Top 3 Social Media Infographics
Kicking off the obligatory end of the year “best of”s, I’d like to share with you three of my favourite Social Media related infographics of 2011. So, in the words of X Factor‘s Dermot O’Leary, in no particular order, these are the infographics that i’d take through to next weeks show, were I to have one:
Let’s begin with Flowtown’s “How Far does Social Advertising Reach”, a nice graphic that reinforces the idea that as consumers continue to ignore traditional online advertising, the role of social advertising becomes more pertinent.
Flowtown – Social Media Marketing Application
One of the key discussions surrounding social media in 2011 has been in how you can effectively measure ROI. The Wall have created the below infographic that looks at the real costs of social media campaigns.
Finally, Bafton’s infographic “Why Content for SEO?” ties Social Media into SEO very nicely, summing up turn that SEO has taken, and will continue to follow into 2012 and beyond:
And those are my personal favourites. Disagree with my choices? Feel free to link to infographics that you like in the comments below.
Top 15 Internet Marketing Books According to 50 Influential Bloggers
As much as us Internet marketers love to learn from blogs and other online resources, you still can’t beat a properly planned, structured and researched book for gaining insightful, actionable knowledge. In my quest to find the best books on SEO, PPC and Social Media, I asked 50 online marketing bloggers to chose their one favourite internet marketing book. This is the list of 15 digital marketing books that came back:
Social Media books
Inbound Marketing
By Brian Halligan, Dharmesh Shah, David Meerman Scott
An introduction to online marketing for those that are baffled, Inbound Marketing covers a wide range of topics. Offering hands on advice for getting your business found via SEO, blogging and social media, with a particular leaning towards social media.
Recommended by Brian Rogel and Paul Dunay
The Experience Economy
By B. Joseph Pine II, James H Gilmore
Taken from the blurb: “Businesses must form unique connections in order to secure customer affections”. The focus of The Experience Economy is on marketing your brand through creating an experience and engaging with the customer. The premise is that by enhancing the experience you add value to your product and therefore to your bottom line. This book is particularly relevant to new marketing, with the rise of social media marketing being considered by many as a product of the customer’s increasing demand for an “experience” and feeling of affiliation with a brand.
Recommended by Brian Solis
Engage
By Brian Solis
Engage guides you from planning and implementing a social media campaign through to measuring success and ROI. Actionable strategies are given for increasing SOV, growing loyalty and trust, community building and identifying brand evangelists and influencers. A good introduction to social media.
Recommended by Tamar Weinberg whose own book New Community Rules also focuses on social media.
Content Rules
By Ann Handley, C.C. Chapman
Content Rules gives tips and strategies for creating engaging content for blogs, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other social platforms, along with tips on maximizing the reach of the content that you create.
Recommended by Jay Baer and Todd Defren
Launch
By Michael Stelzner
A hands on guide to community building and customer engagement with a strong focus on content creation and relationship building – both with customers and also with peers who may help promote your content. Launch also highlights how to retain customers though continuing to hold their attention thereby increasing the ROI of online engagement.
Recommended by Michael Stelzner
Meatball Sundae
By Seth Godin
Answering the question: ‘how can we alter our business to become an organisation that thrives on new marketing?’ Meatball Sundae looks at how the internet is transforming our perceptions of marketing, the way we want to makes purchases and the type of products that we want to purchase before guiding us on how to modify business models to succeed in this new environment.
Recommended by Jennifer Laycock
SEO Books
Art of SEO
By Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, Rand Fishkin, Jessie C Stricchiola
Details SEO best practices from the basics to an advanced level, from managing SEO projects to building a competent SEO team. This book really gets to the heart of search engine optimisation, and is very useful both for those who are new to SEO and for seasoned practitioners. The Art of SEO is widely believed to be the best SEO book out there.
