Effective social media strategy and execution varies based on the type of business you’re in (B2B or B2C) as well as the particular business vertical.  Many marketers wonder if social media marketing is “right” for them, if they can be successful in social and how they’ll measure ROI.   These are important considerations for any marketer to ask before engaging in a new strategy or channel.

To help provide insight and answer some of these questions,  I want to share a couple of examples of real world Social Media Marketing cases with conversions and success metrics we’ve seen first hand.  And while these examples may not answer your particular strategic or tactical needs, they may provide  ideas on success metrics for different types of businesses as well as inspiration toward getting started in and measuring your social marketing efforts.

1. Internet Marketing Company - Business to Business (B2B)
Social Networking and Group Participation / Development on LinkedIn

This situation actually involves me in my role of business development at 10e20.  Recently I was on LinkedIn and a member of one of my professional groups posted the following message to group memebers: “looking to speak with companies with special focus on social news and bookmarking to help develop traffic to publisher website.” (Paraphrased) As soon as I saw this (about 2 hours after it was sent) I sent a private message to this member requesting a phone call.

The call was set up and several weeks later we were doing business together.  It’s likely that without participating in LinkedIn Groups, I would only have met this person offline at some date in the future, if at all.  And, because I was prompt in responding through the LinkedIn system, it gave me a leg up on competitors who may have only heard about this through second hand word of mouth.  The business lead was really quite targeted.

Conversion

• 1 new business relationship
• B2B Sale for ongoing consulting relationship
• Consulting revenue

ROI

By joining LinkedIn, joining several groups and being helpful to the community by answering some questions, this was one of the CHEAPEST new business leads I have on record.

2. Lifestyle Magazine Website - An online Lifestyle Magazine  + Blog Website, Publishing
Social News & Social Bookmarking

With a start up magazine/blog website that monetizes on traffic, impressions and cost per click (CPC) advertising, this publisher was working to develop new traffic and awareness of the website and its great content. Traffic was growing but with active participation in social bookmarking website StumbleUpon, and several other social news/bookmarking sites the new blog site accelerated its growth by having the content achieve rapid viral popularity.

The publisher has since built a sustainable ROI on time and investment in social marketing of content against advertising revenue.  Also, hundreds of new backlinks to the website have been developed as a result of social media content promotion.  The compounding effect of social news/bookmarking for this publisher is paying big dividends.

Conversion

• Traffic: 10’s of thousands of visitors as opposed to hundreds.
• Clicks on CPC advertisements: thousands of dollars worth as opposed to pennies.
• Impressions for CPM advertising
• Links for SEO and site authority: hundreds of natural links instead of one “here and there”.
• Advertising revenue

ROI

Creating content is part of the publisher/magazine business model so the cost that has gone into social really comes down to time spent bookmarking and submitting content.  The bookmarking efforts tally to a couple of hours per week.  Advertising revenue from CPC ads tied to social visits far outpaces the time invested for social bookmarking.  From this perspective the social media marketing is paying the business back many times over as most traffic is tracked to social media efforts.  This is not even counting the link equity (for search value) being built back to the publisher’s domain.

3. Consumer Fashion Brand - Major Women’s Fashion Brand 
Social Networking – Facebook, Twitter and more “profile” type sites.

A major national fashion brand with no social media presence worked over several months to establish a presence on social networking websites.  Organic growth of their audience on these sites surged to 10’s of thousands of fans and followers; over 75,000 between 2 brands and 4 social accounts in just a couple of months.

Public discussion on social networking websites provided direct consumer feedback to the brands about how to improve their products and customer service.  Additionally, social networking sites have provided a new channel to distribute deals messages increasing the foot traffic to key retail store locations for sales.

Conversion

• several hundred thousand dollars in new sales in three months of marketing
• new audience for the brand, reaching new, interested fans of the brand and engaging them
• more direct and effective Public Relations
• more direct and effective responses to customer service issues
• direct consumer feedback for product development. 1 new product is in development after only 3 months in social media

ROI

The equivelent of one mid-level employee’s salary to run a dedicated social media presence, strategy and management has yielded hundreds of thousands of dollars in return in positive online brand sentiment, consumer feedback for product development and actual product sales both online and offline.

These are 3 simple and real world examples of social media conversion and ROI.  One could go on and on with examples of positive social media marketing case studies.  It’s important to note too that for every success case there are likely an equal amount of social strategies that were fumbled and not properly executed.  With that, take stock of your current strategy by conducting regular audits, competitive analysis and measurement through analytics and benchmarking.  If not you can become part of the road kill and believe me, the road is littered with companies that fumbled their strategy.

