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J-P De Clerck is a customer-centric marketing consultant and trainer. You can follow him on Twitter via @conversionation. Connect on Google+ via +J-P De Clerck.

10 Blogging, Content and Social Media Metrics and How to Improve Them

social media marketing metrics- source image Vocus

A white paper from Vocus identified 10 key blogging, content and social media metrics. We summarized them and looked at five metrics in-depth. We also added several tips to improve them. Planning your business and marketing strategy requires a full analysis of metrics and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that are relevant to gauge your success and see if customers and prospects appreciate the ways you interact with them. Below is an overview of the blogging, content and social media metrics, with a brief explanation per metric. The mentioned white paper provides some thoughts and ideas to improve your blogging and social media marketing efforts for each of the metrics. We added links and ideas to do better. An in-depth overview of how to start using social media marketing metrics can be found in this blog post. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Content marketing, Social media marketing Tagged With: , ,

Optimizing the Digital and Social Customer Experience

customer experience

Since McKinsey wrote about the 'consumer decision journey' and smart B2B marketers started looking at the customer, his lifecycle and his journey first, the attention for that journey has never been higher. In its 2009 article on the consumer decision journey McKinsey wrote "Consumers are moving outside the purchasing funnel—changing the way they research and buy your products. If your marketing hasn’t changed in response, it should". It’s 2013. Yet, less has changed than should have. Time to start a series on optimizing the digital and social customer experience. A customer-centric and multi-channel view, based upon the customer journey, in correlation with for instance content marketing as it's called now, the customer lifecycle value (CLV), touchpoints and persuasion/conversion architectures is not new. In B2B marketing we' ve been using it for quite some time. But apparently it's rather new in social media marketing and other marketing techniques. And it also seems rather … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Customer service, Relationship marketing, Social business, Social CRM, Social media marketing, Touchpoint marketing Tagged With: , , , , ,

Using Storytelling to Strengthen Your Brand

storytelling

Storytelling is one of the most powerful ways to breathe life into your brand and often called one of the main components of a content marketing approach. By giving your products and services an identity by capturing and sharing the stories they really are, you can take your target audience on a journey they yearn to experience. In order for consumers to form a personal connection with your brand, company stories must be authentic, creative and inspirational. Emotional branding is a progressive marketing strategy that has the potential to drive revenue and increase customer retention.How a person feels about your brand typically determines whether they buy your product. A brand is a matter of perception. When you tell a story that embodies human challenges, you create an experience that resonates with your customers. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Brand marketing, Content marketing Tagged With: ,

Guidelines For Managers Of Twitter Group Accounts

teamwork

Although it’s important to have an overall social media policy, sometimes business also need Twitter policies, for instance if there are smaller groups of people managing a Twitter account for a specific  department, country, blog or any other group of people within the organization that need such an account. You might also want to read these tips if you (co-)manage a corporate Twitter account. In an international organization, separate Twitter account can, for instance, be created by people serving a vertical market and thus wanting to reach people on Twitter that are active in this vertical. A Twitter 'policy' provides the team that (co-)manages the account (sharing content, engaging people, identifying interesting users, looking up accounts of people they know outside Twitter, responding, etc.) the necessary confidence to get out there, identify and carve out the micro-communities they seek and engage them. In practice, the demand to create such an account often is a … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Social media marketing Tagged With:

Social Proof, Circles Of Trust and Your Customer

trust

The opinion of others is an important driver in the buying decision of people. It has always been so. Word-of-mouth is still predominantly an offline matter although it's really foolish to separate the online and offline dimension of peer advice in an omnichannel reality. While there are differences between the ways we buy consumer products and business solutions there are many similarities as well: we inform ourselves by taking into account the opinions of our circles of trust. As the B2B buying process is often a group decision and in specific markets, we rely more on analyst advice, it's important to make a distinction in defining these circles of trust and even look beyond the differences between B2B and B2C. It's really a matter of knowing how YOUR customers take decisions. The circles of trust and influence indeed differ. What we often call social proof also has impacts that are more emotional (social pressure, how we perceive others etc.) in steering our buying decisions … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Community marketing, Customer relationships, Relationship marketing, Social media marketing Tagged With: , ,

