SproutSocial Review - A Social Media Monitoring tool
Sproutsocial - what is it?
it is an awesome social media monitoring tools that supports various social media platforms such as twitter, facebook & linkedin...
SproutSocial features:
- Organize & access social networks in one place
- Advanced search options, reach more customers, prospects & find what do they want
- Get the tweet bubble history, get to know what was previously communicated
- Analytics & advanced statistics
- and much more.
Funny that it was founded in 2009 but to me its?totally?new!
I am a google analytics qualified individual
I always thought?I've?published this but it seems that i haven't so...
Yes :-) I'am now officially a google analytics qualified individual!
you can grab the original "copy" from my CV - Resume section
Email marketing best practices
Whether you are using it or not, Email remains the digital marketers #1 choice, its the big block engine that consumes a big share of our digital marketing strategy, using it the wrong way could really harm your entire strategy...
Below is a list of email marketing Do's, if correctly followed you will notice a big change with your subscribers & your subscribers response rate... to the better off course ;)
Permission permission permission...
"Always use confirmed opt-in, stop spamming people with unsolicited emails which usually gets deleted or junked by smart spam filters "
Provide a one click unsubscribe link
"Remember, if the user want to opt out and cant find a way to do it peacfully, the user then will junk you, that means a junk point addition, once you reach your junk points limit, you'll be black listed ( gmail ), provide a one click opt-out link."
Provide a hosted version of the email
"Add a link at the top of the email that says "can't view this email? click here to read it online", you would never know how the user's email client behave ..."
So you think an inline image is enough?
"Think twice, what if it was stripped by the email client? provide a text version only or a good combination of text & images would do just fine!"
A visible call to action...
"you have sent the email for a reason, provide a clear CTA's whether an image or text for example [register NOW] [ do something ]..."
Test Test & Test ...
"Don't assume your readers uses the same email client as yours, there are lots of flavours out with different versions, what works with outlook 2007 might dont work with Thunderbird..."
Track it down ...
"Whats the email campaign's open rate? use clear gifs or web beacons to track the open rate & Always track down how they've reached the article/product/promotion and through which CTA? was it the image? or was it the text? use advanced google analytics to determine the last, for example " source=emailcampaign1&ref=image1 " ... or simply checkout campaignmonitor.com"
Frequency & Recency
Establishing the Right Email Frequency
One more thing ...
"Remember, content is KING!"
Bonus material ...
Online advertising in Bahrain
We've all noticed the appearance of online advertising in our country/region which leads to the conclusion that business owners are now realizing the power of the digital medium and the channels behind it.
This also means that they are budgeting for online ad spending, that is on its own an increase in online ad spending in this region.
Unfortunately companies like Zain and Batelco are applying it the wrong way, im hereby discarding the IAB guidelines and standards and just talking common-sense.
we all know What Zain & Batelco are at least locally we do, and most of us will find a way to reach their website when we require more information about a certain product or service (7elow?) Depending on what we are looking for most of us again apply the scan method in combination with the?baby duck syndrome, that is on its own frustrating if the Information architecture wasn't done properly,? now lets concentrate on ads bits, shall we?
If you are a facebook user you might have came across couple of ads from both companies which looks like this.
A part from its being a "misleading ad" oh well the usual Zain, when you click the ad it takes you to the index of their website "BOOM" there you are infront of 7 or more navigation links to choose from and you have been there before.
So basically they have generated a generic traffic ( a part from awareness ) to their website, but what are they doing with that traffic?
i bet a bounce rate of 80% or more occurs on daily basis because they smack users with the same website, which is not directly related to the ad itself.
Here we notice the absence of microsites or and expendable banners were they can collect user information from the ad itself without the need to navigate away from ad location, or simply link the ad to the related product on the site itself ( worst case scenario ).
you can find out more on ad-format variations on eye-blaster website.
There are more issues related to their online presence if you look further into new trends such as RSS, opt-in email newsletters/marketing and proper social media optimization/engagement, did i mention that they are also using tables instead of divs ?oh well its all about time me thinks, what do you think?