We’re curious to know: what have been some of your experiences and cases with identifying, measuring and benchmarking social conversions and success metrics?

537219 Commentshttp://www.10e20.com/blog/2010/02/17/3-examples-of-real-world-social-media-conversion-and-roi/3+Examples+of+Real+World+Social+Media+Conversion+%28and+ROI%29+2010-02-17+21%3A26%3A45Jake+Matthews

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One challenge some companies face in social media marketing is how to bridge the gap between stale corporate or e-commerce sites and social networking websites.  What is the link between your site and social networking sites?  How do you get people FROM social sites back TO your corporate site and visa versa?

Some “experts” posit the best solution is to just to slap badges on your homepage saying “Follow us on Twitter” or “Find us on Facebook.”  Or “make sure your site links are on all your social profiles” so people will see your link, click on it and visit you.  These are foundational points, but there’s more to successful social awareness for your company than showing your site visitors where your official socials account are.

The important and missing link  for some marketers may be adding a blog to their main site. Why?

Online social media users are constantly looking for new and fresh content. A site blog provides an opportunity to reach these users with fresh content related to your business.  With ongoing, strong and effective content creation – and sharing of the site blog content into social – you can create a tremendously effective link between your social networking presences and your main company website.

To demonstrate, here’s a graphic:

Site Blog Influence in Social Media (click to enlarge)

Though a blog on a corporate or product site is not a new idea by any means, it’s often overlooked for its added social sharing and conversion value.  If you are not a publisher, you’re simply not producing a lot of content that can be shared in social media.  Blogs provide this platform.  A blog provides an opportunity for visitors from social sites (who saw the content you fed in from your blog) to click back to the blog and then be only one click away from areas on your site where they may convert for product purchase, inquire for service or RFP, or perform another action such as CPC, email sign-up, RSS subscription, etc. And though social is not about selling all the time, all marketers have a responsibility to make their efforts pay off at some point.  Being able to access more opportunities for conversion is a true benefit with blogs.

There are deep considerations as to what type of content goes on a site blog, the technology to use, what the editorial schedule will be and who will contribute, but if you can settle these questions and a few other key strategy issues, a blog can be a fruitful effort and a core link in your social strategy.  It can drive deeper connections to your social profiles, sending traffic from social back to your blog and main site, and can provide greater reach to new audiences in search, social news, other blogs and mainstream press.

49995 Commentshttp://www.10e20.com/blog/2010/01/20/bridging-the-social-gap-are-site-blogs-your-missing-link/Bridging+the+Social+Gap%3A+Are+Site+Blogs+Your+Missing+Link%3F2010-01-20+23%3A18%3A25Jake+Matthews

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There’s nothing more annoying to me than going online and searching for my favorite brands on Facebook or typing in what might be a logical URL for the brand on Twitter and NOT finding my brand there!

OUCH!!!!

Further, it’s doubly annoying when you go to a preferred brand website and don’t see any way to connect socially with the brand:

Am I missing something here???

Brand managers need to empower their brand loyalists with the right destinations, experience, tools and content in social media. When brands neglect to participate in social media, they miss a major opportunity for awareness and ultimately sales.   The more touch points and positive experiences that you provide your loyalists, the greater the opportunity for positive word of mouth and content to spread about your brand.

So how do you empower loyalists?  Here are a couple of conceptual tips to getting started on motivating your brand in social media and making sure that your loyalists do some talking for you:

1. Create Destinations: Give your brand loyalists a place to congregate. If you have not yet set up a Facebook page for your brand, consider doing so. If you are not tweeting your brand, think about whether you should start. Create exclusivity and reward the loyalists and let them mingle amongst each other to share experiences around your brand.
2. Provide Ammunition: Empower loyalists with tools to help spread your brand message. Optimize your website experience for social media. This can be tools, buttons, or other social integrations that allows users to share, comment, review, save and interact on and off your site. Deliver a seamless user experience for those active social users who come to your brand site and want to bring their social experience with them.
3. Display Creativity: Show brand loyalists that you are creative. Come up with remarkable creative content and awareness campaigns that wow your existing loyalists and inspire them to continue to spread the word.  Don’t try to sell. Cater to their “joy points.” Provide solid content to your users and give them the social food they need to continue the dialogue for you.
4. Affect Service: Your loyalists will have questions.  Be there to answer them promptly. They’ll talk about that. It will pay you back.
5. Display Confidence: Don’t fear the haters. Haters and trolls will minimize themselves and look silly. If you believe in your brand/product and it’s second to none, you have nothing to fear.