Beyond the Faceless Business: Getting Your LinkedIn Profile Right

LinkedIn profile infographic by lab 42

We check out the profiles of businesses we consider working with all the time, regardless of the platform or source. More importantly, we look at the profiles of the people that provide a human face to the business.The people that ARE the business, together with the human ecosystem in which the organization operates. On LinkedIn, most people first of all check out individual LinkedIn profiles. Those of representatives and individual voices of brands, potential vendors, customers and partners. In the end, connecting and community by finding persons of interest and sharing commonalities is still the essence of social, whather it's marketing or social business. Obviously, to enable this kind of networking, connecting and community work, you need to be found and participate in the first place. You can't move beyond the stage of the faceless corporation if you don't properly present the faces - and voices - making the business more human and reachable. It's not so much about personal … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Social media marketing Tagged With: ,

Social Media ROI and Measurement: Questions You Should Ask

The need to measure social media ROI

ROI stands for Return on Investment. Period. If we talk about Social Media ROI in this post, we mean the return on investment of the business (predominantly marketing) investments in social channels, networks, strategies and tactics made to achieve predefined goals. The micro-level, the macro-level, the integrated level, the campaign level, the program level, the whatnot level: anything goes. Let’s talk about social media ROI from the Marketing ROI perspective. Because, in fact Marketing ROI or ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment), is not something new. It might be new to you soon because it's increasingly used as execs want to know what is the output of your input. Return. And Investment, right? … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Marketing ROI, Social business, Social CRM, Social media marketing, Web analytics Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Social Customer Service: Why You Must Offer it Right Now

Social customer service incoming request channels

Social customer service is a 'hot topic'. However, it's not a holy grail. You offer it for a reason and not because everyone tells you that it matters. You need to understand what role it plays for your individual business and your customers to start with. However, social customer service nowadays is simply a must, even if the degree in which depends on the context. Popular platforms like Facebook and Twitter have traditionally been used to air grievances about a company. Those who could not get proper customer service from a business found that social media provided a way for them to overcome their frustration and get what your business owed them. These complaints not only helped them feel better, but other people who had also been mistreated by the company, loved hearing "someone speak up." Before too long many other people began to join them and voice their grievances. This new use of social media as a way to vent consumer indignation even created a new … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Social business, Social media marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

How Toothpaste Proves the Consumer Disconnect

Toothpaste and the consumer disconnect

Do you know what the first reason is why marketers fail to connect with consumers? The fact they call them consumers and treat them as such. They even address them as consumers. It’s one of the many signs proving the continuing monologue mentality, self-centered marketing speak and consumer disconnect. Yesterday, I saw two different TV commercials in which the beautiful looking actors that were supposed to represent the rest of us were called consumers IN the commercial. And it just struck me how this happens so often. One ad was for a toothpaste brand, Colgate, and showed the usual pseudo-scientist, explaining what terrible mouth hygiene threats the toothpaste could treat, to some people seated around a table. These were the 'consumers'. When the commercial started, it actually showed 'Colgate invited consumers'. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Brand marketing, Opinion Tagged With:

Why PR Should Not Own SEO (Nor Social Media or Content Marketing)

Optimizing customer segments - source Lee Odden

Since Google's Panda and Penguin updates, social interaction and relevant content have become more important for search engine optimization (SEO) than ever before. Social media, content marketing and search (SEO and SEA) must be integrated. In fact, all forms of interactive marketing should be integrated as it's not about the media and tactics in the first place but about the customer, his networks and his needs. We have seen the same mistakes happen regarding social media and email, the main topic of one of our other blogs, Social Email Marketing. Some people now say PR should own SEO as social and content becomes more important, among others. We don't agree. PR should not own SEO just as it shouldn't own social media. The debate about ownership should by now be over. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Opinion, Research Tagged With: , , , , , ,

