The Net Impact

Cities need to do whatever they can to communicate with their public, and that means going where their community goes. In this day and age that place is online. In an era in which governments need to be more responsive and accountable to the needs of the public, social media marketing can help governments accomplish this goal. The emergence of social media has generated a new and innovative way for cities to create dialogue and receive useful feedback in a way never before thought possible.

 “I see blogging and all social media as a way to extend our reach to people who might not get their news from more traditional sources and I look on it as a way to be more interactive with our residents,” said Florida Director of Public Affairs, Wayne Segal.

A 2009 report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that one in five Internet users searched for political information, posted their views about issues or engaged in another civic activity on a social network. Last year, Shark’s organization surveyed chief information officers of local governments about their social-media plans. Some 72 percent of those who responded said they were currently using Facebook or Twitter in outreach efforts, or planned to do so. There are other signs that the public sector is getting on these sites. GovTwit, a commonly used directory of government Twitter accounts, has close to 1,000 of them listed with the “state-local” tag.

Here are just  a few ways in which a city can successfully leverage social media:
• Receive valuable, honest feedback from city members
• Showcase success stories that might otherwise go unnoticed
• Help in organizing events, meetings and fundraisers
• Support reputation management and crisis management issues
• Promote your community’s event
• Community collaboration on documents, ideas, events for your city
• Make announcements, broadcast news
• Recruit new city employees

One of the most important benefits of using social media in your city’s Internet marketing strategy is driving traffic to your main website. Community websites are much more than a place to display basic information about a city. Today’s citizens want a more active, participatory relationship with their government and to have 24/7 access to reliable and valuable information that affects their everyday lives, and there is no better vehicle to reach a community than a city’s website. City websites serve as a platform to help maintain a direct line of communication between the city and its residents, visitors, businesses and community leaders. Implementing a web content management system, like TNI’s partner product Auctori:city, municipalities can make changes easily and quickly, ensuring their website visitors are accessing the most current information possible.  In addition, Auctori:city’s flexibility and robust, city-centric content management features allow cities to add character to their website.

In addition to Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare, another social media platform that will only continue to grow and become more useful to cities is mobile. A great example of how city’s can use mobile application is Boston’s Iphone App. This application allows for residents to snap photos of neighborhood nuisances – nasty potholes, graffiti-stained walls, blown street lights – and e-mail them to City Hall to be fixed. The application will allow residents to use the global positioning system function on their iPhones to pinpoint the precise location of the problem for City Hall. After submitting a complaint, users will get a tracking number, so they can pester city officials if the problem persists. The iPhone initiative is part of a push to make City Hall younger, hipper, and generally more user-friendly.

In conclusion, it is more important than ever that city government gets on board with social media, in order to grow communities and influence decisions that bring business to their local economy.  Social media marketing presents a comprehensive, integrated and innovative approach from which to manage municipal government resources.

With the hype of the 2010 World Cup in full gear, here is an analogy of how the steps to scoring a goal in a soccer game are similar to making a visitor react a desired way on your website.

When it comes to soccer, the goal of the game sounds pretty simple– you need to put the ball in the back of the net. When this happens it is usually the goal scorer who gets the most credit, but what about the defense who got the play rolling? In reality, there is far more to a soccer team’s scoring strategy than the person who gets the ball into the back of the net; in fact, a system has been devised to track the contribution of each individual player. Created by Paul Tomkins, this system creates a value of how each player contributes to the team over a number of games.

“When turning soccer into numbers, there will always be problems. And when it comes to assists, this is especially true. How can you reward someone who rolls the ball eight inches from an indirect free-kick as highly as someone who beats seven men and puts the ball in the striker’s path in the six-yard box?”

Those in the Internet marketing industry can relate Tomkins’ soccer player contribution strategy to their website conversion attribution. When it comes to website conversion, each keyword searched, link from Twitter or direct visit, which ultimately results in a conversion, is in most cases a hit from a repeat visitor or from a visitor who is familiar with your brand name. Each step of your search engine marketing strategy can be seen as an assist that kicked that conversion goal to your website, and that is why a web analytics strategy should be in place for all of your online marketing efforts. All marketing campaigns should be custom fit to your business objectives and consistently monitored, analyzed and adjusted to optimize revenue.