In today’s world it’s important for brand managers to think differently. Think organic and think of talking WITH your loyalists rather than TO your loyalists. It takes a lot of effort and pain to step out of the usual marketing mindset where brands consistently push messages out to loyalists through traditional platforms like the brand/corporate website, email and catalogs, and spread brand messaging through TV/cable, print, radio and other forms of advertising. You’ll have to harness departments including PR, Marketing and Agency. It’s not simple, and it’s not easy, but it’s worth it.

The customer and your loyalists are in control now and you should use this to your advantage. They are ready to be your mouthpiece so long as you provide them the destinations, the tools, materials and outlets to execute on it.  Harness the power of your existing brand loyalists and you’ll be impressed with the positive results.

Note: In fairness to Porsche, they have a pretty strong following on Facebook.

46125 Commentshttp://www.10e20.com/blog/2009/12/16/empower-your-brand-loyalists-5-tips-for-success/Empower+Your+Brand+Loyalists%3A+5+Tips+for+Success2009-12-16+21%3A00%3A55Jake+Matthews

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Raise your right hand and repeat after me.

I [insert name], Chief Marketing Officer of [insert company name], do solemnly swear to:

1. Prevent squatters from taking over our company URLs on Twitter or other major social media websites and get them back if/when they do
2. Prevent employees from reserving important company names, brands and products on social accounts and later leaving the company and taking important passwords with them
3. Have a positive response for consumers talking about our brand in social media websites
4. Create good video content for YouTube and other major video sharing websites
5. Work with my advertising agency to run new creative / media buys which includes our company’s social media URLs
6. Make sure my web development and creative team put a Facebook or Twitter badge on our main websites
7. Work with my web analytics team to create custom reports so that I can see KPI’s for social media activity and referrals
8. Make absolutely sure my board, my investors, my CFO, and my CEO understand that we need adequate budget for social media marketing

And I will never allow:

1. My marketing team to tell me that they don’t know how fast our social media audience is growing
2. Legal to say we cannot run contests or sweeps
3. Marketing consultants to tell me that the only way to participate in social media is by creating a branded community that we control where we invite all of our brand advocates and try to sell them things
4. My CEO to tell me that we cannot have a blog on our website or that there is no time for anyone to blog
5. My kids to tell me they know more about social media than I do
6. Myself to think that:
   • social media marketing is something that gets instantaneous results
   • social media is nothing more than glorified press campaigns
   • social media is about selling our products to people who “hang around blogs”
   • social media marketing means buying ads on social networking websites
   • everyone who says they are a social media expert is an actual social media expert
   • apps are the entirety of social media opportunity
   • …or to be behind the curve or unaware of new and emerging social media sites and emerging technologies that help consumers connect with and understand our brands, products and services

Congratulations, you may now hold your head high and move into social media marketing with confidence and grace. You will not be battered by your colleagues for not knowing enough, nor will you be pushed around by Legal, PR, Web Development or Management committees who say “you can’t.” You are now empowered to succeed and to do better than your competitors by connecting with your consumers in a meaningful and effective way.

43655 Commentshttp://www.10e20.com/blog/2009/11/16/the-cmo-social-media-oath/The+CMO+Social+Media+Oath2009-11-16+21%3A15%3A45Jake+Matthews

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There are thousands of businesses on Twitter, and certainly many businesses are doing a fine job of connecting with their customers. Still, many organizations large and small, from Fortune 500’s to mom and pop shops, can reach farther and do better at communicating and building an audience on Twitter. Several are simply unsure of how or when to enter the network and what do once they are there.  And many companies want to look at Twitter as a place to sell, when in fact Twitter is a communications tool, a place to build relationships.  When companies set aside selling and employ Twitter for communications and relationship building, they tend to find long-term success.

A Twitter account is meant to be a place where you can network, communicate messages and gather feedback from the people most interested in your business. It’s also a place discover potential new clients and to inform followers and media to help spread word to those who have never heard of you. All too often businesses are not making the proper time investment in this important social network, thereby not getting the most out of Twitter.

Here are some basic rules of thumb to remember when entering this social network which may help you and your business connect better with your target market and the Twitter community at large.

Invest

By invest, I mean spend time, and we all know time is money, so this is your investment. Spend time watching how others use Twitter and spend time tweeting yourself. Or, spend time to work with an employee to get them tweeting in a meaningful way. A good time investment for a small business may be a few hours per week, and for a larger company it can range right up to a few hours per day depending on your business vertical.

