My favorite resource Website Magazine has posted a timely article in their August publication: The New Content Experience - Driving awareness, providing entertainment and generating profit.  

Strategic Web Content Kicks Brochureware Content to the Curb
This timely article indicates that ... "there is more content available on the Web than ever before, and it’s being delivered to consumers at blinding speeds. To make content stand out in a saturated market (and ensure that it ultimately influences sales and conversions), you will need to rethink content as an asset — then retool for the new content experience." 

Great Example: White Papers and Thought Leadership
“Those seeking information on solutions, trends and technologies are the ideal audience for a content marketing strategy. Our question throughout is not just what kind of content to create but what format will resonate best. The answer, particularly for those in business-to-business industries, is white papers…” 

The article goes on to discuss video and other rich media has part of the content mix. 

Check out the article. 

Subscribe to Website Magazine.  

More on content strategy by MacDonald Consulting:

Web Content: Relevant, Persuasive and to the Point 

Get it right: Web Copy 

Best

Denice MacDonald

Each day, Groupon features an unbeatable deal on the best stuff to do, see, eat, and buy in your city. By promising businesses a minimum number of customers, they get discounts you won't find anywhere else. They call the concept "collective buying power!" 

Thanks to Facebook, I’ve been introduced to Groupon in my city. All you need do is go to their site and sign up – you only need an e-mail address to browse but will have to fill out more detailed profile information to get the latest discount/coupon. You will have to provide a credit card to participate on a deal but will only be billed should the Groupon garner enough participants. 

How It Works

1. Each day Groupon features something cool to do at an unbeatable price.
2. You only get it if enough people join that day… so invite your friends! (Suffice how I found it virally via my Facebook friends)
3. Check back the next day for another awesome Groupon or have e-mail alerts sent to you.

Lastly, if you refer a friend – you get $10. That’s it! If you want to learn more, check out the YouTube video above.

Best

Denice MacDonald

With social media on the rise, many marketing professionals are in the midst of explaining, emulating and selling social media to management and/or clients. Why not consider infographics - visual representations of social information, social data or social knowledge?

Specifically, infographics provide statistical relevance, digital integration not to mention future payback that words cannot convey.

The following are great links with various infographics:

35 Great Social Media Infographics by Pat Dyer of Pamorama – 35 great infographics that have been cropped down for viewing – linking to the original graphic.

10 Beautiful Social Media Infographics by Grace Smith of Mashable – Similarly to Pamorama’s collection, this grouping concentrates on both social networking sites and twitter – also linking back to the original graphic.

Social Media Infographics from Slideshare – Tons of infographics – 50 in total.

These social media graphics will help convey your message – quickly.

[Infographic courtesy of Elliance]

Enjoy!

Best

Denice MacDonald

With budgets still tight, how are companies managing to stay connected while bringing engaging and relevant messages to customers?  

Successful companies are learning that if they use interactive elements such as video, polls, FLASH and RSS feeds within their e-mail marketing campaigns, they see higher conversion rates and a stronger connection to their customers.

Video, if created properly, can really enhance your e-mail message and recipient interactivity. By using an enticing image with descriptive impact statements, recipients will be eager to click and link to the video. Include the file size, length of video or formats supported. Use flash video (FLV) whenever possible to achieve higher compression rates. 

• HOW TO: Create Online Video That Works by David Rich

Polls are a great way to entice recipients and engage audiences that want to be heard. Create topics or subjects that will resonate with your intended audience. Provide immediate results, along with associated support material, newsletters or additional links.  

• Best practices: Using polls in e-mail marketing by Karen J. Bannan

RSS feeds are another way to keep customers connected post e-mailing especially if your company has a blog, dedicated community or news section. RSS feeds provide the right amount of content to recipients on their terms making it the perfect connection outside of targeted e-mails.

• Newbie's Guide to Google Reeder - by Josh Lowensohn

In summary, once you have created an on-going e-mail campaign with customers, remember to include interactive elements and content that will continually engage your customers. Remember to measure the effectiveness of each campaign and refine where necessary.

