Frictionless Sharing opens #iStrategy

 

Brian Solis kicks off a fantastic iStrategy London, just as I have a senior moment and forget to boot up. So here’s the summary of @Briansolis final notes. Brian reminds us that mobile is connecting the online and offline world at an exponential rate. Hey, Facebook brought Instagram for this very reason.

Frictionless sharing is improving daily but to really leverage this, brands need to give consumers and experience that is so compelling they just HAVE to share it. Social producers will be the new role this year. Making things shareable and slippery. Not just sensationalising editorial work, or creating awesome Infographic designs, but knowing how to get them shared. Creating content that your community find so interesting that they HAVE to share it with their community. And RRS has a new meaning: Relevance, Resonance and Significance. Your content must be of interest and useful to your community, it must resonate, and that means linger on beyond a tweet or post. These will then lead to significance for your business. And remember: If you do not design a compelling experience for your consumers, one will be created for you. Maybe one you don’t like. What they feel and do is ours to define. It’s a blank canvas for organisations, that may share common best practice but each will be different.

So get out there and get engaging!

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Social Media – It’s All Russian to me

One of my many lessons I’ve learnt from summer trips to Russia is that simple branding and quality can be the most effective sales tools.

Pictured above is a mobile Kvass stall. A bit like Marmite in terms of its likeability. Still, many swear by its ability to refresh on a warm summers evening after a hard day’s work. For a good stall with fresh cool Kvass and a wholesome looking vendor, you reputation spreads and word of mouth marketing is king. 

I prefer a pint of or Russian Standard, but I digress.

Pre 1990′s everything had a familiar label, partly because there really was only one or two options on the market*. But mainly because differentiating your product with a fancy label, slogan, catch phrase or fancy swoosh distracted the buyer. Buyers who after queueing for hours, just wanted to find their produce quick!

There was also a reluctance to step away from a recognisable symbol/labeling, as bricks and mortar stores took many shapes and forms. Entrepreneurs renting out basements and first floors of tower blocks, a house or schools, wherever the market was.

To combat this colour cues were abound. Produce or superettes all have Produckti in big letters well before any other labels and Pharmacies are always marked in green with Apteka up front. Here we give them fancy names. Neither of which screamed pharmacy to me when I first arrived in the UK.

 

And as Social Media takes over from Socialist Republics we see word of mouth spreading further, faster and forever (permanently recorded on the internet). Be it good or bad news.

Social Media reminds brands to compete on quality and service.

 

*gross greneralisation that my family would shoot me for, given the quality differneces between regional products.

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SoLoMoCo the four essential pillars of online marketing

Digital Marketing has its old favourite acronyms and phrases that marketers, heck anyone online needs to need to understand at a tactical level: SEO, PPC ,CTR, CPA, Long tail, edge rank, to name a few.

But at a strategic level there are four characters we should all be focusing on over the next year.

SoLoMoCo
As I’m yet to have lunch I’ve taken a food theme to lay out the member of the SoLoMoCo team.

 

Social Media
Mr Social is the friendly manager/landlord. He knows all the guests personally and makes sure to say hi to all and sundry. He know his valued connections and who can help him with his cause. People follow him and can’t wait for what he’ll say next. Although he looks like a bit of a show off, he knows the 80/20 rule and spends lot more time sharing his friends thoughts over his own.

 

Local or geographically base search and interaction
Mr Local is the king of the farmers market. You search for him and his big banner pops up and is relevant to those within a stone’s throw. He does a different farmers market each week and he has a tailored offering for each location. Oh and its fresh stocked daily with new products and content.

 

Mobile
Mobile is the driver of a turbocharged breadtruck. He needs to be ultra-fast and lightweight. Right now – you at least get a custom packaged takeaway meal from him. Very soon networks will be so fast he will need to offering you the full menu. Knowing that snacking on the run and delivery are the future of dining, restaurants will even think takeaway first. The same is happening with the web!

 

Content
I’ve left the storyteller to last, the one that ties brand messages together. He’s not new to the mix but his face is more prominent. He’s the one that knows how to tell the true story the brand. He has many hats and could be the landlord for all we know. But he thinks innovatively about content.

He throws a cameraman in for a wild ride in the breaddruck. He shows you the variety at the farmers market, the care that the chefs take with meals and the personalities behind everything. He also talks about customers, their experiences and has a story for those considering buying, those buying and those that will buy again.

Now you know the team spots. Make sure you’ve got players!

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How to Un-Optimise your website for bad clients

We’re always hearing that we should be optimising our site for sales. Fine tuning our keywords and meta pages, page titles and urls to include keywords and phrases that your prospective client would like. But what about those evil clients you don’t want.

We all know that type.

The dreaded indecisive client who: changes their mind on the goals of the engagement mid project; thinks prices can be haggled; suffers from death by committee; or analysis paralysis.

But there are ways to keep them at bay and out of that well tuned sales funnel of qualified leads.

Have you ticked off the web marketing basics?

With SEO – stick to the medium to Long Tail range. Towers Watson consult to insurance and investment companies on risk. There is no way we should be battling with conparethemarket.com or gocompare.com for the keywords insurance or investment.

With PPC – Use the superpowers of negative keywords to exclude people looking for something you don’t do. For example – cheap – discount – compare are in our list.

With Social Media and SMO – please use context

“fantastic blog by @nickwallen http://bit.ly/totally-awesome-dude”

That tweet might be correct, but it tells me nothing! Speak like you would to a potential client. If you’re humourus with clients that’s fine, but engaging with people you value the opinion of. This will be a major hint to potential clients.     

 

Here’s some simple content false friends to also consider

Trending Topics
There is a fine line to balance between saying something to attract attention to your brand and saying something to add value for your clients.

Today #MayTheFourth is trending – I could quite easily make some silly remark and grab some eyeballs with a witty storm trooper image on Pinterest or quote on twitter but what’s the value in that. At least without mentioning my xwing fighter cleaning service     

Sensationalism
Sure you’ve said something to catch the eye, but valuing your users time and using a title that’s relevant to them is something to admire. Again discretion here please.

Price
Now depending on the size of your organisation simply mentioning base consultancy rates on your site might help to weed out those that think you can “fix their problem for a fiver”.

For larger organisations a more subtle approach could be to mention multimillion dollar implementations and large organisations if that’s our target.

How We Work
Never be afraid to lay out your terms of engagement – plain for all to see. Talk of your Agile methods or well defined proceedures but make sure they have the least chance to be surprised later on.  

 

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Digital Britain vs. Digital Europe [Infographic]

An interesting graphic showing that although the UK is umong the leaders on broadband speeds and shopping online we are failing to capitalise on this with online business. Just 15% of businesses with more than 10 employees are selling online.

B2B purchases online are also suprisingly high.

Click image to open full-size version (via Interxion).

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