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5 Social Platforms to Put on Your “Fadar”!
Over the last several years lots of social platforms have come and gone. Some are slowly fading away. It’s really hard to keep track of where to spend your time and energy! 2012 will remain a big year for big players such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, and LinkedIn and similarly, we should also expect to see exponential growth for newcomers like Pinterest. However, as newcomers gain momentum, we will start to see other social networks fizzle off. Here are 5 social platforms we think you should put on your “fadar” (aka fading radar):
- Quora: The question and answer platform was predicted to be the next big thing in 2010. However, half way through 2011 the big buzz surrounding the site slowly started to fade off. The site still receives decent traffic, with an estimate of 500,000 users, however, as new social sites emerge Quora might not be at the top of social minds.
- Digg: The once beloved site-sharing website has been dying a slow death for several years. It hasn’t been able to compete with sites like Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter. It is my opinion that it is just a matter of time before it completely fizzles off. A few months ago it did launch a new version of the site, however, it doesn’t seem like users found it very appealing. A couple of years ago a great article would have received on average 3000 Diggs, now you’re lucky if you even get 100.
- Delicious: This social bookmarking site had everything going for it back in 2005. It was new to the scene and had no real competitors. What happened? As new bookmarking sites started to saturate the market Delicious didn’t reinvent quickly enough. Rumors are it might shut-down or sell its technology.
- Gowalla: This location-based site was once a fierce competitor for foursquare, both entering the market at about the same time 2 years ago. However, foursquare quickly gained momentum with over 1 billion check-ins to date, leaving Gowalla in the dust. Gowalla’s leadership has now joined forces with Facebook. According to industry insiders, Facebook has not purchased the technology, only the talent. Gowalla will slowly fade out.
- QR Codes: There’s a huge online debate about whether QR (Quick Response) Codes are slowly starting to die off before they’ve even had the chance to really take off. Some people may think, why would QR Codes be on the “fadar”? I see them everywhere? Well, that’s exactly my point. The ubiquitous use of QR Codes in often ill-conceived marketing efforts, is what might lead to its demise.
What do you think? Do you take issue with any of the above observations? Are there networks or tools you feel should be on the fadar?
Maryam Mehrtash
@socialmaryam
Tags: cool, Delicious, digg, facebook, foursquare, google, gowalla, LinkedIn, pinterest, QR codes, reddit, Social Media, technology, Twitter, youtube
What If…Only 100 People Can Visit Your E-Commerce Website Per Day?
Here’s the scenario. You own an online sports equipment store and you are able to sell products online. However, from now on, your website can only allow 100 visitors per day to enter the website. Your company’s revenue will depend solely on these 100 visitors per day so you better make sure the people who visit your website are people who are ready to purchase something.
How would this affect how you do business?
Scarcity is something all businesses have to deal with. This scenario is actually not far from reality depending on how you look at it. For example:
- Your PPC budget is exhausted after 100 website visits per day (or click-throughs)
- You only have enough time to reach out to 100 people on Twitter and Facebook
- The QR code campaign budget can only print 100 posters
When creating a digital strategy, it is important to allocate resources where there is highest potential for achieving the strategy’s objectives.
In the scenario above, the objective is to maximize revenue.
- If you are bidding on a PPC campaign, you’d likely want to bid on more targeted keywords which suggest users are further down the sales funnel. For example, you would rather bid for “buy hockey equipment” over just “hockey”.
- If you are investing time on Twitter and Facebook, you’d likely want to reach out to 100 sport related key influencers rather than 100 spam bot accounts.
- If you are distributing QR codes, you’d likely want to place posters around athletic facilities rather than general locations like a coffee shop or bus stop.
Scarcity > Decisions > Strategy
Victor
Digital Strategist
Photo Credit: albertogp123
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What If …. Series.
What If…Your Twitter and Facebook Posts Were Deleted After 24 Hours?
What If…There Was a 2-Tweet Per Day Limit?
Tags: choice, decisions, digital strategy, scarcity, strategy, what if
10 Pitfalls To Avoid When Creating A Digital Strategy
This is an excerpt from a white paper widely circulated in the US this week. Click here to download the entire article.
There are all sorts of conflicting statistics about the failure rate of online marketing campaigns. The numbers don’t really matter. There are enough highly publicized train wrecks to safely conclude that a good percentage go wrong. The more interesting question is why?
One reason may be the ground is constantly shifting beneath our feet. Facebook today. Pinterest tomorrow. It can be difficult to know where to start when it comes to building a high impact web and mobile presence. Here are 10 pitfalls to avoid when designing a digital strategy for your client or brand.