Best,

Denice MacDonald

Here it is – the future of a website redesign strategy – the marriage of three critical components: cloud services, social media and web content management (WCM). Take a look at Newsweek.com who recently launched a total site redesign incorporating these significant platforms to stay ahead of the pack while enticing visitors to come back for more. 

Perfect Case Study 

Newsweek.com proves an important and timely case study for any organization that is in the process of a site redesign or redeployment. Reason simply, websites will now require strong metrics reporting, easy maintenance and extensibility as well as monetization and social integration in order to flourish. Such is the case for Newsweek – a publication and media outlet that has been floundering in recent times.

“The technology allows the business to grow in ways that had been holding it back,” says Geoff Reiss, vice president and general manager of Newsweek Digital. He explains that Newsweek created amazing content over time, but because of the way it was published and organized, “less than 15 percent of that content was discoverable through organic search.” The relaunch of Newsweek.com meant the reintroduction of about 70,000 items of content that had effectively been lost to site visitors. 

The most popular articles at any given time aren’t from the vault, though-they’re stories, video and images linked to on social networks like Digg, Facebook and Twitter and on MSN. Reiss calls Newsweek.com a “peak-driven site. When we produce a piece of content that hits in the marketplace,” he says, “it really hits. We need to be able to serve hundreds of thousands of consumers an hour.” Moreover, traffic isn’t predictable or necessarily tied to events. 

Lastly, Newsweek Digital is using Amazon cloud services to accommodate surges in traffic caused by increased use of social technologies – a marriage made in heaven. 

Take a test drive of Newsweek.com ‘stories’ section and see how some of their strategy can help your organization. 

Source Excerpt:

Newsweek.com redesign fuelled by social media, Amazon cloud and WCM by ZDNet 

Best,

Denice MacDonald

Now that I’m an avid traveler, it has become increasingly important that I find the best travel, hotel or car deal. I routinely use Expedia, CheapTickets and even Priceline. Now, with the intro of KAYAK , I can maximize one-stop-shopping to all these sites by allowing KAYAK  to do all the work.   

        This is how it works     .     .     .     .     . 

KAYAK is a travel search site. Everybody knows what a search site is, and everybody knows what a travel site is. KAYAK is like both, but it’s different in some important ways. 

Like a search site, they can help you find what you want. What makes them different is that they’re specialized. Their tools are made to deeply understand things like airfares and hotel stays. And like a travel site they have flights and hotels. But they’re very different from most travel sites because they don't actually sell plane tickets, hotel rooms, or anything else. 

KAYAK  helps people find the best travel choices easily by searching the data from hundreds of travel sites at once. KAYAK  lets you compare options, and when you find something that fits your budget and tastes, you book it where you want: at the airline site, from the hotel, or from a travel agent. 

OK, now you’re wondering how they make money. It’s all advertising. Just like you can watch (most) TV shows for free, you can use KAYAK  all you want, free. 

KAYAK  has local websites in eleven countries including US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, India, and Spain, and offer free mobile apps for the iPhone, iPad, Android, and BlackBerry. 

Just for fun - check them out for your next travel destination.

Best,

Denice MacDonald 

fring is a free mobile application that lets users communicate with friends on popular networks over their mobile phone's internet connection.

fring users make free mobile calls, video calls, live chat & more, from their mobile phone with all their friends on fring & other internet services like Skype®, MSN Messenger®, GoogleTalk™, AIM®, ICQ® , Facebook® and Twitter, all through one central, integrated phone book. 

           See the full feature list here.

fring is completely free. It's free to download and free to use to make calls, video calls, instant messages and more, all via your mobile phone's internet connection (over 'IP').

fring has millions of users on 1000s of supported mobile devices across approximately 200 countries, and is growing exponentially – adding more than half a million new users every month. Start fringing today!

Download fring free now.

Best,

Denice MacDonald

Video on the web is exploding and becoming one of the most clicked-on features. It has proven to increase conversions by double digits, reduce returns by as much as 10%, build brand loyalty and enhance customer experience.

