Damien Saunders

Bit.ly Making offline marketing work for social media with URL shortener

Damien — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:00:13 +0000

Most of you read this are using Twitter, online newspapers or other websites and would have come across Bit.ly the URL Shortener service. There’s not much chance of escaping URL shorteners, even today when SEO and friendly URL’s is what most people like. Bit.ly offers more and nows the chance to bring offline content into the world of URL tracking, with Bit.ly’s Pro service coming out of closed testing, you should get your own friendly URL too.

The joy of Bit.ly can be its randomness – such as you don’t know if the URL you clicked on will take you to a reliable news website or some poor bloggers rant on the web. Aside from the obvious, the point about bit.ly is that rather than tracking clicks on a long URL or a bit.ly URL you can now have your own URL like www.damien.co/15454a and even customise it as http://damien.co/socialmedia

So what if every poster on the street or TV advert or press advert for your brand had a custom Bit.ly URL? You could then track if a customer found your advert / poster / flyer interesting enough to put the URL into their computer - does that make you excited?

Engagement metrics and CPE are going to become more popular this year and next year, and so how do you take the offline world online? Or how can you start track the value of that billboard you just spent 10,000,000 dollars on?

Well that looks obvious! So how are you tracking offline to online engagement?

At the moment Bit.ly Pro offers free service – you provide a customer domain or sub domain and it does the rest.

Bit.ly Making offline marketing work for social media with URL shortener originally appeared on Damien Saunders on September 3, 2010.

August 2010 – Most Popular Posts

Damien — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:00:18 +0000

So AUGUST has been and gone and now we are into September … already September has started out cold n wet for many people. If you missed some of the news and opinions from the past month, then here’s a reminder of what you enjoyed most:

5 Tips to using Foursquare in Retail Marketing Which Social Media experience is right for you?

and in Vilnius this week – everyone went back to school! You would think it was a week of celebration. Parents even have a 1/2 day off so they can cope with the going back to school thing.

Vilnius Youth – what do they do?

August 2010 – Most Popular Posts originally appeared on Damien Saunders on September 2, 2010.

How do you measure ROI in social media?

Damien — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 10:00:33 +0000

All to often people or companies start using social media but don’t know how to measure the return on investment or calculate a payoff from using social media. Here’s a few easy ideas to start calculating ROIs for you to consider.

Calculating ROI for your CFO

Typically a ROI calculation is your total revenue or benefit divided by the costs. But if it cost you zilch to setup the twitter account .. then you can’t automatically assume a positive ROI.

Your CFO and you even know that sales or gross net adds are more important and Likes on Facebook are worth nothing. Just remember ROI is there to help you get the go ahead for the project and all that effort on social media.

It’s kinda obvious to point out that you wouldn’t want to spend 100k on social media if you can’t verbally or visually explain the benefit. You need to identify costs that can help you find your benefit.

Start by calculating some costs … Your time is a cost, costs like media monitoring or using paid for social media tools are also costs. So it maybe easier to get some basic cost assumptions down on paper. If the social media campaign involves a competition or give away of prizes you’ll want your social media campaign to include an opt in for ‘marketing’ form to let them know about exciting future offers.

You should continue this exercise and then add in a portion or a variable percentage of costs attributable to social media activities such as running ads on Facebook or costs of marketing campaigns which feature direct links to your brands Facebook or Twitter URL.

In fact, your social media campaigns should always result in traffic, leads or sales.

Making revenue or benefit models for social media

Discount Coupons from the newspaper with redemption codes are now popular again and the mobile coupon is a good example of how the coupon is making a cross over the digital divide.

If you can’t track your social media activity … Maybe you need to pause to identify a coupon and redemption code for your fans and followers.

Key benefits or measures from social media you should consider include

Activity on your website
Sales of your products
Foot traffic in your shops
Number of mentions online in blogs, news or other online sites – track using PR people
Mentions, Retweets or other Social Media activity – track using Social Media tools

And some softer measures would have to include Increase in brand awareness Increase in positive sentiment

Need some extra help with your next social media marketing campaign ? or got your own ideas? please let me know

How do you measure ROI in social media? originally appeared on Damien Saunders on September 1, 2010.

5 tips to using Foursquare for retail marketing

Damien — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 08:00:30 +0000

Are you using Foursquare? And want your retail stores or promotions staff to start to use Foursquare too? Here’s 5 easy ways to start using Foursquare today.

Claim your business

Foursquare is a free business directory with all entries submitted by your customers. You need to claim your business.

Integrate Foursquare Checkin with traditional advertising

Feature the Foursquare checkin in your next print or email campaign and get customers to checkin. Also promote the Foursquare checkin on your website, Twitter account and Facebook fanpage.