Manage

Manage your account from a more robust application than the Twitter web interface itself.  Tweedeck is a good starting place as a basic application. If you’re a smaller business or frequently “on-the-go”, working with a hand-held application such as TwitterBerry from Orangatame is great to keep your account up to date and relevant while on the move.

Watch

Follow ongoing hashtag #conversations with #Keyword and respond in a helpful manner, but not by hawking your products. Be a resource rather than trying to sell. For example, if you run an auto parts supply company, try #carchat and help debunk myths in conversations about car repair, or offer up suggestions on ways to handle auto-repair problems.  Again, don’t look to sell, look to build relationships.

Listen

Listen to what your customers are saying about your company, services, brand or products.  This is an opportunity to build loyalty. Offer responses and feedback in a meaningful way, either through public (@reply) or private (direct message) channels. Followers gravitate to true and honest customer service.

Listen to the content of other tweets. Twitter SEARCH!! – use the Twitter search function relentlessly. While it needs polishing in terms of overall functionality, it has a tremendous ability to help you mine data and measure sentiment and perception about your products, services and industry. One of the great things about Twitter search is it is pretty much real time, up to the minute indexing of tweets, so you have the opportunity to find some of the most current feedback about a subject.  Beware of Tweetspam where spammers #tag popular subjects for the sake of getting clicks to their sites.  A keen eye can quickly sift through the BS, and I’m sure Twitter will be working to remedy some of that over time.

Speak

Establish a voice. Create a regular “editorial calendar” for your account so that you have relevant content for your business which can be posted.  Why not discuss the latest news from your events department?  Recently finish a major project? Perhaps it’s worthy of a brief announcement.  Have you established a new strategic relationship in your industry?  Perhaps you can tweet their account and get some public synergy.  Any big game-changing news in your industry?  You can link to your company blog post where you discuss that.  The opportunities for an editorial calendar are endless.

Optimize for Keywords

It’s worth it to include relevant keyphrases which users may search for in Twitter search to find related information.  Others are listening to keyphrase conversations, so why not take advantage of that?  Don’t go nuts with plugging in industry keywords into your posts and don’t keyword spam, but be cognizant of how you are phrasing your tweets.  For example: “We’ll be speaking at upcoming conferences (link)!”  vs “We’ll be speaking at PubCon, SES and other events this year! (link)”

Identify

A company is made up of people. Don’t be a afraid to say who you are or where your tweets are coming from. Even though you’re a company you shouldn’t be afraid to say who your tweets are coming from.

Don’t automate: Try not to automate responses or direct message replies, either. This wears thin on users and often turns them off and may result in someone un-following you.

Learn

Watch Twitter leaders and how they handle their networks. You can learn a lot and apply that back to your business. Some well executed business accounts are Dell, Zappos, etc.  Watch how others form their tweets and the tools they use to handle various announcements, broadcasts or replies.

Grow

Grow your account following by creating awareness of where it is.  It’s important to grow your account following and influence so that you can reach a larger audience.  Not every business needs huge audiences (hundreds of thousands of followers), but you need an audience large enough to get word out and have an impact.

How can you grow it?

• Let your customers know you are on Twitter and what they can expect by following you.
• Place a Twitter badge on your website with a call to action prompting them them to click over to your account.
• Place a badge with a call to action in your email drops.
• Add the Twitter handle or address on your print material communications.
  • Catalogs
  • Menus
  • Business Cards
  • Newsmailers
  • Special offers
• Show or talk about your Twitter address (where appropriate) in your media-buys, whether it’s online or offline in TV/cable/radio spots.
• Use search to follow others who are discussing your subjects related to your business vertical and follow them.

No matter your business vertical, whether B2B or B2C, there is fantastic opportunity to connect with your current and future customers on Twitter. Part of the success of Twitter is overcoming the fear, learning by trial and beginning to listen and act on the conversations taking place in this important social network.  Overcome your fear of Twitter, be sure to make the time investment, reference these handy Twitter rules of thumb and your company will reap rewards over time.

41008 Commentshttp://www.10e20.com/blog/2009/10/22/connecting-with-customers-on-twitter-%e2%80%939-tips-for-success/Connecting+with+Customers+on+Twitter+%E2%80%93+9+Tips+for+Success2009-10-22+20%3A50%3A25Jake+Matthews

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Ah, relationships. Good relationships are strong, meaningful bonds that act to hold people or objects together.  Like the furniture maker’s forgotten “dovetail” joint that once held a strong piece of furniture together and is now replaced with weak staples between faux wood fiberboard, relationships seem to be the forgotten glue that once held the business world together. Oh relationships, where have you gone?