Don't miss this opportunity to hear from Priscilla Lawrence, Principal Product Manager of Adobe Scene7, at an exclusive free webinar on making the most with online video slated for Thursday, June 17, 2010.

Sign up now. 

(Note: If you are reading this post after June 17th, Adobe Scene7 has weekly Webinars each Thursday at https://www1.scene7.com/registration/weekly_webinar.asp).  

About Adobe Scene7

Adobe Scene7 is the leading on-demand cross-media platform that enables companies to grow revenues, enhance customer experience and cut production costs.

More Resources:

The 10 Golden Principles of Successful Web Apps by Vimeo

16 Tips for Successful Online Video Marketing by Social Media Examiner

Web Multimedia Strategies by Web Style Guidelines (Includes production tips, formats and right-sizing for the Web) 

Best,

Denice MacDonald 

According to several leading experts, social media has been the number one priority in 2010. Social media will be used by organizations to lift their brand, stay connected to customers while using networks to grow their lead-gen pipelines. To learn how your organization can capitalize on what others are doing, check out these ‘top’ resources, articles and blogs from leading subject matter experts.   

Social media on marketers' menu for 2010 by Helen Leggatt, Biz Report   

"It looks like social media is on the menu for most marketers this year. A survey of almost 2,000 MediaPost subscribers found that over half plan to have "a presence on social networks" as part of their marketing mix in 2010..."  

10 Ways Social Media Will Change In 2010 by Ravit Lichtenberg from Ustrategy.com

"It is impossible to separate social media from the online world. Facebook reached 350 million users last month -- 70% of whom are outside the US -- and it accounts for 25% of the Web's traffic, according to Pew nearly one in five people on the web use Twitter or some other service to check status messages, and 94% of enterprises plan to maintain or increase their investment in enterprise social media tools. The social media conversation is no longer considered a Web 2.0 fad -- it is taking place in homes, small businesses and corporate boardrooms, and extending its reach into the nonprofit, education and health sectors. From feeling excitement, novelty, bewilderment, and overwhelmed, a growing number of people now speak of social media as simply another channel or tactic..."

Why You Need A Social Media Policy in 2010 by Vanessa DiMauro, Customer Think   

"Policies are dull. No one wants to create them, no one likes to read them and certainly, few desire the job of enforcing them.  But they can play an important role in outlining the rules of engagement around a particular set of online behaviors and have a strong role to play in the face of new situations where the there are no standards.  This is especially true with the wild west world of social media in business..."  

Six Social Media Trends for 2010 by David Armano, Harvard Business Review   

"In 2009, we saw exponential growth of social media. According to Nielsen Online, Twitter alone grew 1,382% year-over-year in February, registering a total of just more than 7 million unique visitors in the US for the month. Meanwhile, Facebook continued to outpace MySpace. In 2010, social media will get even more popular, more mobile, and more exclusive — at least, that's my guess. What are the near-term trends we could see as soon as next year..."

Best,  

Denice MacDonald 

Website Magazine does an excellent job of providing content from a number of diverse strategists. Of particular interest is a recent post by Christopher Petix, President of Clash-Media on The World of Digital Marketing in 2010.  

The past couple of years have been all about squeezing as much Return on Investment as possible from every marketing effort.

As a result, advertisers and marketers have a new set of parameters and broad goals for establishing a campaign. The good news for these groups is that there are a number of tools and techniques available to help them achieve these goals.¹

The following are just some of the key points from this important and relevant post:

Social Media – social media will need to be part of the marketing mix from day-one. 

Measurement is key – advertisers must evolve the metrics they use to monitor campaigns.

Partnership structures – advertisers will need to work in tandem with digital marketers that execute their campaigns.

Use niche websites – smaller websites with targeted or specialized information can give a far more intense exposure than typical large heavy traffic websites with generic content.

Read the full post ...

In conclusion:

The year ahead will be one where advertising and marketing begin to pick up some serious steam. However, free-spending days are over.