Recommended by Zarko
Don’t Make Me Think
By Steve Krug
Written with web designers in mind, Don’t Make Me Think focuses on on-site optimisation and web usability. An invaluable resource for SEOs as success of an SEO campaign should not only be measured on increased traffic and improved rankings, but also on increased sales. This look at how customers interact with a site and how to optimise for conversions is a great starting point. Accessible and easy to read, yet still offers useful nuggets for the more advanced web professional.
Recommended by Linda Bustos and Joost de Valk
PPC Books
Winning Results with Google Adwords
By Andrew Goodman
A comprehensive guide to Google paid search which includes strategies for setting up the account, writing successful ads, and optimising campaigns once they’re up and running. Winning Results with Google Adwords offers tips for getting the best ROI possible on your Adwords spend.
Recommended by Jonathan Allen
Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords
By Perry Marshall
Another guide to Adwords that teaches the creation of keyword lists, setting up accounts, writing copy, targeting, and conversion optimisation.
Recommended by Ashu Jangid
Website Analytics Books
Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity
By Avinash Kaushik
Written in the same jargon free style in which Avinash Kaushik delivers his presentations, this is a well thought out and easy to understand text. With a focus on the analysis of data, Web Analytics 2.0 lays out what you should be looking for in your analysis, and more importantly, how the data can help you. Giving specific, actionable recommendations and strategies, this is a valuable resource for improving the performance of your website.
Recommended by Mike Grehan
Marketing and Internet Marketing Books
Made to Stick
By Chip and Dan Heath
An explanation of how humans absorb information and what makes us more likely to remember an idea or story, Made to Stick guides you on how to create compelling and memorable marketing communications.
Recommended by David Armano
Buyology
By Martin Lindstrom
Buyology looks into the psychology of why people buy. Citing neurological studies and tests that investigate the subliminal reasoning behind making a purchase decision, Lindstrom illustrates the emotional connection that customers have with products and services. Good to dip in and out of.
Recommended by Murray Lunn
Get Rich Click
By Ostrofsky
An absolutely monster guide to setting up a profitable online business, Get Rich Click guides you through buying a domain, setting up an ecommerce business, promoting your online business through SEO and PPC, selling ad space, affiliate marketing, content creation, social networking, mobile marketing and more.
Recommended by Chris Brogan
Business Books
The Dip
By Seth Godin
A fresh look at running your own business, The Dip looks at what you should do when times get tough. Godin takes the stigma out of quitting by showing that sometimes that is exactly the right thing to do.
Recommended by Ross Hudgens
Thanks again to all those that took part. If I missed you off the list and you’d like to share your favourite online marketing book – please do so below!
World Map of Social Media
Who’s using which social network where? Vincenzo Cosenza has produced a graphic showing the most popular social network by country according to Alexa and Google Trends for Websites:
Google Vs Facebook on Twitter Infographic
Visual.ly, a data visualisation technology startup company, have got infographic lovers all excited over the promise of a new soon to be released infographic creation tool. And by the look of this beauty generated solely by entering two Twitter handles (in their Twiterize yourself tool), this could be a promising contender for free infographic creation!
Facebook Developer App Update
Yesterday evening Facebook announced an update to their Developer App. As yet, it looks like those who’ve already registered a developer account and created apps will see the old interface. But for those who are looking to set up their first app, or those (like me) who need to explain to someone how to set up their first app whilst looking at a different interface, this is what it looks like:
The “About” section is the same as before, but instead of clicking “Facebook Integration” to enter your canvas settings, you’ll now need to navigate to “On Facebook”. For more details of what information to enter where, see my previous post on creating iframes for you Facebook page.
Changes to the Facebook Developer Interface
The major changes are:
Managing roles
The updated interface allows the addition of administrators, developers, testers and insights users from the Roles interface. You do not need to be “friends” with people to add them (a big bonus for those who create apps for their business through their personal profiles). The varying degrees of access to the app are:
- Administrator: has complete access to the application and all its settings
- Developer: can modify all technical settings and access Insights but cannot reset secret key, delete application, or add additional users
- Tester: can access the application in Sandbox mode but cannot modify the application
- Insights User: can access Insights but cannot modify the application
Speed
The new Developer App is built with a quicker load time, so editing and saving changes should happen more efficiently.