Actually, relationships are alive and well, out there, calling your name with opportunities awaiting just beyond that first handshake. And why do we love relationships? Relationships lead to links online! Some of the best links that a business can acquire to their website are those developed through real-life relationships.

The best advice to grab these links is to get out from behind that keyboard and monitor (don’t worry, you can take your iPhone or BlackBerry with you) and go meet some real PEOPLE.

By meeting people and developing real relationships with them, you have the opportunity to garner quality links to your website. If you’re networking in the right places, these links are often targeted and of relative high value for SEO and for traffic purposes.

What do we mean by “real-life” relationships? These are relationships with people that you’ve spoken to on the telephone or have met in person. These are actual people you’ve developed a rapport with at some point at an event or in online social networking.

How does one go about garnering links from real life relationships?

First, you need to initiate or develop the relationship:

• Start by attending industry conferences and social events. Those who you meet at industry conferences, if you have a similar philosophy, will allow you to link to them and visa versa. The great thing about industry conferences is that you meet targeted prospects for link opportunities. Sometimes there are dot-org (.org) website owners who run trade or industry sites and are willing to link to you.  We all love .orgs, don’t we, for many of them are trustworthy and non-commercial in nature.

• If you’re not able to afford major industry conferences, it’s helpful to look for local networking groups and informal gatherings within your industry. It doesn’t have to be a huge once-annual event to attract a strong, focused group of attendees.

• Within industry magazines, find vendors who are offering related products but aren’t direct competitors.  Approach them and let them know that they have an opportunity with you.

• Within industry trade journals, find other businesses and organizations that you can call on to work up a relationship. Offer up lunch in your neighborhood and then discuss with them your online opportunities.

• Look to your local Chamber of Commerce, get involved and become active as a volunteer / member. Make sure to get some linking going from the Chamber website.

• Use online social networking sites like Meetup.com, LinkedIn.com and even Twitter.com to network with users who have like-minded interests.  The search features in these sites are solid and can lead you to some of the most valuable relationships anywhere.
  • Visit targeted users’ websites from their profiles to see if they could be a good linking candidate.
  • Find local MeetUp groups with people who are interested in like-minded topics or even topics that are slightly related.  For example, if you’re in the art-supply business, find a MeetUp of artists such as photographers, painters and/or sculptors.  Attend the MeetUp, be friendly and good things will happen.
• Twitter can be a great resource for finding links because the search is efficient, targeted, pretty much real time, and the initial pitch only has to be 140 characters in a direct message!

Once you’ve established a relationship, simply brief the target linker on the potential of the relationship.  If you think it’s a good linking partner based on audiences (and not solely on SEO weighting), chances are this is a very easy pitch and beneficial to both parties. Engage and see if there can be a meaningful way to share information between sites and help each other out in whatever form would work for both parties.

Granted, in a fair amount of cases you may end up with reciprocal relationships, but a targeted and natural-looking reciprocal link may be better than no link at all, both for SEO purposes and for actual traffic over time!  In many cases too there are simple, overlooked opportunities to garner one-way links directly back to your site and content.

Linking is a cumulative effort. Don’t expect to get hundreds of links overnight from this method. This is an organic, methodical process and not one which will bounce you to page #1 for all of your target or most competitive keywords in a day, or even a week. BUT, if you start out and say to yourself, “I’m going to garner quality, meaningful links over the course of time through hard work” - and set your goals to do so – it will happen. If you take the opportunity to ask for a link from most encounters and relationships you develop in your industry, good things will happen.

Relying on real-world networking, going out and pressing the flesh and meeting people in your industry (both at events and in online social networking websites) allows you to start on this path of natural linking success.  You’ll find that your business “dovetails” with some of the best places on the Internet!

377331 Commentshttp://www.10e20.com/blog/2009/09/18/link-building-through-relationships/Link+Building+through+Relationships2009-09-18+19%3A10%3A44Jake+Matthews

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Video continues to be a powerful medium to work with online. YouTube recently eclipsed Yahoo as the 2^nd largest search engine. Participating in video for the purpose of promoting your business is becoming more important each day.  Whether it’s increasing brand exposure or simply getting across a “how-to” to your customer base, video communicates your message in a unique and lasting way.