This means that advertisers need to find new ways to show how well they are performing, and publishers need to prove to advertisers that they can identify new customers, engage with them and deliver ROI.¹

Best

Denice MacDonald

¹Sources: Christopher Petix, President of Clash-Media

The application of social video - often referred to as using the strategy of video as the central piece for social interaction and storytelling online - is beginning to grow rapidly.  

Take for example Samsung's HD Camera Phone Trick. That YouTube clip was created and produced for Samsung Mobile by London's Viral Factory. Its traffic and engagement patterns were tracked and analyzed by Visible Measures – with unprecedented results.  

The social video piece was specifically designed for social interaction – prompting the consumer to take the challenge and solve the puzzle. The formula was a simple one (you’ll need to view to see why). To be perfectly honest – I was drawn in and wanted to take the challenge!       

What does this engaging video tell us? 

1. Modern brand building with social video is a necessary part of the marketing mix
2. Due to its authenticity, engagement with video is beginning to rank higher and more desirable in comparison to TV viewing or radio broadcast
3. Bottom-line, people like to watch video, share it and get involved with it making it a natural word of mouth strategy

Obviously, everyone who uses social video as part of their marketing mix is curious about direct measurement – meaning, does it really work and feed the bottom-line?

As social video become more active, click thru activity as well as viewing and registration are good indicators of brand lift, interaction and sharing offering much better results than highly charged broadcast metrics. Based on the Samsung example – how could argue with its success?  

BTW – there’s a follow-on video that reveals the puzzle. Here’s the answer. 

Best

Denice MacDonald

If you are looking for the technology to put your video on the web, the variety of choices can be staggering. That’s because as web video has flourished, so have the number of companies providing the tools to deliver video across the Internet.

Large media companies and individual video bloggers can now choose from among multiple firms when looking for a web video product. Many of the technology providers are quite similar and anyone in the market for a web video platform should 'test the waters' and try out the ones that seem like the best fit.  

Web video technology services can be divided into the following categories:

CONTENT MANAGEMENT: The process of ingesting content, moving it around, converting to different files and organizing video properly before it goes online.

PROGRAMMING AND PUBLISHING: The presentation of the video on the web site, including the player and the playlists.

DISTRIBUTION: Delivering the video across the web, to either the main site or to distribution channels and portals.

MONETIZATION: Making money off the video, by integrating advertising or offering video on a download or pay-per-view basis.

REPORTING: Providing analysis and reports on number of views, length of views and other similar data. 

Check out these vendors and resources: 

Dragonfly (world-class multi-media content delivery network)

Kickapps (great for online communities or any type of 'sharing' portal)

Maven (online video advertising)

Magnify (good for both b2c and b2b)

UPDATED: Video for Mobile, Twitter and YouTube: 

Check out the recent craze for using video in social media campaigns posted October 1st by Adveristing Age: How to Mobilize Your Social Media.

Best

Denice MacDonald

Before Web 2.0, organizations would take old brochure copy, poor graphics, a couple of cheesy widgets and off they go to build a web site in bad html code. With today’s user expectations, web sites have to be a bit more sophisticated, offering the best-of-breed in user experience and delivery.

To truly build a great web site presence, compete on a level playing field and convert customers, organizations must do a bit of homework before developing their web site.

Review competitors – in order to compete, organizations need to see how they fare against the competition. A comprehensive competitor’s analysis will allow the organization to provide a similar interactive experience when vying for customers to their products or services.

Know your audience – most web sites try to cater to a broad-base audience using a ‘hit or miss’ approach. With today’s web savvy user, web sites need to address exactly who their customers are. In most cases, audiences are looking to be entertained, informed or persuaded - but knowing specific industry focus, generational disposition and online behavior will go a long way in getting your audience to engage, drill down and act.

Create relevant content – with the growth of social communities, blogs and rich video media, content can be served up in many formats. Key to the use of these great Web 2.0 applications is providing relevant content to users.  Similar to ‘knowing your audience’, organizations must segment content based upon visitor types.

Enhance the experience – the visitor experience relates to ease of use, access to relevant content and tools that will help engage, connect and convert customers. Reviewing appropriate navigation, Flash or graphics, web tools or gadgets as well as call-to-action scenarios will enhance the experience and have the visitor coming back for more.