Looking at every step of your marketing strategy, rather than just the end result, will tell you which components of your overall efforts are effective and which ones could use some extra attention.

Keyword Research= Defensive Build Up: Who got the ball rolling in the first place? In the case of a soccer game, it may start with a key pass by the goalkeeper. When online, perhaps it was a particular keyword search at the early stage of the searching process. After this happens there is still a huge amount of work to do in order to grab that conversion, but you need to start somewhere!

Linking= Midfield Pass : In soccer, midfielders are the link between the defense and attack and must possess excellent passing skills. Just as it is difficult for forwards to have good shots on goal with having the ball being strategically set-up by the midfield, it is difficult for websites to ascend in search engines without substantial use of a linking program. Search engines consider quality linking to be one of the main criterions for website ranking on keyword searches.

Social Media Efforts= Assist: If Liverpool scored a goal last season, there’s a good chance Xabi Alonso (player known for his high number of assist) was involved at some point during that move. This may not have a huge importance to the overall outcome, but if involved more often than not, then he is clearly having a positive impact on the team. This could relate to an email marketing campaign, social media campaign, a guest blog post on an industry related blog or an optimized press release. If you take these small efforts away, you may start to see a noticeable drop in conversions.

Website Conversion = Goal: You found a visitor who is interested enough in your well-designed and user-friendly website to complete a sale, give you a call or whatever your conversion goal may be. This is the same as giving a player a free shot with just the keeper to beat. You won’t always get a 100 percent conversion rate – but in both cases there is a very good chance it will end up with a goal.

So in which stage does the most importance lie? In tracking the performance at all stages you can really get a strong idea about how every aspect of an online marketing campaign (or soccer team) is performing. With this valuable feedback from web analytics, you can make an informative and successful decision – whether that decision is to change up your keywords, improve your email marketing efforts or to trade your center midfielder – based on the actual facts and figures.

Just like a winning soccer strategy, successful Internet marketing happens only with careful planning, timely execution, persistent monitoring and ongoing improvement of the results you achieve.  With each online solution completely customized to fit the specific needs of your individual company, The Net Impact combines web design, development, marketing and consulting to complete your online strategy. Based on your individual objectives, we develop a campaign plan that is designed from the ground up to not only drive your targeted audience to your site, but to score a conversion goal.

Strapped for time, money and manpower, more and more nonprofits are turning to social media marketing to generate mass interest at minimal cost. The social media space provides the non-profit sector with the opportunity to connect and collaborate quickly and inexpensively, and without the help of big company sponsorships. Many non-profits are leveraging social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, to connect with their supporters online by crowdsourcing ideas, providing feedback and monitoring conversations regarding their organization.

An excellent example of a non-profit organization that leveraged social media to enhance their marketing efforts is Epic Change. Have you heard of TweetsGiving? It was one of the first charity initiatives on Twitter. In November 2008, during the week of the Thanksgiving holiday, Epic Change leveraged Twitter to raise money ($10,000 goal) to help build a classroom in Tanzania. In 48 hours, that goal was met from 336 unique donors. Not only was money raised, Epic Change found a slew of new volunteers who were interested in the causes the organization seeks to support. Why did it work? It was more than just a sheer charity initiative. Using the holiday where most Americans express their thanks, a part of the TweetsGiving initiative was to act as a creativity catalyst, asking people to tweet what they were thankful for with the #tweetsgiving hashtag. All in all, there were over 3,500 tweets expressing gratitude for something in their lives.

Stacey  Monk, Founder and CEO of Epic Change says, “Social media is making change possible. With social media, we’re able to hear totally new voices, who might not have had access to mainstream channels, which represents a real shift in power, and where change can originate.”