All sounds good – so hopefully existing developer accounts will be updated to the new interface soon so that I can try it out.
What is Google +1?
Since the late ‘90s, Google have prided themselves on providing the answers to some of life’s most pressing questions such as Is Elvis dead? or What’s up with Charlie Sheen? But then Facebook came along with their shiny Like button and suddenly everyone was sharing what they thought was cool with, well, everyone. And Google didn’t have an answer to it…until now.
In March 2011, the world’s most popular search engine announced the release of their +1 button. Unofficially, this is their answer to Facebook’s ever popular “Like” button. But what is it? How does it work? And, more importantly, when can we use it?
1. What is Google +1?
In Google’s own words: “the +1 button is shorthand for “this is pretty cool” or “you should check this out.”
The button itself appears on the right hand side of a listing or paid advert on the search results page, and is a way of sharing websites you think are worth a click with your nearest and dearest.
2. How does it work?
Sign into your Google account. Search for something interesting and take a look through the listings. If you find a website that well and truly blows you away then let your Google contacts know about it by clicking the +1 button.
The theory is: the more +1s a page has the higher that site will sit in your (and your contacts) personalised search results.
3. How can I use it?
At the moment +1 is mainly available for users of English Google.com with UK users only able to join the experiment. However, there has been definite talk of an embeddable button to go side by side the “Like” and “Tweet” buttons on a landing page of your choice.
It remains to be seen whether this is just another disastrous plunge into the world of social (remember Google Wave?) or if it will actually have a deep impact on both SEO and Social Media. But with Bing incorporating Facebook Likes into personalised search since 2010 one thing’s for sure, expect this digital dog fight to get hotter and hotter.
Facebook Page Tabs with Iframes: Stage 2
Once you have built the content for your custom tab, you need to create an iframe app in order to display that content within your Facebook Page. You’ll need to follow the same process and create an app for each new tab that you want to add.
Let’s get started:
* Note – on the 29th June 2011 the interface changed. The below still applies, but the navigation to various sections is different. See this post on the new Facebook Developer App interface.
1. Go to the Facebook Developers site and register.
2. Click on “Set up New App” in the top right hand corner of the screen.
3. Name your application.
4. In the about section, give your tab a description and upload an icon and logo. The icon will be displayed next to your tab name in your Facebook Page menu on the left hand side.
5. Now for the important bit. The Facebook Integration tab:
- Canvas URL – this is the address for where the page that you created is uploaded. DO NOT include the name of the file here.
- Iframe Size – select auto-resize to avoid scrollbars. To completely remove scrollbars you’ll need to add some extra code to you HTML page which Kim Woodbridge provides here. If you kept to 520 pixels by 800 when creating your page, you shouldn’t have a problem.
- Tab Name – the name of your tab.
- Tab URL – here is where you put the name of the page that you uploaded to your FTP.
Save your app.
If you want your app to be available to be downloaded by others then sumbit it to the directory by clicking the “sumbit it” link.
If not, click the “Application Profile Page” link on the right hand side of the page where you can then add the app to your Facebook Page.
To make your iframe the custom welcome tab for non fans, see How to Create a Facebook Page Welcome Tab.
Facebook Page Tabs with Iframes: Stage 1
2 months since my last Facebook Pages post and, my, how times have changed. As of mid-March, Facebook began the move away from FBML. Although existing tabs created using the static FBML app will continue to work and can still be edited, all new custom tabs will need to be created using iframes.
Hang on – Whatever is an Iframe?
An iframe is essentially a window that displays one website within another. Using iframes, we can create pages which will be stored on our own domains, and display them within Facebook on our custom tabs. This will allow us to create facebook tabs with greater functionality.
How do I Make one of These?
Getting your custom tabs onto your Facebook Page now requires two steps. Firstly, you need to build the content. This is what I’m going to talk about in this post. Secondly, you need to create a Facebook iframe app to display that content on a custom tab. That’s explained in the next post.