PITFALL #1:
Rolling Out A Strategy Before Conducting An Assessment
If you take only one point away from this paper, please let it be this. Before even thinking about whether your business needs a Facebook page, a Twitter account or a new fangled iPhone app, do a rigorous assessment of your existing online and mobile presence and that of your competitors. Find your audience online and understand how they want to be engaged. Research the online advertising climate and see if any firm, anywhere, is establishing online and mobile marketing best practices. What has worked? What has crashed faster than a Kardashian wedding?
An assessment lays the groundwork for the strategy. You can’t figure out where you want to be until you know where you currently are, online.
Takeaway
- Analyze the company’s website for ease of navigation, broken links, see how it ranks in search results.
- Review your firm’s (or your client’s) social media channels, note the frequency of post, the level of active engagement from your target audience. Apply the same analysis to your competitors.
- Search forums, social media, and blogs to find your target audience. Understand where they are, how they like to engage, and take careful note of key influencers.
PITFALL #2:
Objectives. What Objectives?
Imagine jumping in the car and pressing the gas without knowing your destination. How would you decide which route to take? That’s what it’s like to design a roadmap for a digital strategy that does not have clear objectives. How can you know whether a pay-per-click advertising campaign is better than a frequently updated blog if you don’t know what either tactic is trying to achieve.
Clients often say their online objective is to grow revenue. That’s not sufficiently clear. A more valuable goal would be to increase revenue from online sales by 7% in a specific time period. The more specific the objective(s), the better.
Takeaway
- List your goals for the digital strategy as they apply to your larger business goals. Review and refine until they are crystal clear.
- Select and customize web and mobile tools, design timelines and structure content to meet those objectives.
Download the rest of this white paper here.
Tags: ALERT, digital strategy, pitfalls
5 Tips For Your Foursquare Explore Social Strategy
If you haven’t claimed your foursquare profile yet, you might want to get on that asap! If the fact that the site’s database has 1.5 billion check-ins logged into the system isn’t enough of a an incentive, then perhaps knowing that foursquare has gone “search” online with their newest feature Explore with the website garnering 1 million unique visitors per day already could entice you.
By claiming your foursquare profile you can personalize it to suit your business and take advantage of integrating this platform into your social media (geo-location) strategy. In addition to checking-in, claiming badges and mayorships, now users can search for locations, deals, and places on their desktop using the Explore feature. Some people don’t like having a Foursquare account on their mobile phones and “checking-in” all the time, but would like to use this feature to see where their friends are checking-in and what they recommend. Foursquare Explore allows you to go online and search without having to use the platform as a check-in tool. It is useful for the end user to go through the 15 million tips that are gathered on the site already when deciding on where to go and what to eat… or drink!
Here are five tips to include in your strategy in order to ensure increased visits from Foursquare Explore to your company’s profile page:
- Regularly monitor your foursquare account. Review check-ins, comments, and tips to see what users are saying.
- Use QR codes to encourage check-ins, tips, and submissions.
- Promote Foursquare ads to encourage check-ins.
- Include sentiments and adjectives in your foursquare ad strategy (i.e. romantic, Friday, sweet, summer, wine list, etc…)
- Use keywords when posting deals on your foursquare account to help with search queries.
Happy searching!
Maryam
@socialmaryam
Tags: badges, explore, foursquare, geo-location, SEO, social, strategy, tips, visitors
What If…Your Twitter and Facebook Posts Were Deleted After 24 Hours?
What if … a new feature was introduced where Facebook Wall posts and Twitter tweets were automatically removed after 24 hours?
If you did not post anything new in a 24-hour period, your Facebook Wall and Twitter profile would be empty, showing just a blank page. If you’re managing a Facebook Page or a Twitter account for your company or client this would be a big deal. It’s equivalent to having a company website with no content.
Would this give you more incentive to publish content more frequently?
This hypothetical scenario isn’t very far from reality, considering the effective lifespan of the average Facebook post is 22 hours and the lifespan of the average Twitter tweet is 1 hour.
It’s a balancing act. Publish too infrequently and you’ll gain minimal benefit from your social media profile. Publish too frequently and you risk annoying your followers.
Keep this in mind the next time you are developing a digital strategy. Is your publishing frequency maximizing your impact online?
Victor
Digital Strategist
Photo Credit: JanetR3
Tags: facebook, lifespan, strategy, Twitter