From dipping their toes into the water with a low-investment campaign to diving off the cliff, today many nonprofits are actively exploring social media. But a common problem many non-profits face is that they blindly leap into social media without implementing a strategy. Without a well created Internet marketing strategy, there is no way to measure your online efforts. This leaves the non-profits at a loss to justify their investment of time, money and resources, or reap valuable insights to improve their efforts. Whether you measure social media success based on how many new volunteers you recruit, the number of sponsorships or donations, the dialogue shared among your online community, or the influx in web traffic, fans and followers, it is vital to measure your results against clear marketing objectives, just as you would with any marketing campaign.

When starting a social media campaign for you non-profit, remember: a simple, yet powerful mission and message can take a campaign far. Non-profits on social networking sites should set goals, update consistently, become a part of the conversation, build community and create value. Without a clear vision and well thought out strategy, it is difficult to encourage an audience to participate. If the time and energy are strategically spent to create a social community, others will help spread your message and your desired results will come.

Recently The Net impact teamed with St. Louis based non-profit, the Karla Smith Foundation to help build online aware for their campaign event with BringChange2Mind, a non-profit superheaded by award-winning actress Glenn Close that works to combat the stigma of mental illness. KSF and BringChange2Mind combined forces to host an unprecedented mental health awareness and anti-stigma event, “Change a Mind, Change a Life”, in St. Louis, Missouri.

The Karla Smith Foundation was in need of a strategy to build online buzz around the event and direct traffic to the event website. To quickly and effectively generate awareness around the campaign, The Net Impact worked closely with the Karla Smith Foundation to create the website, www.changeamind.org, for the highly anticipated event. In order to direct traffic to the website and create online awareness, The Net Impact implemented a social media marketing strategy for the campaign, which included a strong presence on Twitter and Facebook. The KSF social networking sites were updated daily with exciting news regarding the event, such as notices of upcoming media appearances, videos and pictures, and sponsorship information. The KSF Facebook and Twitter continued to see steady growth in fans and followers as well an increase in the level of fan engagement in the weeks leading up to the event.

As a result of the social media marketing campaign, KSF was provided with the opportunity to share valuable information with their existing community, increase interest around their event, catch the attention of local media, build their brand awareness and attract new fans and followers to get involved with their organization. Most importantly, the KSF Facebook page now serves as a platform for their online community to share personal experiences and give valuable feedback in real time.

In conclusion, while many non-profits still have a long way to go, the integration of social media in their marketing efforts can help these organizations meet and exceed many different goals. Social  media is a platform that allows people to participate in a conversation about what they think, feel and care about, making social media and excellent space for the non-profit sector to continue to explore.

 Online videos are an effective platform to share valuable information, while providing companies with the opportunity to create hype around their brand. For example, the King and Prince Beach and Golf Resort created a 3D flyover video of their popular Georgia golf course. This innovative video drives traffic to their website, markets their golf course and engages their online community. Check out the video here.   

Online videos are not only an effective marketing strategy; they are also an effective tool for search engine optimization. Search engines are showing videos in their search results, but what you may not be aware of is how many people actually go to YouTube, and other video sharing sites, and search for specific information as opposed to using a search engine. For this reason, it is just as important to stand out from the crowd on video channels as well as in the search engines. Video sharing web sites use tags for search engines to find them. You must include your main keywords in these tags if you want your video to be indexed by the search engines. 

 In order for your videos to be found by the right audience, be sure to research your top keyword phrases and use these in your upload descriptions and titles. Find out what your targeted audience is searching for and then use a keyword tool to identify keywords and phrases that you can really dominate. Keyword research is critical because it will help people find your content and over time will mean increase your rankings. Doing this crucial research and tracking click-thrus and website conversions will only help you to secure your most cost-effective keywords and phrases and boost the visibility of your videos. 

Blendtec, a company that produces blenders. The company received millions of YouTube views and great press for blending objects like iPhones and wood blocks, proving its product was durable. Not a bad way to establish your product’s credibility and get some attention, right? 

But don’t worry, you don’t have to blend objects or perform insane stunts to create an effective video. You just have to build compelling content and use your videos to spread the word to the community you want to target. If your content is compelling, and you promote your videos through social media channels and other marketing and public relations efforts, you can increase your product’s visibility and influence. 