Followup via Twitter or Facebook

Send a reply to any messages on Twitter or Facebook for people who shout out that they just checkedin at one of your stores … even better monitor for message about people being the Mayor of your store.

Run a Foursquare competition

Start with an introductory offer of a free coffee for anyone that checks in at one of your stores. As this starts to grow you can try a number of other competitions like:

Run a Foursquare treasure hunt
Run a Foursquare scavenger hunt
Run a random checkin competition
Offers for Mayors

And remember to check that staff of the stores are correctly flagged as staff so their checkins don’t count for competition purposes.

Track the stats

Use tools like FoursquareX or CheckinMania to find out how many people visit your business.

8 step guide to foursquare

Find out more on Foursquare

5 tips to using Foursquare for retail marketing originally appeared on Damien Saunders on August 30, 2010.

Foursquare Rules of Play Change – only 1 checkin a day allowed

Damien — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 16:00:38 +0000

Foursquare, one of my favourite location based mobile social networks has changed its rules for the game of ‘who wants to be a Mayor’. Foursquare is growing in popularity in a number of cities and rules for game play have been tightened.

Recently it changed the rules to the most checkins in the past 60 days .. and now it has changed to only 1 checkin is valid each day.

The other change is you can now checkin and see a message telling you the number of days you have to checkin to become the Mayor. Kind of good … but not useful for those regulars who already hold done a Mayorship and checkin every day.

Foursquare Rules of Play Change – only 1 checkin a day allowed originally appeared on Damien Saunders on August 29, 2010.

Lithuania Youth love Basketball

Damien — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 09:30:49 +0000

Lithuania is a basketball crazy nation – which may seem odd if you know little about this newer European Union state. Lithuania has had a long history with basketball even in the days of the Soviet Union (USSR).

Lithuania will also be hosting the Mens European Championships in summer 2011. Something to look forward too. I guess as the days grow darker and colder, indoor team sports like Basketball are good for the fans and the players.

Vilnius was recently host to the 2010 U18 Mens / boys European Basketball Championship. In the final Lithuania bet Russia and Latvia took third place.

Basketball seems to be a contact sport that involves lots of jumping on each other – in a nice way – not in an ugly rugby maul.

I actually thought the Green n Gold colours belonged to some small island nation in the South Pacific. But with ‘zombie’ fans like this showing their appreciation for the local winners … who needs enemies?

Lithuania Youth love Basketball originally appeared on Damien Saunders on August 18, 2010.

Which Social Media experience is right for you?

Damien — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 09:00:21 +0000

Getting started with social media for marketing can seem daunting. If you’re starting out with a plan for your company, brand or client then the first step is to evaluate what social media to use … It would be wrong to just assume it has to be Twitter and Facebook.

How to tell what is right in social media?

Remember social media in its broad meaning covers everything from blogs to forums to social networks like LinkedIn and Foursquare. Based on my experiences, your customer journey or sales & marketing strategy will provide good indicators as to what’s is right for you.

Myth: Build it & they will come

Remember your first website project? And the agony of waiting for search engines and then people to visit your website. Build it and they will come is myth. How many empty websites exist in the world? How many apps go ignored? Please don’t assume your new experience in social media will lead to hits, visitors, leads and sales. So don’t go building complex fan pages to facebook or add features like user profiles to your website.

Love great content … Love Google

The best news, reviews, comments or free content can actually work to your advantage. Google and all searchbots love fresh content. Aim for good SEO and your social media marketing will start to pay off. If your social media activities are not indexed in Google then stop now! Everything needs to work together.

Just listen to social media is not a good position

If you just want to listen to conversations online in social media, then there are tools like Tweetdeck which are free and useful to track customer sentiment. BUT you’ll find when you start listening that you’ll soon want to start to engage. So start with the end in mind. Join Twitter and talk to your customers and tell them about your new stuff.

Which Social Media experience is right for you? originally appeared on Damien Saunders on August 16, 2010.

Vilnius Lithuania loves Foursquare

Damien — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 09:00:10 +0000

Foursquare today is the most popular mobile checkin app in Vilnius, Lithuania. While not everyone here can afford the iPhone – many people are using Foursquare on their Blackberry.

Point of note – Blackberry App World is not available in Lithuania and so people are using hacks to install this.

Here’s a couple of screenshots from Checkin Mania confirming the number of venues is great in Foursquare vs Gowalla in the central old town area. Right now, some quick checks and stalking reveals that frequent checkin is being driven by international travellers and business users along with staff from mobile operators.

Checkin Mania – Vilnius with Foursquare

Checkin Mania vilnius via Gowalla

Ok I suggested the science of increasing number of venues as a measure of usage for these location based social networks … and believe this holds true in Vilnius – right now venues and places is not at the granular detail I’ve been seeing in London and certainly its very easy to add a venue and become mayor.

Anyone interested in working or a trial of social media marketing in Vilnius let me know

Vilnius Lithuania loves Foursquare originally appeared on Damien Saunders on August 13, 2010.

Vilnius Youth in Lithuania get up to no good

Damien — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 10:00:43 +0000

In Vilnius, the capital city of Lithuania its youth get up to no good. Just like all young people do! Here’s a few photos from the last week to prove how bad these youngsters can be.

Vilnius main drag @4pm on the HOTTEST day (ever) is deserted cause word had got around that 2 skate boarding youth were taking over the town.

Vilnius main tourist attraction is its iconic cathedral and separate bell tower, in this shot the youth of today are street dancing! or is that break dancing?

of course – their mere presence was enough to scare off the toughest of the tourists and ‘pensioners’

At the other end of the square … a much regular bunch of youth who are into acrobatics and stunts (called Parkour) had been scared off by a group of oldies out on a stag do.

that left the skaters to do their worst …

Watch out for my next post on what happens when you go to a Basketball match and the national team win!

Vilnius Youth in Lithuania get up to no good originally appeared on Damien Saunders on August 12, 2010.

Lithuanian Youth love their mobiles

Damien — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 10:00:57 +0000

In Lithuania mobile penetration is almost at 150% – so is this all from younger people sim swapping?

Mobile Youth in Lithuania (16-24 yo) are all using multi-sims for the best deals and free calls. The 3 main operators are Omnitel, Bite and Tele2. Freedom of choice means that handsets are not subsidised very much and customers have to pay full price for a phone. Even the the ‘popular’ iPhone is over priced and still exclusive with one operator and on a 24 month contract.

I previously posted about the high stats for internet usage in the younger age group .. at around 95% with internet access. what I didn’t mention is that about 1.3 million users in total have internet access via their mobile phone so a high number of younger people may have primary access to the internet only using their phone.

So far mobile youth are calling and texting each other – one thing I discovered is that MMS has not taken off. This could be due to fly by night mobile marketing tactics that have caused much negativity so I’m learning.

Of course – GetJar one of the largest free app stores is a Lithuanian company, probably with high hopes for good growth in paid for mobile internet usage and apps.

Lithuanian Youth love their mobiles originally appeared on Damien Saunders on August 11, 2010.

Lithuanian Youth love to use the Internet

Damien — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 09:00:06 +0000

In Lithuania the usage of the internet is reaching saturation point. A 2009 official report shows 95% of young people aged 16-24 with internet access.

Lithuania has one of the highest per capita access to broadband ratios due to small land mass and population of just under 4 million. It’s also atypical of ‘westernised’ European markets and the Lithuanian youth are no different – wanting mobile phones, good clothes, good education and a future with a good job (most likely in London).

Internet Usage for the younger age group is strong because of ease of access at school, home or work and using their mobile. The same study indicated that 94% have young people have at least weekly access to the internet.

Actual demand or needs driven internet usage has a long way to go – one of the most common online activities is internet banking, internet shopping is not as common as you might expect.

Of course the usual youth internet needs are met – chat to friends, use & manage social networks and consume social media.

Are you working in Eastern Europe? Got any ideas on how to grow internet usage? or market to younger people.

Lithuanian Youth love to use the Internet originally appeared on Damien Saunders on August 10, 2010.

Damien Saunders examines Social Media in Vilnius Lithuania for a few months

Damien — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 12:00:45 +0000

From: Our intrepid report

Location: Vilnius, Lithuania

Date: 8 August 2010

This could sound like the start of yet another long worded PR update with little to say and lots of flowery prose. Who I am to say if I write long winded rambling sentences with little or no meaning?

But anyway – I digress, Ill be working for a couple of months in Lithuania (yes in the East of Eastern Europe near the Baltic Sea). Expect some updates on the state of social media marketing here and insights on Youth Marketing Trends.

Got any questions? Do you work in Eastern Europe? Say HI!

Damien Saunders examines Social Media in Vilnius Lithuania for a few months originally appeared on Damien Saunders on August 8, 2010.

July 2010 Most Popular Posts

Damien — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 17:00:13 +0000

So July has been and gone and now we are into August … if you missed some of the news and opinions from the past month, then here’s a reminder of what you enjoyed most:

HOW TO Claim your business listing in Foursquare – If you’re just getting started with Foursquare or not sure how to manage your listing, then read on
Essential Location Based Apps for Android Mobiles – update on the mobile apps available in the Android Market
Foursquare most popular location checkin game in London – You guessed it. As Foursquare adds more than 2m users, its clear see that London loves this mobile ‘game’
FREE Download Guide to installing Virtualbox and TinyXP on a Mac – Trying to figure out how to run Internet Explorer or Windows on your Mac? Need to test that new website? This guide will get you started.

July 2010 Most Popular Posts originally appeared on Damien Saunders on August 1, 2010.

Social Media Reputation Management using LinkedIn

Damien — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:00:36 +0000

Managing your online reputation will be more important over time for everyone – as we grow up the content and material that search engines will collect about us is phenomenal. For many, the CV will cease to exist and be replaced by online reputation, search engine results and specialist business networks like LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has managed to hold on to the title of business social network over increasing competition from Facebook and other professional networks like Xing or even Plaxo. LinkedIn is the default business card ‘swap’ tool and now has more features then just a list of your work experience.

Best tool for curating your online profile?

If you work online and don’t have a profile on LinkedIn then you better ask yourself why? If you’re answer is ‘I dont need to be headhunted’ then you better give that idea the boot. You need to LinkedIn to help increase your personal SEO and its quite likely the best tool for curating your work and professional life.

Getting Started with curating your LinkedIn profile

Here is my LinkedIn profile – you’ll see I have a custom URL or maybe thats a vanity URL
http://www.linkedin.com/in/damiensaunders

Once you have your custom URL you’ll be able to promote this via your web, email signature, etc and Google Search Results should now include this link. For this reason always keep your name in your custom URL.

So now starting thinking about your keywords, description and tags – LinkedIn has great tools for your profile – not all of which get indexed into Google.

One great area is the URL section at the bottom of your profile page. Here you can choose options like My Blog or My Work, but if you choose Custom — then you can type any description you want like Damien Saunders – Social Media Marketing.

Adding your Blog and Slideshare to LinkedIn

LinkedIn is slowing allowing apps to be added to your profile – so you can add your Blog to LinkedIn and show a most recent post. Another good option is to add a presentation from Slideshare.

So keep up the work and curate that LinkedIn profile to make it easier to find yourself online. If you haven’t already, maybe go edit your Google Profile too.

Social Media Reputation Management using LinkedIn originally appeared on Damien Saunders on July 29, 2010.

Social Media Reputation Management – Google Profile

Damien — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:00:29 +0000

Did you know that Google has a profile page and that it’s similar to a profile page on LinkedIn. Managing your reputation and curating your personal SEO plan is something you should do at least once a year.

About Google Profile

Google Profile can be associated with a normal Gmail e-mail address along with Google Apps domains and other addresses. In fact, you’ll find that if you use Google your profile comes ‘pre-filled’ with info on what Google might know about you.

You get to Google Profile from http://www.google.com/profiles

HOW TO Curate yourself online – an approach to Personal SEO

Well the term SEO is pretty ambiguous and I prefer the term Curate — basically you’re cleaning up what the Google and other sites know about you and visibly show about you.

That said if you’re world is about the internet and work, you may not need any pointers here … check out first the profile page that Google already created for you mine is http://www.google.com/profiles/damien.saunders

Notice I have a personalised URL – if you haven’t claimed yours already you should – and remember to think about the keywords, titles and description tags you want on your page.

Positives about this profile page is that its a great opportunity to add links, information about you and your work interests and hobbies. I’ve linked my profile to my Flickr account to show off some of my photos – we’re all human.

Google Profile has a set of easy to understand privacy settings and you can control who sees what of your profile (this is achieved by linking to you Gmail Contacts list and mail groups).

You will notice that Google suggests a whole lot of URLs and sites that it thinks are about you … now comes the fun part … remember that dodgy party back in your first year at Uni when you joined some social club website? Well maybe its time to delete that profile and those pics!

Curating your personal profile online can be an eye-watering experience – you don’t realise how much Google knows about you until you start a clean-up. Now that you’ve done this once, remember to come back in the next 6 to 12 months or whenever there is a major change in your life (and I don’t mean the kind that leaves your Facebook friends worrying about your relationship status).

Social Media Reputation Management – Google Profile originally appeared on Damien Saunders on July 28, 2010.

NEWS: Price Grabber research says we spend more on the mobile

Damien — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 08:00:14 +0000

Finally some proof that Mobile Internet usage is profoundly shaking up the way consumers shop, according to new research from PriceGrabber.co.uk.

Of the 908 online shoppers that were asked about their mobile shopping habits, 66 percent owned a Smartphone or another Web-enabled phone. Of the consumers who shop from their mobile, nearly half (48 percent) claim that the convenience of having the Internet with them wherever they go is their number one reason for smart shopping. PriceGrabber.co.uk’s research found that of the consumers that own a Web-enabled mobile phone:

• 24 percent compare or check prices from their mobile phone
• 22 percent research product details and specifications from their mobile phone
• 16 percent purchase online from their mobile phone
• 9 percent check product availability
• 5 percent access online discount vouchers

When it comes to most popular mobile purchases, research revealed that of the consumers who purchase online from their mobile phone…
• 59 percent purchase digital content for mobiles (ringtones, Apps and music/video clips)
• 52 percent purchase consumer electronics, such as GPS, MP3 players and digital cameras
• 45 percent purchase computers, laptops and peripherals
• 45 percent purchase books
• 33 percent purchase clothing

Source: NeonDrum

NEWS: Price Grabber research says we spend more on the mobile originally appeared on Damien Saunders on July 27, 2010.

HOW TO: View your WordPress Website on iPhone or Android

Damien — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:00:27 +0000

WordPress is a very comprehensive all-round tool for websites – and its not just for blogs. If you’re starting out with WordPress and need your site to look smooth on a mobile phone like the iPhone or any big screen Android mobile then you’ll need a plugin for this.

The best plugin for WordPress that handles any mobile device is easily WPtouch iPhone Theme. Once the plugin is installed and activated its working for you straight away.

The difference can be noticed immediately – no longer does your site display in all of its ‘wide screen’ glory – a new layout theme is implemented but only for smartphone devices

The team behind this plugin now have WPtouch Pro version which I hope to try out soon.

Have you tried WPtouch iPhone ? Let me know?

HOW TO: View your WordPress Website on iPhone or Android originally appeared on Damien Saunders on July 26, 2010.

HOW TO export posts from WordPress to Word Doc via PDF in Mac OSx

Damien — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 17:00:30 +0000

WordPress is one of the best end to end solutions for building a website and it has a large selection of themes, plugins and tools to make it more than just another blog. I recommend WordPress at the start of any project – just because it typically requires less management involvement or decisions from the IT or Tech teams to get started with.

Having spent a lot more time writing about Social Media lately, I wanted to collect these posts into an editable collection (maybe I should have started by writing all my posts in word you might say).

How to Export WordPress to PDF

I quickly found BlogBooker which takes your WordPress Export XML and converts it to a downloadable PDF.

To export your WordPress XML you go to the Tools menu and Export the posts you want (or both posts and pages).

Upload the file to BlogBooker and then download the PDF file which will nicely include URL links and comments.

How to Convert PDF to Word on a Mac

Choose your favourite PDF to Word converter (in this case I used the DeskUNPDF for Mac) and let it rip

In the version I was using, I first needed to ‘Save As’ as the converted document was Rich Text Format and not Word Doc.

So that was an easy free and fast way to export your blog from WordPress to Word Doc.

HOW TO export posts from WordPress to Word Doc via PDF in Mac OSx originally appeared on Damien Saunders on July 25, 2010.

Essential Collection to Get Started with Foursquare

Damien — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:00:03 +0000

If you’re new to Foursquare or your business is wondering how to leverage geolocation social networks in areas like sales and marketing, customer service or retention then this essential collection will help you to get started.

Of course, when you first started using Facebook, Foursquare, Gowalla, MySpace, etc, etc your initial experience is about ‘what does this do for me’, not ‘what can my business do with this’. If your business is new to this then take a look at my social media marketing kit.

This collection of tips and guides includes:

8 step guide to foursquare

View more presentations from Damien Saunders.

Essential Collection to Get Started with Foursquare originally appeared on Damien Saunders on July 23, 2010.

Gowalla needs business tools for super users

Damien — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:00:00 +0000

Gowalla may just be a buzzword for the latest social media marketing trend – but with more people getting smart or superphones that ‘can’ multi-task location based mobile social networks are set to be the in thing. Gowalla just needs some tools for business owners or super users to curate or manage business and locations listing (or to give me access to these).

Without some of these basic tools for store owners or community managers the opportunitiy to market using Gowalla are very limited. A store or community manager needs to be able to correct location details in Gowalla which can be wrong or to update contact details or add a description.

Gowalla is a free location social network allowing users to checkin, collect pins and also collect gifts which can be swapped or left at a venue for other users to pickup. Gowalla already has an estimated 1.4 million locations or points of interest which are all contributed by its users – your customers.

So come on Gowalla …. give us some tools! and where is your European / UK support?

Gowalla needs business tools for super users originally appeared on Damien Saunders on July 21, 2010.