eMarketing Meets Social

Kimberly Lindquist has professional experience as an Account Manager at ListEngage, a full service interactive marketing firm, and as Program Assistant at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

In her professional career, she has had an array of responsibilities, including: writing and editing for websites, marketing materials, and direct mailings; database management; event planning and event logistics; email marketing, social networking, and other online marketing ventures.

Facebook is a major part of any company's social media portfolio - it benefits you and your company to be up to date on the latest and greatest features. We have all watched how Facebook has transformed over time from college based social media site into a real outlet to drive business and connect with fans/clients. The timeline format that Facebook has rolled out is just another step in connecting everyone, as it's proving itself to be a fantastic tool to track that client/business interaction over time. 

via InformationWeek: Social networking site hints that its Timeline feature may soon be available for brands. Here are some things to consider about Facebook Timeline and the value it could add to your business' social networking presence.

Currently, the Facebook Timeline format--which replaces profile pages and is basically a chronological scrapbook of your life--is available only for personal pages. Facebook has hinted that Timeline will be available for brands at some point in the future, but the company has not announced anything explicitly.

An interesting study commissioned by Mashable examined how users view Facebook Timeline and other revisions to social networking sites. The study, conducted by EyeTrackShop, compared the old Facebook profile page with the new Timeline. The study found that Facebook Timeline cover photos get noticed first, that Facebook ads get noticed more in Timeline than in the old profile format, and that personal information gets more attention in Timeline.

Clint Fralick, VP of client services at Boston-based social media agency Pandemic Labs, sees potential value in Facebook Timeline for business.

"As concept/metaphor, Timeline's value for businesses is the historical perspective it lends to the interaction between business/brand and Facebook community," said Fralick. "Previously, the date a brand was created and the date a brand got started on Facebook were completely separate, and brands' Facebook lifetimes always seemed to be incomplete. Brands didn't use Facebook in a chronological way, like regular users, and users couldn't do with brand pages what they so often do with friends: skim through old posts/photos, remember past good times, etc." 

Fralick thinks businesses can benefit from Timeline even before they can deploy it for their own brands, via the residual effects of what users post on their own Timelines.

"Users filling out their own Timelines will generate a large number of stories organically that are linked to brands," he said. "Large fashion/lifestyle brands, for instance, are going to benefit from every person who uploads 10-year-old photos and goes on a thorough tagging/dating mission."

Alison Kimszal, an analyst at business and technology consultancy DefinedLogic, said Facebook Timeline would enable companies to tout their histories and provide improved navigation. "If Timeline is enabled for Facebook pages, it will allow companies to give a graphical representation of their company history--when the company began, significant milestone events over the years, photos, and videos," she said. "Timeline has also improved the navigation of profiles, allowing users to easily browse via months or years."

However, while experts can see some potential value in Facebook Timeline for brands, they also see drawbacks--most notably, interference with current Facebook apps and the potential for distraction. "There will be several drawbacks regarding brands that currently have Like Gates, Tabs, and other apps installed--Timeline will affect the way these currently function," said Kimszal. "Another drawback would be that customers who are used to the way brand pages look now may not like the new Timeline on the page."

Fralick agrees that Timeline could affect brands' existing Facebook apps, and notes that it might distract from what he sees as most important for businesses on Facebook--"posting simple, quality content and talking to their communities."

If Facebook Timeline becomes an option for businesses, what they need to keep in mind when deciding whether to implement the format is that Facebook is about engaging users with relevant content, said Kimszal: "The more relevant posts, photos, and videos are, the more consumers will engage with your brand."

Learn more here...

Photo courtesy of Facebook

Thanks to a tip from AdWeek and our friends over at HubSpot we’ve got some dirt on a feature on LinkedIn that we’d really been wondering about: LinkedIn’s “Follow Company” feature. Up until now this hard to find, and fairly uninspired feature allowed individual LinkedIn users to “Follow” a company. As a user you could “follow”, and see who else was following a specific company, but there was very little (if any) other functionality. It wasn't exactly the most effective online marketing tool for business, but we knew there had to be something else behind it.