Just remember, the goal of video marketing is to create short, attractive, effective videos based on solid keywords that convert viewers into customers and stand the test of time.  

 Has your company incorportated video marketing into your online marketing strategy? 

Can Social Media Help Build Meaningful Business Relationships?

If you think online social networking is solely for the younger demographic, think again. Thanks to new social networking sites that enable professionals in a wide variety of industries, such as marketing, finance and even medicine, to build meaningful business relationships, social media is now flourishing in the business world.

The Institute for Corporate Productivity recently held a survey and found 65% of business professionals are connecting to social networking websites. Business executives also have turned to online forums, email lists and message boards to sound off on information related to their industries. Of those respondents who do not currently utilize social networks, the top reason (37%) is simply that they don’t know what networks to use. The majority of respondents (59%) said they would likely use social networks if they knew that such use would assist their professional development (31% say they already do), and a full 77% would welcome using them if they though the networks could aid organizational efficiency.

Millions of professionals already turn to broad-based networking sites like LinkedIn to swap job details and contact information, often for job seeking purposes. Recently, LinkedIn reached 43 million active users, with the average age of its members being 41 years. With the growing use of social networking by business professionals, there is a growing number of social networking sites popping up that focus on business users and meeting their needs, that go beyond the broad-based networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn. There are also many niche social networking sites for specific industries, such as legal and medical.

For example: When radiation oncologist Michael Tomblyn recently saw a 21-year-old patient whose eye was protruding from its socket, he turned to his fellow physicians for help. Dozens of doctors offered suggestions, HIV-associated lymphoma or a cocaine-associated sinus problem, eventually steering him toward the correct answer: rhabdomyosarcoma, a fast-growing cancer most often observed in young children. Surprisingly, this diagnosis didn’t take place in a doctor’s lounge. It happened on Sermo.com, the largest online physician community in the US, where practicing US physicians collaborate on difficult cases and exchange observations about drugs, devices and clinical issues., which Dr. Tomblyn and 25,000 doctors like him visit regularly to consult with colleagues specializing in areas from dermatology to psychiatry.

Sermo.com is just one of many targeted social networking sites for professionals. Another example is, Nexly.com, a web-based community designed for the B2B marketplace that provides access to tools and information businesses need in order to better connect. While community tools, like LinkedIn are useful for recruiting purposes, Tom Carlock, CEO of Nexly saw the need for a community created specifically for finding service providers. Nexly.com was created to simplify the process in finding qualified outsourcing services that will results in better buying results.

Nexly is currently in the Beta testing process, and on February 16, 2010, they held a focus group at The Net Impact’s office, in order to validate assumptions and biases in the Beta phase.Check out TNI’s Interview with CEO of Nexly.com, Tim Carlock, on TNI’s YouTube Channel!

Even in the midst of the social media revolution, the behaviors and networking needs of business professionals have not changed, the media simply has. In other words, business professionals are meeting age-old networking needs in new ways. Given the new functions, features and real-time access of social media, social networks have transformed the way  professionals establish and maintain their business relationships.

As more and more business professionals turn to social networks to meet their business objectives, we can only expect to see more targeted social networking sites for professionals continue to pop up on the web. While nothing replaces the quality of face-to-face meetings, social media is a new way to initiate and build relationships and thus, continue to grow one’s professional network.

Do you have any other social networking sites for business that you use?

Which one has worked the best for your business?

“The New Decade of Social Relationships”

Join a great lineup of marketing specialists, including Steve Thomas, President of The Net Impact, St. Louis-based Internet Marketing Company, on February 26th, 2010 at Maryville University, for a 1/2 day seminar presented by the American Marketing Association - St. Louis Chapter.  AMA-STL’s annual student conference is well known as one of the premier marketing conferences in the Midwest. Connect with hundreds of students and marketing professionals and learn from the experts at this year’s seminar -  ”The New Decade of Social Relationships”.  Register today!