In a post about video optimization and analytics last year, we discussed ways to gain more exposure for your videos and find ways to measure the successes of your efforts with YouTube Insight. Here we’d like to dig a big deeper to show that within YouTube Insight you can find where your videos are embedded on other websites, and it’s these websites that present further opportunity for marketing your business and content.

Knowing where your videos have been embedded provides the opportunity to find new, targeted communities and then possibly join or work in those communities where people have adopted your content. This is basically following the lead of your fans, a true “go with the flow” organic approach.

How do we do find where our videos are embedded?

In YouTube Insight go to > Discovery > Source of Views > Embedded Player

….and then you’ll be able to view the sites where your video has been embedded.

Oftentimes there will be video sharing websites that have picked up your content, but from time to time you find niche sites and communities that have picked up your video content as well.  Click on those links and you’ll find pretty targeted sites/communities where your content may resonate well in the future and where it may be worth joining to discuss content and share yours in the future.

It’s important to note that sometimes YouTube Insight shows websites where your video may not necessarily be embedded, but where your video received exposure through the “related videos” feature of another embedded video.  Additionally, Insight does not show the actual URL where your video may have been embedded; it only shows the domain name.  Nonetheless, the Embedded Player feature in Insight will provide you with leads on targeted websites.

With the above example of a video about a BMW car, we were able to discover the following new websites:

• E90post.com,
• bmwfans.net,
• bmwtuner.net,
• e30club.ru

These are very targeted websites covering the area of BMW cars and for BMW enthusiasts to gather.  Prior to working with YouTube Insight, we did not know of these four targeted websites nor did we know that the users would potentially be  interested in this video content.  Now there is an opportunity to “follow the lead” of your content.

There is a lot you can do once you know the websites and communities where your content is shared and adopted. Here are a couple of proactive examples:

• Find the page where your video is embedded and promote and tag that page in other social sites or link to it from a blog to increase exposure. Try using [site: domainname.com keyword] searches, which can help you locate your video since Insight only shows the domain and not the actual page where your video is.
• Join the new found website and be transparent about who you are (representing your brand) and become a contributing, helpful and friendly community member so that more users within that community will begin to look back at your site or YouTube account for more video embed opportunities.
• Reach out to the user who posted the original embed and offer them an opportunity at exclusive video looks in the future, where they may access your content before others to share first.  By befriending and empowering this user, you can begin to build real advocates for your video content.

There are many great software packages and websites to track your social and video campaigns and where your video has been picked up and embedded.  However, if you are running a small, targeted video campaign and you’re focused solely on YouTube as a channel, sometimes finding successes and other “rooms” to build awareness and impressions is as easy as digging through your YouTube Insights panel and checking out the “Embedded Player” feature in Discovery.  It can lead to a lot of great relationships and more exposure for your content.

Here’s a brief video recap of what’s discussed above

340213 Commentshttp://www.10e20.com/blog/2009/08/19/youtube-insight-embedded-player-discovery/YouTube+Insight%3A+Embedded+Player+Discovery2009-08-19+18%3A42%3A49Jake+Matthews

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Webmasters, marketers and social media users submitting content to StumbleUpon have about 2-4 seconds to catch someone’s attention.  Given that, it’s essential to have an attractive, fun and usable web page or you’ll fail to bring in thousands of potential visitors.

For those of you just coming up to speed with this 8 million member strong social bookmarking website, StumbleUpon is essentially “channel surfing” for the web.  When someone’s channel surfing, your site should stand out with elegant simplicity or some sort of wow factor, or else it’ll get passed up in the blink of an eye.

Most Stumblers who influence the direction and popularity of content do so by using the “Stumble!” button on the browser toolbar, discovering a web page and voting thumbs-up, “I like it!” They also spread your content to other users by using the “Send to” button to broadcast this to their connections.  So to be successful, it’s critical to catch a Stumbler’s eye during the surfing process.

Each press of the “Stumble!” button provides a very small window to make a positive impression, and it’s not the Crazy Eddie impression we’re talking about here.  If you don’t catch someone’s attention or if you piss them off with crappy web pages or sales pitches, your content will not meet much success in this important social network.

So, you ask, “What is failure — how do you define that?”

StumbleUpon Fail (n):  low adoption, .2 seconds spent on page and very few people “liked this page.” In the “reviews” section of StumbleUpon, most users hate on your content. Other instances: NO TRAFFIC in your sweet little analytics panel and WTF happened?

