Tag Archive for: social media

Gain a Competitive Edge in E-Commerce by Optimizing Your Mobile Site

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With mobile transactions gaining an increasingly large share of the e-commerce pie, small business owners need to start asking themselves: how can I best accommodate mobile shoppers?

Mobile’s global average share of e-commerce is 34% and in countries like Japan and South Korea that share is over 50%. While US conversion rates from mobile shoppers are still around 2.46% compared to Japan’s 9.35%, it is still important to note that one can gain a significant competitive advantage from optimizing their mobile e-commerce suite.

Here are a few common shortcomings of small business and easy solutions:

  • Use Mobile Solutions that Make Sense: Opt for all-in-one desktop and mobile e-commerce solution with write-once-publish-everywhere capabilities that will streamline your online presence into a cohesive entity.
  • Ensure Your Site is Mobile Accessible: Avoid large images or too much information in a single page as most mobile users are still running off of the slower 3G network. 40% of users will abandon a site if doesn’t load within 3 seconds so ensure your site will load quickly to avoid losing potential customers.
  • Use Everything that Mobile Has to Offer: Mobile users give your site a lot of information when they go onto your website. Take advantage of this data by adding elements that personalize the user experience for the customer.

Recently, Google has started to give an overwhelming priority in its search engine rankings to websites that are optimized for mobile. Ensuring your site is mobile-friendly will sharpen your competitive edge and vastly improve your online presence. Don’t let your business fall behind – optimize your e-commerce site today!

Click here for the full article on GetElastic

Social Media: a Tool for Relationships or Merely a Substitute?

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As cell phones and social media continue to place themselves at the center of our social lives, we wonder what effect its importance has on the quality of our social life. Is the pressure to answer every tritone and whistle distracting us from meaningful human interaction? Or is maintaining contact with otherwise long-lost friends through Facebook leading to longer-lasting friendships?

Here are some of the arguments for and against social media as presented by The Wall Street Journal:

Social Media is Detrimental to Society:

  • We spend too much time on social media to build real connections: “We spend so much time maintaining superficial connections online that we aren’t dedicating enough time or effort to cultivating deeper real-life relationships.”
  • We are on our phones even when we’re not talking: “Worse, we don’t even need a beep or vibration to distract us anymore. In one study of more than 1,100 teens and adults, my fellow researchers and I found that the vast majority of smartphone users under 35 checked in with their electronic devices many times a day and mostly without receiving an external alert.”
  • Empathy is lost in emoticons: “In one study we found that while empathy can be dispensed in the virtual world, it is only one-sixth as effective in making the recipient feel socially supported compared with empathy proffered in the real world. A hug feels six times more supportive than an emoji.”

Social Media is a Tool We Use to Maintain Relationships:

We’re doing a good job of staying in touch: “Social ties that we once would have abandoned as we left high school, changed jobs and moved from one neighborhood to another now persist online.”

  • Seemingly trivial messages communicate much more than you think: “It is tempting to dismiss as trivial many messages exchanged online. But together, the small sips that come from the steady contact of social media can add up to a big gulp of information about the activities, interests and opinions of the people we connect with. They communicate mutual awareness and closeness along with information that we wouldn’t otherwise receive.”

Are we moving to an ever more interconnected society or one that will soon forget how to interact with one another? Is your social presence going to be more valuable than what you present in person? What is sure is that the way we relate to one another is changing and adapting to the way people now connect will be key to success in your business.

Click here for the full article on The Wall Street Journal

Marketo and LinkedIn Team Up to Offer Personalized Ads

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14257556613_4cfd6d3aa7_oMarketo, a digital marketing automation software company, has struck a deal with LinkedIn to use its metrics and database to target ads specifically to LinkedIn, allowing marketers to better hone in on their target market. With GE as its first customer, it is looking forward to engaging consumers with a brand in a more professional context which was previously unavailable. Here are some key points from the article:

  • LinkedIn and Marketo are partnering up: “Marketo brings to the partnership software that automates digital marketing across the Web, email and social and mobile channels. That’s being integrated with LinkedIn’s new ‘Lead Accelerator’ product, which helps marketers deliver more relevant ads by combining data about what part of the brand’s website the person browsed with demographic information from the person’s profile on the LinkedIn professional networking site.”
  • How is this different from LinkedIn’s previous advertising? “The integration essentially bridges paid advertising on LinkedIn with the digital marketing that Marketo is known for and helps advertisers tell a consistent story across those channels, said Marketo Chief Executive Phil Fernandez.”
  • Consumers respond to ads that are consistent through multiple devices: “‘Consumers are expecting relationships to follow them around as they move through all those places,’ Mr. Fernandez said in an interview. ‘We move around devices and apps without thinking about it, but what brands are saying to us doesn’t.’”
  • This advertising strategy adapts for consumers who may take several paths when researching a purchase: “There are multiple paths a customer might take to research and make a purchase decision, including a combination of online channels and offline interactions, like conversations with an actual salesperson, said Andy Markowitz, general manager for GE’s Performance Marketing Labs.”
  • Marketo will not stop with LinkedIn: “For Marketo, the LinkedIn partnership is the latest in a series of deals that aims to help marketers create continuous conversations with customers across digital channels. The company recently reached a deal to integrate its software with Google AdWords and Google Analytics products as well as Facebook’s custom audiences.  Marketo this week is also rolling out new products to help marketers reach customers across all major digital channels through a single software platform.”

LinkedIn and Marketo are sure to make waves with this new service, and will open the possibility of advertising B2B product and services through social media. There is no denying that personalized ads are the future of advertising, and with Marketo and LinkedIn becoming bigger players in the game, we can expect many more changes to come.

For the full article on The Wall Street Journal, click here.

Understanding Generation Z

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Get ready for Generation Z, born starting in the mid-90’s into the early 2000’s, its members are eager to be unleashed upon the world and enter the work force.  Alexandra Levit lets you know what to expect out of the coming generation that is characterized by maturity, independence and preparedness in her New York Times article Make Way for Generation Z. Here are some of her observations about Generation Z:

  • They aren’t clinging on to their parents: “They tend to be independent. While a 2015 Census Bureau report found that nearly a third of millennials are still living with their parents, Gen Zers are growing up in a healthier economy and appear eager to be cut loose. They don’t wait for their parents to teach them things or tell them how to make decisions.”
  • Diversity: “My 15 year old next door neighbor is a quarter Hispanic, a quarter African-American, a quarter Taiwanese, and a quarter white. That’s Gen Z – they are often a mix of ethnicities.”
  • Self-motivated: “When she was 14, Sejal founded the Elevator Project, an organization that aims to lift people out of poverty through apprenticeship, vocational training and job placement…she says that her parents did not push her to register for the Gen Z event, nor do they help her with her nonprofit organization.”
  • They’ll talk to you outside social media: “Despite their obvious technology proficiency, Gen Zers seem to prefer in-person to online interaction and are being schooled in emotional intelligence from a young age.”
  • It’s never too early to reach out to them: “Even well-known organizations will have to rethink their recruiting practices to attract this group, and now is the time to start. Those who want to take advantage of Gen Z talent in the future need to develop relationships today with teenagers in grades seven through 12. Get into their schools, provide mentorship and education and put yourself in a position to help shape their career decisions.”

Click here to read the full story on The New York Times.

Key Digital Marketing Statistics for Small Businesses

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Social Media Statistics

1) 72% of adult internet users in the U.S. are now active on at least one social network, up from 67% in 2012 and just 8% in 2005.
2) 71% of consumers receiving a quick brand response on social media say they would likely recommend that brand to others.
3) 60% of LinkedIn users have clicked on an ad on the site, and 43% of U.S. marketers have obtained at least one new customer through LinkedIn.
4) 93% of online research starts with a search engine, and 68% of consumers check out companies on social networking sites before buying.
5) 78% of small businesses attract new customers through social media.
6) 4.2 billion people use their mobile device to access social media sites.

Mobile Vs. Desktop

from 9/2011 to 10/2012:
83.4% desktop
11.4% mobile
5.2%   tablet

from 10/2012 to 11/2013:
62.6% desktop
24.1% mobile
13.3% tablet

Small Business Websites

1) 45% of small business had a website in 2009
2) 53% of small business have a website in 2014
3) 37% of smart phone users have purchased an item via m-commerce

 

Via White Media.