Now that the new Facebook Timeline has officially rolled out to all personal profiles, guess what’s up next? That’s right, brand Pages are now the next on the list for a Timeline makeover!
The new Timeline for brands has officially rolled out today (Wednesday, February, 29th 2012), and some of the big brands like Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and Livestrong are already taking advantage of the new features of the Timeline. With that said, there’s no need to rush right in and hit the publish button. Facebook isn’t making the Timeline for your brand page mandatory until March 30th, 2012, and with the new preview functionality for Page admins you can fully adjust your brand Timeline before you push it live.
Let me fill you in on some of the new features of the brand Timeline, and some steps you can take to launch your new brand Page on the right foot.
Say Goodbye to your Welcome Tab, and Hello to the “Sticky” Feature.
Before the new Timeline, brand Pages would develop custom tabs that the user would land on when they first visit the page (Before they like it).
Well, with the new Timeline, the welcome tab is now obsolete. It’s O.K., don’t freak out just yet! All tabs are still active on the page (but relocated), and the new Timeline for pages have a brand new “Sticky Feature”, which I believe is even more effective than the old welcome tab.
The Sticky feature allows you to select a piece of content to display on the top of your page feed for 7 days, giving you the opportunity to feature any marketing message you would like in that area. You can direct people to one of your tabs, showcase an event, new product, or basically anything your little heart can think of.
Good pairings help make for a complete, thoughtful experience. The icing on the cake, if you will. Though cakes, with the exception of coffee cake, need icing. They just do.
Now that you’re thinking about cake, let’s jump to dinner. Dinner is fun! Especially when you’re able to consider a wine to drink with your dinner (perhaps pairing acidity to heaviness), or a beer to drink with another dinner (bitter and hoppy plays well with heavier dishes). Pairing can elevate a meal. Similarly, well paired fonts can make a good design.
The purpose of pairing fonts is to improve readability and establish hierarchy. The classic serif-with-a-sans-serif combination is used on print and web, often with the headline as the sans-serif font. It works because it grabs attention, but more importantly, it’s easy to read.
The ease-of-reading factor is key in font pairing. (And ideally, in choosing a font in general.) When readability becomes an issue, communication becomes an issue. This is to be avoided. Using fonts that are legible on screen or when printed is always a good place to start. If you find a font combination that works both online and in print, you have made magic and deserve cake.
But note! Two fonts looking good together does not equal good design. There are images and layouts and format to consider. Consult your local graphic designer for more information.
Pinterest is the fastest ever growing social media website. It was the fastest site ever to surpass the 10 million user mark. Of those users, 80% are women and 55% of those women are aged 25-44. Pinterest users are spending on average 14+ minutes a day and 98 minutes a month on the site, which is only lower than Facebook and Tumblr (ComScore). These are the numbers.
Does your brand’s target audience fit into the above mentioned demographic? If it does, you should definitely consider opening a Pinterest account. Women are flocking to Pinterest and using it to create recipe books, inspiration boards, plan trips, search for clothes, plan their weddings, and find and share fitness tips.
Getting Your Brand On Pinterest
When setting up your brand on Pinterest, you will want to make it personalized. Create your own inspirational pin boards that don’t include your products, but can go along with your theme. Show the consumers that you’re more than just a brand and that you get inspiration from elsewhere. Pinterest is not about self promotion, it is about sharing what you love or are interested in.
Now, you’re a business, so its important to present your products on Pinterest in a light that users will repin. Use creative photos of your products, recipes, documents, etc. Don’t just use stock images that are boring, Pinterest is meant to help in the creative process so Be Creative! You will want to consistently be posting (we recommend 50% brand, 50% community outreach). Don’t just post once a week, post every day. “Like” other people’s pins; it’s a community, so be active. The more you post quality items on Pinterest, the more likely your items will be repinned.
What is the best report in Google Analytics? This is the million dollar question with a very simple answer: It’s the report or reports that tie back to your bottom line. Google Analytics, when instrumented properly on your site, collects valuable information about your site visitors. However, the reports are not pre-equipped to measure your business goals. That is why it is important to have a web analytics partner.
A web analytics partner will help your team translate your business goals into Google Analytics KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). They will set up the system not only to capture your goals but valuable information around your goals. Web analytics insight comes from a full 360 degree view of what is happening around your goals. For example, if you are a large online retailer you need to understand how many pages people view, and if they review specs and features of products before they proceed to the shopping cart and check out. Having reports that help your business decision makers understand the steps users take in order to purchase, provides your team with better decisions.
Great Google Analytics reports provide your team with information about how well you’re doing. These reports help your team gain knowledge about your customers. You are spending money to get people to your website, why not get the most information about them while they are there? The best Google Analytics reports tell you how well you’re doing and provide knowledge that you can use to test or optimize your site!
Retargeting or Remarketing–you may have heard these buzz words before, but do you know what they really mean? You should! Below I will describe to you seven typical retargeting tactics and how to best use them to reach your low hanging fruit: customers and prospects most likely to convert or take an action on your website.
First off, there are two main types of Retargeting: On-Site and Off-Site. On-site is typically used as a retention tool, to keep your prospects engaged, coming back to your site, or even to upsell/cross-sell them; the target is people who have already visited your website. Off-site retargeting, on the other hand, is used as a prospecting tool and adding new customers to your sales funnel that have not already engaged with your website. Below are the several tactical components that fall under each type of Retargeting.
Site Retargeting – This specifically targets individuals who have visited certain pages of your website. By placing a tracking cookie on their browser, you can later serve them ads on other websites based on the content they consumed on your site. Ever see an ad pop up that has the exact shoe you were looking at online yesterday? With a coupon to come back to the site and purchase it? Yep, that’s site retargeting. Common uses are to entice a user to come back to your website with a special promotion, a reminder that they abandoned their shopping cart, or just to keep the brand top of mind.
SEO/SEM – Here, if a user arrives on your site via a certain keyword through search engines, you can later serve them an ad when they are again browsing in the network. Knowing exactly what they were searching on when they came to your site allows you to be able to target them with appropriate messaging later on.
Chatype, a font created by designers Robbie de Villiers and Jeremy Dooley out of Chattanooga, Tenn., is set to be the first font created for a town.
“A custom typeface reflects character, extends excitement, and becomes a rally point for suffering projects,” the Chatype website states. “This opportunity…is as important as picking the colors in a flag.”
If the font initiative is approved, Chatype may be used free of charge by city government, local businesses, and Chattanoogans around the city.
Another Super Bowl is in the books. In the end, it was a tale of two catches – the hero catch belongs to Mario Manningham of the Giants, and the goat was Wes Welker of the Patriots, for his missed catch. Both changed the game dramatically. We extend congratulations to Eli Manning, while Tom Brady will have to settle for a beautiful shoulder to cry on.
As marketers, the Super Bowl is much more than a game, but it’s still a fierce competition with millions of dollars (and probably some jobs) at stake. Let’s take a look together at Commercial Bowl 2012.
First, we surveyed the envisionit team to find what we thought was the best overall commercial of 2012 – who did the best job of connecting with viewers, and getting their message across? Then, we also want your thoughts on the 2012 Super Bowl commercials, so below that you’ll find a few questions for you to weigh in on.
envisionit’s best commercial of 2012 was…
A tie – between VW’s “The Dog Strikes Back” and Bud Light’s “Weego.” Both, not by coincidence, did an excellent job of breathing new life into previous campaigns. VW capitalized on the Darth Vader commercial of last year, while Bud Light cleverly reinforced the “Here we go” campaign that’s been running during the past NFL season. We also liked Bud Light’s pet adoption message and tie-in with Facebook, compelling viewers’ further interaction with the brand.
Now, it’s your turn!
We want to hear from you, so please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.
Every organization wants to achieve success in digital marketing. There is nothing better than reporting a 300% increase in conversion. In order to get there, you need to take the necessary steps. It starts with an approach towards web analytics that is designed for success.
Let me first define web analytics: it’s the collaboration between analysts, web developers and management on the collection of web data for the purpose of analysis and optimization.
Having experience in implementing some of the best web analytics platforms such as Omniture, Google Analytics, WebTrends and Coremetrics, I know that no out-of-box solution fits your exact business model. All web analytics platforms will start collecting data when implemented, but that data isn’t necessarily reflective of your company’s business goals or online KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). This is why web analytics is a collaboration between multiple teams, to measure the KPIs that matter to your business. It is valuable to have a consulting partner who is able to suggest the best way to obtain the KPIs that matter to your company’s bottom line.
Once you start obtaining data from your site, it is time to analyze and make a hypothesis. It is important to collect the most fact-based data from your web analytics platform, otherwise your analysis and hypothesis are going to fail. This is by far the most important job of the web developer and the analyst, making sure your data is accurate. No analytics platform data will match a competitor’s system, as they collect data differently. However, conversions should match 97%-99% accuracy of your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system or database.