Wanna fail? Try these strategies:

1. Make Your Page Too Complex
Ever hear hear the life tip “Keep it Simple Stupid” or (KISS)? Well, the same applies for StumbleUpon.  If your page is cluttered, too complex to view or too complex to interact with (e.g., poor user experience or flash elements that take forever to load), your content will almost certainly fail.  Here are a couple of examples:

Too Complex Exhibit A: I’m going to clutter my page with banners, images, mixed color palettes, no theme and flashing pop ups.

Too Complex Exhibit B: Too much competing for my attention; not enough above the fold. (What is this page about?!)

2. Turn Your Page into a Billboard

If most of what a user sees above the fold on the web page is advertising, it’s likely that you’ll get passed over.

Billboard Exhibit A:  (Google AdSense out the wazoo!)

Billboard Exhibit B: (90% ads in view! – where’s the content?!)

3. Create a Poor Page Layout with Terrible Usability

If your page doesn’t really say anything either through words or imagery, or it’s cluttered with pop-up windows and animations, it’s likely that Stumblers will breeze on through without really considering the value of your page.

Poor Layout Exhibit A: (Ummm???? Hello, white space??)

Poor Usability Exhibit B: (Hey Broken Blog, No, I don’t want ‘The Inside Poop’)

4. Show a Directory, Site Map or a Link-Filled Page

If your page is just a map of navigational links, Stumblers will probably not thumb it up or pass it along to anyone.
Directory Filled Page Exhibit A: (BORING!)

The above sites are not necessarily bad websites all around, but the specific pages that were found in StumbleUpon were simply not optimized for total success.

So now that we’ve trashed some fellow Stumblers who didn’t do such a great job, we should find some examples of things that do well in StumbleUpon. What works well?

1. Simplicity of Message

(Ahh, I get it!)

2. Larger Fonts & Text at the Top

3. Images, Images, Images

(THIS WORKS; I’m thumbing up and passing this along to my friends)

StumbleUpon is about sharing fun, interesting and attractive content and presenting it in a user-friendly manner.  Success in this network is about simplicity of message and usability.  If you cannot find ways to get your message across while keeping these elements in mind, then don’t bother; you’re apt to offend and piss more people off than you are to get any web mastering or even friendly social sharing benefits back.  Happy Stumbling!

Spy on 10e20 through RSS or see if you can hang with the BIG boys and girls on Twitter.

283116 Commentshttp://www.10e20.com/blog/2009/07/20/4-surefire-stumbleupon-fails-and-3-tips-for-success/4+Surefire+StumbleUpon+Fails+%28and+3+tips+for+success%292009-07-20+18%3A43%3A02Jake+Matthews

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Guess what?  Social networking online is very similar to social networking offline (in the real world)!  Big surprise?  Believe it or not, for some, it really is a surprise. Whether you are looking to grow your network, influence, awareness and reach or advancing your professional and personal goals it’s important to recognize that being successful in social networking online and offline are very similar.  Most of us know the rules for networking in the real world, but it’s important to remember them for online, particularly if you are making your first moves into online social media and social networking.  The following are tips to become a decent social networker in either medium. Most tips apply in both scenarios.

Know the organizer: Make it a point either when you arrive at the event or prior to leaving the event to thank the organizer for putting the event together,  let them know that you wish to attend future events and that you met some great contacts. Knowing the organizer and letting them know you appreciate the hard work needed to put together an event may put you in position to share the highest level of invite status in the future. Find out who runs things and take the mindset that you owe them something.

Offer assistance: If you really like the event/group, offer that you’d like to be a part of helping to organize future events by volunteering time and some of your core capabilities. Help your fellow social networkers by advancing their goals, sharing their goals with others or by introducing them to a new contact in your network. Make a solid public recommendation if you honestly believe in what they have to offer.

Be polite: Enter conversations gently and in a meaningful way with something to add. Don’t interrupt existing conversations in progress, but work you way into conversations. As a conversation hits a lull or comes to a conclusion, start it again, this time with a twist. Avoid cursing. There is no need to curse and swear to make your point. If you’re succinct in your discussion, people will get the point. Use of words like F*&K and SH%T become very unattractive after a while and show a certain lack of professionalism after some time.

Smile: No one likes a all the time.  Stay away from negativity, and don’t dwell on bad news. Bring uplifting anecdotes and share in the positives.  Clean yourself up and dress well.  Represent yourself with a decent looking avatar / profile image. Ask some of your closest friends and contacts what they honestly think about your profile image.