How do video, social media and advances in mobile effect search? What are the search engines changing?

These were just a few of the questions answered at The Net Impact’s Search Engine Strategies Session on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010. The seminar covered current trends in search engine optimization and highlighted the best presentations from the The Net Impact’s SEO team’s recent trip to the Search Engine Strategies Session held in Chicago December 2009. The three presentations presented focused on B2B, Blended Search and Linking.

The first presentation, presented by Angela Cicerelli, Web Account Manager at The Net Impact, covered blended search. Blended search enhances user experience and is another way to engage with potential customer. If you are having troubles ranking for a keyword, blended search just may be the answer. The presentation discussed why we should care about images and videos in search. Social media sites, such as Flickr and YouTube, are now becoming major sources of  website traffic and are appearing in search results. What to take away from the session regarding blended search – The web isn’t about pages anymore, it’s all about streams, feeds and syndication. If information is important, it will find you.

The next presentation, led by Lauren Williamson, Web Content Manager at The Net Impact, highlighted the importance of linking. Link popularity measures the quality and quantity of links pointing to a web page. Recently, social media marketing has become one of the most practical and high quality ways to earn links. The Chicago Search Engine Strategies Session touched on three main reasons why it is important to have a linking program: improve rank, boost traffic and to increase brand exposure. Lauren closed with the statement: “Building links is similar to building relationships – it takes works and is all about quality, not quantity”.

Sonya Sawall, Web Account Manager at The Net Impact, led the final conversation on B2B. Business buyers and decision makers are online, using search engines. Business professionals engage in social networking in order to build relationships that bring business. They rely on search, sometimes throughout the whole buying cycle, and in order to be successful, Internet marketing experts must align their messages with buyers needs throughout each phase of the buying process.

The most important thing learned at The Net Impact’s SES Session: There is one certainty about SEO – the game is always changing. “If you are following a best practice that dates back to 2008 or earlier, toss it away.  It’s now wrong”. 2010 is the year of real-time, personalized results, growing importance of social, community and web mobility. We need to continue to adapt our SEO strategies to stay ahead of the curve.

We hope you all enjoyed the presentation as much as we did, and we look forward to seeing you at the next TNI event!

Check out some great pictures from the event on Flickr!

Touchdown Google!

If you watched the Super Bowl Sunday night, you saw at least two ground-breaking events: Of course, the New Orleans Saints took home their first Superbowl Trophy, and the Search Engine Giant, Google, stepped into the world of traditional advertising.  Over the past decade, more often than not, the Super Bowl commercials have generated more buzz than the teams competing. Even when the football isn’t especially great – the commercials usually are, and this year Google took full advantage of the advertising world’s most anticipated event, with one of the most surprising commercials of the night.

Perhaps Saturday’s tweet by Google CEO Eric Schmidt put it best –“Hell has indeed frozen over”. Google ran its first major television ad, and during the Super Bowl, none the less. It was an unexpected move by the search engine leader, who retains a search market share exceeding 70 percent, to spend an estimated $5 million to have a 1 minute advertisement aired during the third quarter.  Google brings in billions from online ads but has steered clear of having a traditional marketing strategy for its own brand, even as industry competitors, such as Microsoft and Yahoo, continue to spent millions on tv and print advertising to compete with them. Google’s sheer size is in disproportion with their advertising budget. The world-known search engine has been mainly promoting itself on the web, via company blogs, and of course by being a constant subject of media reports and countless blog posts.

Google’s heartfelt ad, “Parisian Love”, consists of a series of 11 searches, which come together to tell a compelling story through search phrases. The commercial tells the story of a romance helped along by a series of Google searches conducted by a young man. The subtle, yet powerful marketing message resonated with viewers, and in some cases (myself included) left them a bit teary eyed. The commercial illustrates the story of a young man who finds love after a simple plan to study abroad in Paris turns into love, marriage and a need to know how to assemble a crib.