6 Core Principles to Tap the Power of Social Community Participation

6 core principles of social media mass collaboration and community participation

Gartner reports that many business and IT leaders fail at utilizing social media effectively because they do not understand mass collaboration. Many businesses use a "provide and pray" approach, expecting community participation to just happen. It's just one of the reasons why communities fail. What happens instead is that users have an initial interest and then lose that interest as they discover that the platform is too difficult to use collaboratively. Applying the six core design principles creates a better social media environment for meaningful collaboration and social community participation, Gartner says. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Research, Social media marketing Tagged With: , , ,

Why Online Communities are Undervalued – and often Fail

community registration

Online communities existed before we even heard about blogs. Since social technologies and platforms popped up, the number of possibilities to facilitate, nurture and engage online communities has exploded. Strangely enough, communities are not given the attention they deserve by businesses. Most of the time, you will find community engagement and management ideas when looking for information on the topic. However, online communities are about much more than that. While we mainly talk about conversations and engagement in social media, community is the true force in a connected era. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Community marketing, Relationship marketing Tagged With: , , ,

Do Consumers Trust Retailers More Than Social Networks?

Trust and private data

Consumers are said to rely more on the advice of their peers and even social connections than on businesses themselves. However, this doesn't mean they trust the social networks themselves when it comes down to sharing their data. Recently, the e-tailing group and MyBuys released some findings from a survey stating that the surveyed consumers feel more comfortable sharing data with retailers than with social networks. They do so even more when sharing data improves their shopping experience. I bet the same goes for other experiences as well. Most social networks suck at dealing with consumer data and don't take into account what their users want in that regard. They dictate on how they will use these data, and it does take some time to find where to change settings or stay up-to-date with latest changes. Even as someone who follows the industry carefully, I often lose track. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Brand marketing, Research, Social media marketing Tagged With: , , ,

Research: B2B Buyers Want Content

Channels used by B2B buyers to help find information - source Base One

Are you looking for proof that content marketing is the way to go in B2B marketing? You have it. There are many resources showing how important content is, how blogging reduces the cost per lead and why content marketing is an essential part of the marketing mix. However, there is just one solid way, besides actual demonstrated return, to make the case for content marketing: the behavior of the B2B buyer… Base One, helped by B2B Marketing, Research Now and McCallum Layton just released the 2012 results of their annual Buyersphere survey, looking at changing B2B buyer behavior in four European markets. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Content marketing, Research, Search engine marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

How to Write Blog Headlines People (and your Goals) Deserve

This blog post in InboundWriter

You can write the most interesting and best content in the world but if your blog headline doesn’t attract attention, appeal and convince people to read on, why even bother? You wouldn’t be doing yourself, your content and your readers a favor, right? Brian Clark says that “on average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest." Discover how to write blog headlines - with a twist. Your blog headlines serve different goals and there are various elements to take into account before you start: your ‘targeted readers’, your goals, relevance and how people look for content. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Content marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

Four Multi-Channel and Touchpoint Marketing Models

Touchpoint Performance Model - source iMedia

Most marketers are starting to integrate their marketing channels. Better late than never. However, simple integration will not be enough. While in multi-channel marketing the focus is still often on the channels, touchpoint marketing provides alternatives that revolve around individual customer and prospect touchpoints. A nice depiction of the typical multi-channel marketing is this graphic by Twiss that takes into account buyer life cycle, strategy, tactics, marketing goals and more without emphasizing the channels too much. Thanks to Dave Chaffey for sharing and commenting on it. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Touchpoint marketing Tagged With: ,

Content Marketing: Content and Blog Frequency

Content Marketing Evangelist Joe Pulizzi

Content marketing is marketing. So it should serve your business goals, take into account the needs and the behavior of your different ‘audience’ segments and finally be relevant from the perspective of costs, benefits and resources. These elements have an impact on the frequency of putting out content via the different channels you use. Frequency is important, but it doesn’t mean you should create content on all platforms every day. Let’s take blogging as an example. When you blog you create expectations among your readers, also regarding frequency. If you blog a lot for a while, and then you stop, it’s impossible to create a valuable and lasting dialogue. Setting these expectations at the beginning is important. Find the right mix and certainly do the math on the cost and return on your blog efforts, compared to the needs of your readers and direct and indirect goals. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Content marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