Meet the influencers: Take time to understand who the influencers are in the room, who are long time members and pay deference to their contributions to the organization. Share your experiences with them about the group. Ask questions of the influencers as they know a ton about the group and how to become established within the group. Perhaps you can help an influencer in some other area of life and they can help you within the social network group?

Meet the newcomers: Show a bit of bi-partisanship and don’t put all your focus on the influencers or the organizers all the time. A newcomer could one day become an “influencer”, so you should try to meet some of them. It’s important to show the rest of the group that you are not just looking to network up, but that you care about the development of the entire group.  After all, Susan Boyle was a newcomer, right?  Good for those who introduced themselves to her before she went on stage!

Follow up: Follow up with the people you’ve met in the network and at the event. Don’t leave your new contacts hanging. Make sure to follow up with some form of contact (phone call, email, hand written note) recognizing that you’ve met them and showing them you care about their work. Help them in their endeavors and help them reach their goals first, and they will be apt to help you.

Don’t sell and don’t spam: Tread lightly on the commercial approach. Don’t blanket the party with your pitch, your business card or with how great you are. If you try to sell things to your social network and you constantly GLOAT, chances are you will be rejected in some way.  This reminds me of a social marketing post we made some time ago where we said:

” [social marketing] is about acting like a human and networking in it’s traditional form; being a part of the discourse, part of the conversation, meeting people and not sucking people into an E-commerce funnel.”

Bring a gift: Bring something to share at the event. Bring insights, a new contact or bits of information that others can benefit from. Don’t come empty handed. Bring an actual gift or bring your knowledge of a subject to contribute to the group discussion.

Find new events: Find new events, go to them and cross-connect the contacts you meet at one group with the contacts from another. Turning your friends on to new events helps them understand that you care about their development.

Introduce a new person: Bring a new person to the group who you think will add value for the rest. You’ll be in the good graces of the new attendee and likely the rest of the group for expanding the network in a meaningful way.

Relate: Make sure you remain relatively on-topic in discussions. Speak about the industry and if the conversation veers into the personal or off-topic, at least make sure those you’re speaking with  have a remote interest in what you’re discussing.  If they can’t relate, you’re done!

What are some of your social networking tips?

239034 Commentshttp://www.10e20.com/blog/2009/04/30/social-networking-101-basic-tips-for-online-and-offline-social-networking/Social+Networking+101%3A+Basic+Tips+For+Online+and+Offline+Social+Networking2009-04-30+14%3A54%3A19Jake+Matthews

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One of the easiest ways to raise the visibility of your site with video on YouTube is to use video “annotations”. Annotations are short textual notes that you can post in the video player and publish to your videos. And while annotations don’t yet allow you to link OUT of YouTube, they do allow you type in a URL in text form without linking, which is 1 step in the right direction to tying your great video content back to your site/brand name.

There are currently 3 useful types of annotations:

• notes
• speech bubbles
• spotlights

What do annotations and speech bubbles look like? This video has a brief example of both.

Why are annotations useful?

• Write in your domain name or
• Write in further information about your brand or products.
• Write in addresses, locations, names.
• If you close sales over the phone, write in a PHONE NUMBER.
• Expand the commentary on the content that’s in the video.
• While you cannot link outside of YouTube, you can raise visibility to other video searches and pages within YouTube.
• Make specific statements at specific times within the videos.
• If the reality of what was filmed in your video is ever changed, revised, or disputed, EDIT the video to and make annotations to improve the accuracy of what the video portrays.
• Link to other areas of YouTube to show other content – cross promote your products, services and content on the site.
• Think about how often good YouTube videos get embedded on blogs and other sites. This is an opportunity to have a full on endorsement and make your statement elsewhere, right in the video content.

We’ve seen annotations cause a rise in traffic for websites, both in specific domain name and URL type-ins and in “BRAND NAME” searches, causing them to rise on Google and other search engines.

Annotations can be found under your video editing options. They are really EASY to work with.

Incidentally, YouTube is also offering closed captions and subtitles which can come in handy for hearing impaired viewers and for multiple language situations. These too can be really useful tools for your videos.

Annotations give you a lot more flexibility within your videos to raise awareness of your site, products, services and brand. Right now they are free to use, so why not use them on your video content?

192010 Commentshttp://www.10e20.com/blog/2008/11/17/using-video-annotations-to-raise-awareness-and-website-traffic/Using+Video+Annotations+to+Raise+Awareness+and+Website+Traffic2008-11-17+17%3A04%3A34Jake+Matthews

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