So, let’s build a Facebook tab:
1. Create a new directory with subfolders on your web server
For example – create a directory called “Facebook” containing subfolders called “welcome tab”, “products tab” and “contact us tab” etc. To create these files, you need to access the back end of your site via an FTP client such as File Zilla.
2. Build your tabs as HTML Pages
Each page must be a maximum of 520 pixels wide and no longer than 800 pixels. You can incorporate virtually anything using the standard web development languages, so could include things like product search functionality, email sign ups or contact forms.
If you are building forms using method=”post”, be sure to specify target=”_self” or “_parent” (as it’s not possible to name Facebook iframes) so that results are posted within the Facebook iframe and don’t take users to another website.
3. Save your custom Facebook tabs in the relevant subfolders of your new directory
Now you are ready to create an iframe app to download onto your Facebook Page. This may sound scary, but panic not, it’s really quite simple.
Online Reviews: How They Can Help You Increase Sales
Word of mouth has always had a powerful influence on purchasing decisions, and it’s not hard to understand why. The growth of social media platforms that allow consumers to broadcast their reviews of products and services online has only made this influence greater, with 67% of shoppers admitting that they spend more online after recommendations from an online community of friends. An added effect of this growth is that the conversations are taking place in the public, rather than private sphere. So businesses can monitor opinion – and join in the discussion.
Harness the power of online reviews to build your business in the following ways:
1. To Increase Visibility in SERPs
We already know that search engines are often the first port of call for consumers researching their next purchase, with many of these searches directing users to high authority online review sites such as Tripadvisor and Ciao. Recent developments have made online reviews even more prominent in the search process.
Google Places and Google Product Search pull in customer reviews to display along side listings, some of which are now displayed on the organic SERPs. Users will be more likely to click on a listing that displays a positive review, so better reviews means more conversions through these channels. Moreover, the number of reviews your business or product has is also considered to be a ranking factor. So the more reviews you have, the more likely you are to rank in the top Google Places and Product Search spots and the more chance there is that a user will click and convert.
2. To Increase Sales
Offering customers the opportunity to review products on your ecommerce site is not only good for SEO, but can also drive sales. Consumer reviews are nearly 12 times more trusted than manufacturer descriptions when it comes to online purchases. So displaying online reviews can encourage users to take the plunge and complete the sale.
Further to this, with 90% of online shoppers using reviews before buying, it’s far better to keep them within your site by providing the information there and then rather than risking losing a conversion whilst they go off a search for reviews elsewhere.
3. To Build Trust and Loyalty
The fact that conversations about your business are taking place on open platforms gives you the chance to join in. Consider it an extension of your customer services department. Engaging with those complaining about your business, making it clear that you have listened to them and taken their comments on board, not only increases the chance that they may return again as a customer and perhaps write more positively about you in future, but also works to boost brand reputation and increase trust amongst other possible customers. Equally, thanking positive reviewers and making them feel important to you can convert a happy customer into a brand evangelist.
How to Create a Facebook Page Welcome Tab
By now we all know the value that a bit of Facebook real estate can have for our businesses. However, to really maximise the benefit of a Facebook page, it’s necessary to go one step further than just setting up the page and inviting friends – and customise it to meet our objectives. The first, and arguably most important, step here is to create a custom welcome tab. This will be the first thing potential fans will see when they land on your page, and it’s your best opportunity to encourage them to like your page, sign up to your newsletter or visit your site. So let me guide you through how to do that.
*Edit – FBML has now been phased out. To create a custom welcome tab you must first create a Facebook tab iframe app. Then return to this page to complete the process.*
Set a Custom Tab to be the Default Landing Tab
And now for the magic –
- Go to the “edit” section of your Facebook Page
- Select “Manage Permissions” in the left hand menu
- Select your custom welcome tab in the “default landing tab” drop down.
Et Voilà! Now all your fan page visitors will see what you want them to see when they arrive on your page.
Here are some of my favourites to inspire you: