RSS Feeds & Widgets - Web 2.0 Marketing Tool

The primary purpose of these two Web 2.0 Marketing tools is to drive traffic to your blog and/or your website. RSS feeds and widgets are very easy to use, cost very little, if anything, and after set-up require no time to maintain. In other words, they work for you in the background while you are doing other things. What could better than this?

RSS Feeds

RSS is an acronym for the term “Really Simple Syndication.” When a visitor subscribes to your RSS feed it pushes new content to them when something is changed or added rather than them having to remember to keep coming back to your blog or website to check to see if there is anything new.

As we all know, if visitors have to rely on memory to come back to your site, chances are that it will never happen. Therefore, the more people that subscribe to your RSS feeds the more traffic you will have to your site. And because they keep coming back, little by little you are building a relationship with them even if you do not know who they are. These are all good things.

RSS feeds are far more common on blogs than conventional websites. The major reason for this is that new content is usually added to a blog several times a week, while content on a conventional website does not change that much. Therefore, my commentary on RSS feeds is directed primarily to blogs.

Most blogs come with two RSS feeds; one for when a new article is posted and a second if you wish to notified when someone leaves a comment. Both of these are delivered via a “RSS Reader” (the subscriber can choose from many that are available). Through experimentation with my own blog, I have learned a couple of things:

Most of your blog visitors do not know what an RSS feed is and even if they click to subscribe, they have no idea where to look for updates; and Visitors only care about reading the comments posted by others on posts where they have commented.

You can use third party RSS feeds like Feedburner (free from Google) that allow the subscriber to receive updates via a reader or by email. My experience is that about 70% of those subscribing to my RSS feed choose to receive updates by email. You can do the math to determine how it will affect you if you do not offer updates by email. When I added the choice of receiving updates by email, my growth in RSS subscribers more than doubled.

You can also install a plug-in on your blog that will email updates to those leaving comments when others add to the comments. This may bring previous visitors back and a discussion incurs. Comments help your article to rank higher on the search engines.

TIP: Most blog software gives you a choice of posting the entire article in the feed or only a summary. I prefer only a short summary. If you send them the entire article there is no need to come back to your blog. If you can get them back to your blog, there are other features you can use to get them to read some of your other articles.

Finally, RSS feeds are also used for other purposes as well. Using RSS feeds you can automatically import your blog headlines into your LinkedIn profile and other social networking sites.

Widgets

Widgets are small software applications or “apps” that work on smart phones (e.g. iPhone), iPods, websites and computers. There are many websites where you can build a widget for free or a very low cost. Of course, more complex widgets will cost more.

Allow me to share with you a widget I was reading about the other day. A pet supply company created a widget that resides on your computer desktop. It is a puppy that frolics back and forth across your desktop. Every 90 days the puppy stops it’s frolicking to scratch to remind you to order a new flea collar. Click on the puppy and you are taken to the website where you can order the replacement flea collar. I think this is clever and no doubt dramatically increases traffic to their website.

There are widgets you can create with different types of calculators, calendars with reminders, for RSS feeds, puzzles, clocks, games and just about anything you can imagine. Creating a widget that people will actually use will increase traffic to your blog or website.

A couple of the websites where you can build your own widgets are KickApps.com and WidgetBox.com. You can find several others by searching the web.

As we continue our series on Web 2.0 Marketing covering the tools listed in the graphic above, you might consider subscribing to my RSS feed by reader or by email so you don’t miss a single article.

What things to care when developing a Website Marketing Plan

Website Marketing is an essential component to increase the visibility of a website, blog or any other online profile. As with a traditional marketing campaign, a strategic Website Marketing plan needs to exist in order to gain the best results from your website. A website is a powerful business tool and without a marketing plan, it could be a drain on your finances.

While it is perfectly okay to have a website that simply contains contact information, why settle for that when your website can do so much more? Even the smallest local business can utilize the power of the Internet to be more efficient and to build revenue with a solid website marketing plan in place.

Website Marketing is all about driving targeted traffic to your website and it can usually be split up in the following categories:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Pay per Click(PPC)
• Pay for intrusion (PFI)
• Social Media Marketing (SMM)
• Banner advertising
• Newsletters
• Viral marketing
• Email marketing
• Affiliate marketing

Creating a solid Website Marketing plan isn’t scary or difficult. You don’t need a marketing degree to create one, only time and dedication. Most people think that by incorporating website marketing onto their existing marketing campaigns will instantly generate more business. Usually they are wrong. If you don’t have a plan, it won’t work!

Find below a couple of tips to help you create and understand a Website Marketing Plan.

Analyze all your information

Find and analyze all the information regarding your company on the internet. This will also give you an indication on how well your company’s business profile is setup online. Also identify who your targeted customers are.

Identify your challenges

The internet is full of challenges, especially in the Website Marketing industry. Write down all of your internet related challenges that you would like to overcome. Refer to this list often as it will help you stay focused while developing your Website Marketing plan.

What is your objectives?

What do you want to accomplish with your Website Marketing plan? Do you want to increase the rate of targeted unique visitors to your website? Increase your sales and business leads? Build conversation and start relationships? Every website including your Website Marketing plan needs to have a set of objectives. If it doesn’t, why bother having a website at all?

Create strategies for you objectives

Create strategies that will support your objectives. These will usually define the approach to meet your objectives. They go hand in hand. If for example you would like to create more brand awareness via social media platforms – which social media tools and networks will you be using?

Tactics for your strategies

Define your tactics for the strategies you will be using. To take the above example if you would like to create brand awareness via social media – will you be creating targeted focused groups or join existing groups regarding your niche? Will you be helping others by contributing to the conversation? Start a conversation?

A Website Marketing plan is absolutely vital for any business wanting to create more brand awareness and sales via their website. Treat your Website Marketing plan as a work in progress. Often you could tweak and adjust the plan to meet certain requirements.

If you are a shop owner or part of a large scale company, by having a solid Website Marketing plan and following it through will extend your visiblity online and can produce you with good results.

Why you Must do Social Media Marketing?

Social media has been incorporated into our daily lives at the office and at home. What is the first thing you do when you switch on your computer at the start of the day? Open Facebook? Start tweeting? View some videos on YouTube? Read some RSS feeds? Are you using these social media tools to the best advantage for your business?

A good well planned social media policy will create a better informed group of social media users within your company. With the social media policy they will be able to better represent your company and will not subject it to undue risk from inappropriate disclosure of financial information and proprietary company information. This could also help your business that your employees does not engage in unfair practices.

To have an effective social media policy, consider the following when you are in the process of creating one.

• Develop the social media policy to extend to all employees and all use of social media and social networks whenever there is a potential for them to be seen as company representatives.
• Engage all the departments of the company such as marketing, legal and finance when creating the policy.
• Be sure to address the need for social media users to behave ethically, legally and to the best interest of the company.

Be sure to incorporate the company’s culture inside the policy. Avoid creating a too strict policy that would limit the authenticity and effectiveness of your social media campaigns.

The social media policy you created is another extension of your company’s standards and the business you conduct. This will help remind your employees that they represent the company in everything they do and should always act in good faith of it.

An overly strict social media policy will limit the participation in social media programs and discourage new participates. This could also slow down the communication process and add costs to your campaigns because you will need to find other ways to partake in the conversation. A wrong social media policy could limit the effectiveness of the company’s social media programs and to make them not worth doing.

Social Media is here to stay and it is advisable for any company to start embracing this new trend. By having a well planned social media policy for your business, you are already establishing yourself as a serious player in the field and it can help your company with your Social Media Marketing

Online Adspend Enjoying the Position and Trend

Advertising expenditure levels in the UK will continue to fall until mid-2010 at the earliest, while the internet will overtake television in terms of ad revenues generated this year, a forecast from Warc and the Advertising Association predicts.

The first two quarters of 2009 yielded year-on-year reductions in adspend of 18.8% and 19.0% respectively in the UK at constant prices, with totals set to slide by 13.5% in Q3, and 9.7% in Q4.

Similarly, the opening six months of next year will witness media budgets decrease by a further 3.5%, with the market returning to growth in the period from July to September 2010.

Overall, UK adspend will diminish by 15.3% this year, from £14.13 billion in 2008 to £11.97bn in 2009, and by a further 1.1%, to £11.83bn, in 2010.

Television will post a decline of 16.2% this year, and follow this up with a significantly smaller contraction, of 1.3%, over the following 12 months, to a total of £2.71bn.

National newspapers will also be down by 17.4% this year and 3.3% next, to £1.28bn, with consumer magazines' ad sales plummeting 18.3% in 2009, and slipping 1.4% in 2010, to £509 million.

Radio will post successive decreases of 16.1% and 0.8%, while outdoor will see revenues tumble 17.2% in 2009, but increase by 1.4% in 2010.

The internet, including paid-for search, will enjoy a modest improvement of 0.7% this year, and expand by 4.7% at the end of the decade, to a value of £3.03 billion, seeing the medium overtake television.

By sector, financial services will make the largest cut backs in 2009, at 23.8%, with consumables down 11.9%, durables by 17.4%, and retail by 3%.

Coca-Cola adopts aggressive Digital Marketing

Coca-Cola, the US soft drinks giant, will adopt a "far more aggressive digital presence" as it seeks to respond to "dramatic changes" in consumer behaviour, according to Joseph Tripodi, the company's chief marketing and commercial officer.

"One of the things we're talking about now is how we evolve as a marketing entity around the world. We're pushing for a far more aggressive digital presence," Tripodi said.

This will include moving beyond traditional marketing techniques, and developing material that will positively engage its target audience.

"What we're going for more and more will be developing compelling content. Some will be consumer-generated, some of it we'll buy, some of it we'll create ourselves. The idea is to flex that content out over different digital endpoints," he said.

One of the Atlanta-based firm's primary innovations in this area to date has been establishing platforms that allow its customers to exchange the "points" they accrue when buying its brands for a range of products.

This initiative is known as My Coke Rewards in the US and CokeZone in the UK, and offers a variety of valuable information to the beverage maker about its customers.

"With My Coke Rewards we have 13 million names. With that kind of database you can build relationships with consumers that are very different from the ones you gain through TV ads," Tripdoi said.

Moreover, once web users become involved in this sort of programme, it means "you start evolve your thinking about how to engage them, beyond giving away T-shirts," he continued.

The American corporation recently announced a new competition, called the Sounds of Coca-Cola, asking people to submit videos in which they replicate the noises they associate with opening, pouring and drinking Coke.

To enter, participants need to visit Facebook, the social network, to find out the details, and then use an "app" to upload their entry, with the best efforts possibly going on to feature in an ad campaign.

Katie Bayne, chief marketing officer of Coca-Cola North America, said "we know there's nothing quite like drinking a Coca-Cola, so if people share their interpretations of how that sounds, have fun and make us thirsty, we may put them in a Coca-Cola commercial."

Similarly, at a Mobile Marketing Forum event this month, Hinde Pagani, Coca-Cola's senior mobile marketing manager, global interactive marketing, indicated this channel would be of increased importance going forward.

"Consumers are changing. Audiences are changing dramatically, especially the younger ones. They live with technology, using it to consume more media, generate more conversations and befriend more brands than ever," she said.

"Mobile is at the centre of this media revolution. For us it is critical to understand this new device, to interact with teens and youth where they spend their time and deliver engaging and compelling brand experiences. So we add mobile to the marketing mix in pretty much all of our markets."

Earlier this year, Coca-Cola launched an iPhone application, the Magic Coke Bottle, which answers "questions about life, love and the universe."

Mercedes Spending maximum on Digital Marketing in UK

Mercedes-Benz, the luxury automaker, currently directs around half of its marketing budget in the UK to digital media, an approach it has adopted in response to changing behaviour among consumers in the country.

Anders Sundt Jensen, its vice president for brand communications, said digital is responsible for a higher share of its outlay in Britain than elsewhere in Europe, where this figure is typically well under 40%.

One of the key strategies adopted by the German firm has been to establish an in-house team with an expert understanding of how channels like the internet can best be utilised for commercial means.

"We don't have normal marketers just doing online ads, or just putting our TV ads online. For example, we have a whole department at our headquarters in Germany just doing digital marketing," Jensen argued.

A major challenge for brands using the web, however, is identifying which portals will offer a return on investment, and those that are unlikely to provide long-term payback.

"Two years ago there was so much hype around Second Life, and where is that today? The hype can make it hard to see what really is great and where to invest online," he argued.

Speaking at the same event as Jensen, Bernhard Glock, who will soon leave his role as Procter & Gamble's vice president of global media and communications, emphasised that privacy was a key issue.

"There are many areas where digital can lead the way. But there are also areas where it can be very dangerous. Experiment, but be very careful. Of all media in our research, digital is the least trusted, and word of mouth the most trusted."

"Even though social media is word of mouth, it's dangerous if you don't respect people's privacy, especially kids. We need to be very careful otherwise we'll be beaten by the regulator," he added.

Harvard Business Review highlighting October 2009 Issues