The buzz-worthy ad has left many viewers comparing it to competitor commercials and many are left confused as to why Google felt it needed to make such a dramatic move to promote its best known product, a product with no real marketing problems. Of course, not everyone thought it was a wise investment for the brand who’s name is almost a verb in the world of search. In the words of YouTube commenter, ShadyHady, “Google commercials? Isn’t that rather like, say, oxygen commercials or knife and fork commercials?” But with Google’s approach to internal marketing, one Super Bowl slot may be efficient when it comes to coverage vs. expenditure.

While the commercial probably did not introduce the Google brand to anyone for the first time, here are a few reasons Google may have made the dive into television advertising:
 

The buzz. People are talking about the ad right?  While the majority of the media coverage has not been about the actual ad content, but rather the fact that there was an ad, it is still coverage. And while it may be short lived, Google is the most talked about search engine at the moment.

Make a statement. Amid the over the top million dollar mini-sagas that make up the line-up of Super Bowl commercials, Google’s ad simply explained what the search engine does and showed just how well it works. This message mirrors the search engines’ simple, yet highly effective performance, which is the very basis of the Google brand.
 

Appeal to advertisers. Some businesses still view online advertising with suspicion. No matter how big Google already is, a Super Bowl slot reminds people that it’s a major mainstream player in the advertising world.

Reinforce their brand. Many commercials serve simply to remind people who the market leader is, rather than inform them about a new product or promotion. World-known brands find it helpful to remind the public about themselves in a positive light — especially on the Super Bowl.

Keep up with the competition. Google may be feeling some heat from Bing and Yahoo’s new campaigns, as well as Apple’s successful advertising. Especially with the growing number of Microsoft Bing search engine “attack ads”, Google may have decided to make their mark in the advertising world. Marty Orzio, partner and chief creative office of ad agency Gotham in New York, called the ad:

 ”A classic little love story told beautifully” that highlighted why Google was different from the competition. If you think about Bing or any of their competition, nobody else can say they are playing an important role in people’s lives,” he said. “They have not have been around long enough to have an impact like that. Google is claiming territory that only they can claim, which is why I thought it was absolutely brilliant.”

In conclusion, what Google’s memorable and somewhat controversial Super Bowl presence may signal is that after relying heavily on word of mouth marketing alone, the company is finally learning how to market itself via traditional paths, something that will take a great deal of stategic planning, and  will be crucial as its business diversifies and competitors continue to gain a foothold in the search industry. Using only its own outlets for promotion, such as YouTube, isn’t enough for a company looking to reach a broad mix of consumers. Google is clearly skilled at selling online ads, but formulating a marketing strategy for itself, well it remains a work in progress.

Missed Google’s Super Bowl commerical? Watch it Here.

New Year – New Look!

Like waistlines, websites can get rather soft if you do not keep working on them…  

So here are a few tips on how to whip your website into shape for the new year! (No scale involved) 

1) Blog. Having a blog marketing campaign is a great way to offer your Internet audience a more intimate view into your business. You can share your ideas almost as fast as you can think them up. And, unlike your website, your blog can be a two-way conversation with your visitors! 

2) Add new, relevant content. A stale website is about as inviting as stale bread. Adding fresh content not only gives users a reason to visit your site more frequently but can increase your search engine rankings too. If your site isn’t easy to update, talk to us about installing a content management system, like Auctori.

3) Reach out to your users. This year consider sending an email newsletter. This is a simple way to position yourself as an expert in your field and stay in touch with clients. Email Marketing less expensive than most traditional marketing campaigns.

4) Become a social butterfly. Today it is simply not enough to just have your website optimized; you also need to ensure your company has a strong presence on social media networks. By incorporating social media features into a marketing campaign, companies can create their own brand-focused community that allows for user-generated content.

5) Pump up that SEO! Make sure your keywords and descriptions for all your pages are optimized to their fullest so that search engines and, most importantly, potential clients will be able to find your site.

Why wait any longer to start working on your website’s image?

Contact The Net Impact to learn how we can get your website in the best shape it can be to hit the ground running in 2010!

Wandering what The Net Impact team has been up to? Check out our January Newsletter to find out!