Integrate online and offline strategies – successful organizations have realized that integrating online and offline marketing strategies is the best way to tap into a large customer base and get customers to spend more. Moreover, when an integrated strategic plan is executed for online and offline simultaneously, customers get a single, unified message from the organization that reflects a cohesive brand.

More Related Strategy:

Engagement Redirects the Marketing Trajectory

Web Site Success Requires Companywide Collaboration

Web Personalization - No Longer the Next Frontier

Best

Denice MacDonald 

Creative Commons helps you publish your work online while letting others know exactly what they can and can't do with your work (any content or digital asset – including software).

With a Creative Commons license, you keep your copyright but allow people to copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit — and only on the conditions you specify.

Creative Commons licenses contain four major permissions: 

1.  Attribution (by) requires users to attribute a work's original author. All Creative Commons licenses contain this option, but some now-deprecated licenses did not contain this component.

2.  Authors can either not restrict modification, or use Share-alike (sa), which is a copyleft requirement that requires that any derived works be licensed under the same license, or No derivatives (nd), which requires that the work not be modified.

3.  Non-commercial (nc) requires that the work not be used for commercial purposes.

4.  As of the current versions, all Creative Commons licenses allow the "core right" to redistribute a work for non-commercial purposes without modification. The Non-commercial and No derivatives options will make a work non-free.

Additional Resources:

Creative Commons 

Creative Common Icons

Creative Commons Images (Flikr)

Best

Denice MacDonald

If you’re a busy web professional like me, you don’t have time to participate in every event, tradeshow or user group.  Moreover, if you don’t care for daily extensive reading and prefer some face time, a video blog may be your answer. 

WebProNews Blog Videos is your home for ebusiness, tech and search video content. They provide exclusive coverage of conferences, compelling interviews with top names in the industry, practical tips, and online news that matters.

You can watch the blog version with actual clips at events with subject matter experts like Bruce Clay, or you can read the blog.

Either way, you will be able to find current information that would take hours to filter through via daily searches or bookmarking. WebProNews provides RSS feeds and archived blogs.

Here are a couple of interesting, if not edgy, posts:

Bruce Clay - SES NY 2009 - Mike McDonald sat down with Bruce Clay for an interview at Search Engine Strategies, NY on a follow-up to ranking being dead, and changes to search results based on behavioral and intent-based data.

SES NY - Twitter Exclusively as a Marketing Tool? - Discussion on Guy Kawasaki's presentation at the Search Engine Strategies, NY.

Best

Denice MacDonald

Wow, this is amazing. For the second year in a row, global news and business publication The Economist took the #1 spot on Adweek’s Top 10 list of consumer magazines with standout track records of advertising revenue and page performance.  

What’s fascinating about The Economist, an authoritative weekly newspaper focusing on international politics and business news and opinion, is how they’ve married their offline print with their online presence.

Offering both print and digital subscriptions, The Economist has nurtured their audience with audio and video, research tools, classifieds and jobs as well as world-wide content. 

Moreover, the organization uses ‘four free trial issues’ to bait print subscribers. If you don’t want to take the plunge into print subscriptions, the web site offers newsletters and topic alerts (RSS or e-mail).

For business professionals, the web site offers a unique knowledge center called “Economist Intelligence Unit” (EIU Online) that offers instant access to a collection of intelligence on 203 countries, eight industries and a range of management topics.

I would strongly recommend that you bookmark or subscribe to the free alerts or take advantage of the four free issues.

This is an amazing print resource and a substantiated business case for a well-developed web advertising presence.

Best

Denice MacDonald

The following is a YouTube link to a fantastic video on the progression of information technology, researched by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, and Jeff Bronman.  

I wouldn’t even attempt to write a summation of the video – you will need to view it firsthand. Trust me -- it is worth five minutes of your time!

Best,

Denice MacDonald

It is imperative that all departments, disciplines and vested shareholders collaborate on the daily feeding and overall strategy of the organization's web site initiative - or else the web site will fail.