Customer-Centricity: Four Guaranteed Ways to Estrange your Customers

branding

“Reconnect your brand.” That’s the slogan one of my former customers, who is active in the marketing automation space, started using recently as part of a rebranding strategy. However, it’s more than a slogan. Customer-centricity, hower, often remains a hollow motto. Brands and businesses are really disconnected from their customerse. Marketing is broken as I recently wrote. It has to do with personality, processes, trust and living up to promises. Furthermore, the changes in how people inform themselves, interact and decide, alienate brands even more. So, if brands are alienated, the question is how they can “reconnect” as in my former customer’s slogan? Time for some ‘tips’. It was once believed that a brand was primarily a matter of positioning. However, the role of perception and reputation plays a more significant role in defining what a brand and business really is. Customer-centricity is no longer optional. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Customer relationships, Opinion Tagged With:

Social Media Evolutions to Watch

SocialMediaLandscape

We always have a tendency to estimate the value of something as it exists. Future potential is often ignored because we don’t follow or understand the trends enough, while the market place is constantly changing. The same goes for social media evolutions. We sometimes think that the landscape is mature and that the game is over: Facebook is the king of social networks; Twitter reigns in micro-blogging, etc. However, things change fast, very fast. Combined with a growing dissatisfaction with the policies and poor user experiences of some social platforms, new evolutions will shape the social media space. A few examples of how social platforms are evolving and what these social media evolutions imply: … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Social media marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

Real-Time Response is not a Holy Grail

London-2012-Olympics-Stadium-opening-ceremony-copyright-Pete-Tripp-iStockPhoto

They were dubbed the first social media Olympics ever. And they are. When London 2012 is over, gazillions opinion pieces will be posted with titles such as “Ten Crucial Social Media Lessons from the Olympics 2012.” In fact, it’s already happening now. I wanted to stay far away from them (whic doesn’t mean some will be probably good) but couldn’t resist after today… Social media has a few important characteristics. Two of them are the speed of real-time and the human dimension. Yep, social is indeed a people’s thing. We often herald the virtues of what we call a real-time economy. So do I, in a sense. The real-time nature of social is a gift for those who are ready to listen. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Opinion, Social media marketing, Social media monitoring Tagged With: ,

comScore: the Shopping and Customer Experiences Across Buying Stages

What-factors-influence-the-online-shopping-experience

Excellent customer experiences and relevant touchpoints, across all channels, are rapidly becoming the focal point for smart marketers. Customer satisfaction is not a goal anymore. It is – or should be – a basic component of your business DNA. All customer experiences must be optimized to move beyond the level of satisfaction. Obviously, perfection is a goal and seldom a reality in business (or in life, for that matter). In the end, it’s about people. However, increasing customer satisfaction and raising it to the next level by striving towards perfect experiences is an ongoing task, whatever role you have in sales, marketing, management, support or any other function. Shopping-related customer experiences are obviously crucial, before, during and – let’s not forget it – after the purchase. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Customer service, Ecommerce, Research Tagged With: , , , ,

IAB Europe AdEx Benchmark Europe 2012: the Facts

IAB Europe AdEx Benchmark 2012 – search and display

According to the IAB Europe AdEx Benchmark Europe 2012, the online advertising market in Europe rose to a total market value of €20.9bn in 2011, a year-over-year growth by 14.5%. This means that 1 in 5 advertising Euros in Europe is now spent online. IAB Europe emphasizes this growth is realized despite difficult economic circumstances. It should not come as a surprise that the investments in online advertising keep growing. The same goes for investments in other digital channels and tactics. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Brand marketing, Opinion, Research, Search engine marketing Tagged With: , , ,

Ten Blogging Lessons from Chris Brogan

Chris Brogan

2012 is the year of oversaturation. On social media too. So says Chris Brogan. He has a point. You know the phenomenon. There is too much 'noise'. And we need filters. "Curation" is hot. That’s why Twitter acquired Summify. We will scale down. We live in a consumption society, says Brogan. "People can barely read a tweet." We must keep everything brief. Ten blogging lessons. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Content marketing Tagged With: ,
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