Relevantor Content Platform Headlines the Internet Summit
I came across an intriguing article about a new content platform three weeks ago. Relevantor is a content optimization solution that promises to increase conversions and visitor engagement by delivering relevant and appropriate content to every visitor on your website. More »
Weekly Wrap Up #1
As one of our new blog campaigns here at Howard Merrell, we are starting weekly wrap up. Every Friday one of our awesome associates will find the top 5 articles, videos, news stories, etc. that they enjoy and believe you will like too. Many of these get shared internally throughout the week here at the office and we pass these on to you, for your enjoyment.
1. Social Media Crises On The Rise
In a study by the Altimiter Group, there were many interesting findings about not only how often social media crises arose but the ways they are dealt with. Namely, one of the optimal solutions was to follow Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Owyang stated,
1) Foundation: First, develop a business plan and put governance in place.
2) Safety: Then, get organized by anointing a team and process to deal with crises.
3) Formation: Next, connect business units to increase coordination and reduce duplication.
4) Enablement: Grow by letting them prosper – give business units the support and flexibility to reach goals
5) Enlightenment: Finally, weave real-time market response into business processes and planning.
Read the full report on Social Media Crises Readiness.
2. Crowdbooster Launches the Future of Social Analytics
I don’t think it has launched the whole future, personally, but it is a very, very solid tool. Crowdbooster’s social media analytics give you pretty graphs to look at. Not only that though, but I personally have been using Crowdbooster to optimize my posting times, and I have seen a significant raise in click-through rates when compared to other times. I have yet to try its influential users, but I’m sure it would be interesting to prove how well it works.
3. LinkedIn Top Social Media Site for Journalists
A recent study shows that more journalists are on LinkedIn than any other social network. The study found that 92 percent of journalists are on LinkedIn, with Facebook and Twitter following close behind at 85 and 84 percent, respectively. In 2009, 85 percent of journalists were on LinkedIn, while only 55 percent were on Facebook and 24 percent were using Twitter. via – Meredith Schneider
4. Sweet Boarding Bulldogs!
No cause for this one. Just some sweet bulldogs on different boards on different waves: Concrete, Sand, and Snow.
5. Social Media Decision Tree
If you’ve ever had a problem deciding which social network would be best for you, this decision tree/flow chart can be a helpful tool. Albeit better for a personal decision over a company-wide decision it does give excellent points and choices for the best social network. If you’ve ever needed help deciding what network to use, check this out!
Image Credit - MacKinnon Photography
Purvis Joins Team as Digital Analyst
We are excited to welcome Shavette Purvis as a digital analyst. In this position, Purvis is responsible for developing integrated marketing analytical solutions across customers and channels to improve client decision-making. Additionally, she monitors, analyzes and reports on the performance of websites, email campaigns, display advertising, paid search and social media executions.
“Shavette brings an abundance of experience in planning and implementing interactive campaigns,” said Senior Vice President of Interactive Services, Scott Piggott. “Her industry experience, coupled with her strong work ethic, make her a wonderful addition to our team. As we celebrate our 65th anniversary we are excited to continue our tradition of excellence with new hires like Shavette.”
For more information, click here.
Searching for a Digital Analyst
Howard, Merrell & Partners is seeking a Digital Analyst. The Digital Analyst works with team members to develop analytic strategy for the client, understanding customer behavior, defining analytics strategy, managing insights projects, performing analysis and writing reports. The position requires strong analytical skills to provide data driven insights.
Responsibilities include:
- Provide integrated marketing analytical solutions across customers and channels to improve client decision-making.
- Monitor, analyze, and report on the performance of Web sites, email campaigns, banner ads, social media, etc.
- Understand and effectively communicate search engine marketing strategies, the search engine landscape, and the effectiveness of search engine optimization.
- Manage online media campaigns to include integration of web sites, banner ads, social media, SEO, PPC, etc.
- Create holistic dashboards/analysis by pulling data from different data sources and websites for presentations to senior management team.
- Develop presentations for senior management team and clients.
- Cultivate and maintain strong relationships with creative thinkers, technologists, and clients.
- Create timelines and ensure consistent adherence to established deadlines.
- Provide direction to creative, media and production staff and effectively represent their perspectives when presenting work to client.
- Testing and troubleshooting web analytics tags for quality assurance.
- Recognizing and solving data problems and inconsistencies.
- Team interface regarding campaign tracking.
- Achieve and maintain fluency in relevant interactive technologies.
Required Skills:
- A bachelor’s degree is required, along with 1 – 3 years of digital experience.
- Technical aptitude and strong problem solving skills are expected.
- A solid understanding of internet technologies and web analytics is necessary.
- Experience with e-mail tracking is a plus.
- The candidate will be familiar with Google Analytics, DART for Advertisers, and WebTrends.
- Strong Excel, PowerPoint, and general math skills are required.
- Should be familiar with HTML and JavaScript.
- A background in online marketing and/ or site publishing is helpful.
- The web analyst should be proactive and detail oriented.
- Candidate should be flexible and be willing to be part of a highly energetic team focused on delivering quality client solutions.
- Passion, a desire to learn and a good attitude.
Work Environment:
Normal office environment. Travel to client offices required.
Email resumes to analyst@merrellgroup.com. Please no recruitment/placement agencies.
New Metrics For Facebook Brand Pages
When the term “social media marketing” is mentioned many minds go directly to Facebook. With more than 200 million members Facebook is the iconic social networking brand and thus the focus of many advertising and marketing efforts. Recently they announced changes to their user dashboard, which displays stats for owners of Facebook brand/fan pages.
Some of these new features include:
- Graphs showing different types of fan interactions with the Page over time.
- Count of active fans this week, with full age/sex/location breakdown.
- A new count of total interactions this week, broken down by type.
- Post quality rating, from 1 to 5 stars.
- Graphs for Interactions, Interactions per Post, Post Quality, Stream CTR, Posts, Page views, Media Consumption, Review
All of these improvements provide valuable information for brand marketers, however the feature with the most potential value is post quality ratings. Facebook is about effective content marketing and community building for brands. To make improvements to content a company must know if the content is strong or weak. This type of reporting helps to show trends for the type of information your community/customers are most interested in which can help determine the future direction of both online and offline marketing efforts.