Why? Web sites are no longer ancillary; they are mission critical - adding substantially to the organization's bottom-line. Moreover, the combined needs of various departments or disciplines actually enhance the dynamic strategy behind the on-going transition of an organization's web site by offering various views and points of entry to clients, customers, employees and shareholders.

How? Collabration does not begin by ordering various departments into a conference room for a strategy meeting. It begins with defining needs, strategies and business goals. In most cases, what the sales department requires is not much different than what the HR department may need. Each is looking to communicate the organizations value and offerings while providing easy call-to-action scenarios for visitors and on-going interaction to the organization's web site.

Where to begin? Start with simple site goals that require collaboration against business needs from various departments. Begin the process of determining how the needs intertwine or can be repurposed to satisfy many needs.

SCENARIO 

HR is trying to hire high end sales professionals in a very tight market. The Sales department is trying to get a new product to market. Marketing has a tight budget but would welcome PR exposure relative to company growth.

SUGGESTIONS

Use web video to create employee profiles for HR enticing 'like' recruits. Use the same web video but add additional footage to introduce and e-mail video newsletter to targeted customers and leads that may benefit from the new product. Have marketing dove-tail the e-mail video newsletter AND web video components to the web site thereby increasing interaction to the site through video news releases. What will this take? It will take two or three days of shooting, various formatting of the web video, simple permission-granted e-mail program and some high end content. Using a create it once, use many ways concept has leveraged the collaboration of various department initiatives while safeguarding a cohesive web brand strategy.

Best

Denice MacDonald

To build e-commerce sites that drive more traffic and sales, retailers are creating interactive page treatments and adding video, customer reviews and other advanced features.

Time to motivate customers

By incorporating video, customer reviews and other advanced features, b2b and b2c retailers are positioning content, tools and applications on product pages in a way that motivates the visitor to take a specific action.

For example, if your customer base relies heavily on compliance or regulatory mandates, consider a video that provides insight on how your product or service will solve or comply with a regulatory issue. Likewise, consider adding customer reviews on new products – doing so will not only show that your organization is transparent, but that you are willing to learn from product feedback – whether it’s good or bad.

Lastly, smart retailers are providing insight and thought leadership in the forms of blogs or interactive forums to draw in prospects and customers – using them as a third-party sell. Doing so will not only elevate your brand but provide content to virally get your message out.

What’s next?

Some web retailers are taking a wait-and-see approach to launching mobile commerce or digital communities. But that doesn’t mean that these features should not be on your radar and/or part of your ‘next steps’ in the evolution of your e-commerce web site. Technology and customer expectations are moving quickly, regardless of the economic downturn. Be prepared.

Who's doing it and how are they doing it?

iPhone 3G Shows How to Use Online Video to Sell Products by Holly Buchanan of FutureNow

Ebags.com (view video lower left hand side of web product page)

Microsoft (uses customer profiles to tell the story - very cool)

Best,

Denice MacDonald

Each year before the Super Bowl, hype builds around the multimillion-dollar U.S. television commercials set to air during the broadcast. 

However, this year, a slumping economy has dampened the excitement resulting in sponsors rethinking their strategies: Is the ad appropriate and does the spot have the right tone to resonate with viewers?

Although the Super Bowl is considered a big entertainment event for viewers regardless of the economic climate, viewers will see that advertisers will take a gentler, more lighthearted approach¹ relative to content and message.

Get’m here:  Pre-released ads and previews have been collected on the Just for Laughs web site and reveal inspired moments from eTrade and CareerBuilder, along with a Top 15 list of all-time funniest Super Bowl ads.

Vote now:  Also, stay connected and vote for your favorite ad at SpotBowl.com – America’s largest Super Bowl Advertising Poll. 

Past Super Bowl Ads:

• Top 10 Super Bowl Ads of All Time as reported by MSNBC
• Top 25 Super Bowl Ads of All Time as reported by Spike TV

.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .    

Sources

¹Advertisers Change Game Plans for Super Bowl as reported by NY Times

Best

Denice MacDonald