Now, it seems that not only have LinkedIn execs touted the “Follow Company” functionality as the next wave of LinkedIn’s customer engagement but LinkedIn officials are warning companies to get their follower base now: “We believe there is a finite number of brands that any single LinkedIn member will follow,” said Mike Gamson, SVP of sales for LinkedInGamson said, adding that he estimates that the number is in the low single digits, or a couple of brands per category. “Right now is the moment of acquisition of a follower base.”

By the way, have you checked us out and followed us on LinkedIn lately? J

Facebook recently announced the introduction of its “Sponsored Stories” — a way for marketers and advertisers to use your status updates to make some money. Now companies can take certain user actions — such as checkins or actions within Facebook apps — and feature them in the column on the right side of the News Feed.

Starting today – four specific types of user actions can be turned into featured stories: “likes”, “checkins”, actions within custom applications and Page posts. Currently, only the “big players” like Coke, Levi’s and Anheuser Busch are linked up with these new ads, however FB has also teamed up with a bundle of non-profits who will also be featured — whether that’s a way for FB to get away with this new level of “interactivity” by easing people into the idea with non-profits, or they’re just truly being philanthropic… well, that’s your call.

But look forward to soon reading that: “Suzy Jones loves, loves, loves Burger King stops before class with Tommy Benson.“

Dear Email Marketers,

You’re beginning to hit that threshold that I am not sure that I can handle. I noticed it starting in mid-October as Halloween came around but I paid little attention to it, since I’m also an online marketer and like to see what you folks have up your sleeve.

By mid-November I was one-click away from unsubscribing from half of my email marketing communications – when in-walked this huge online retail giant and started emailing me snoozeworthy discount deals every few hours, and made me forget about the other guys. As I monitored my email I received “Free Shipping” offers – but this particular site’s shipping is always only $2.95 so I wasn’t too impressed.

I told myself to stay subscribed to all of my marketing fodder at least until “Cyber Monday” to see what types of deals online retailers might be offering, but after a lackluster day of lame discounts and barraging my inbox –you’re all getting dangerously close to being out of my life (and inbox) completely.

Today I received a “10% off” email from that large retailer (that’s all you got?) and an email from a trendy airline that offered me double flight points for shopping at a bunch of other retailers (including the aforementioned online retail giant) – but made no mention of the “Secret Sale” that I knew was going on in my very city that day only and would have been far more intriguing to me.

In fact, the only 2 worthwhile emails I’ve received in my personal inbox this Cyber Monday have been a newsletter from TraderJoe’s with a cheery “Forward to a Friend” Norwhale Image – and the triggered responses from my credit card company that have welcomed me to a their email alerts and given me some valuable (but not hijack-able) info about using my account. At least these two emails had a degree of cleverness (TJ’s) and personalization (credit card).

So here are my 2 Thoughts for Email Marketing on Cyber Monday and Throughout the Holidays!

-Don’t Dilute the Day with Mediocre Savings: To most people, the “Cyber Monday” in the headline isn’t worth clicking– the discounts are insignificant and/or usually require jumping through a lot of hoops to get. Why not start off with a truly great offer or discount and let that be a catalyst for the rest of the season?

-Retain your everyday subscribers by making holiday emails “worth it”: seriously, stick to some great basic deals and don’t bombard your customers. Or better yet, customize your emails to their inbox. It’ll be a lot harder to reach out to your subscribers after the New Year if they’re not on your list anymore!

Sometime early yesterday evening (November 28), Comcast’s internet service went out all over New England. Though it was a bit of a pain-in-the-behind for users across these states, the story doesn’t just end with irritated Comcast customers and a several hour outage like you would expect!

Instead, at around 8pm users started getting on their cell phones and checking things out on their Twitter accounts – or complaining about it! Reports of the outage were found on Twitter (by hundreds of users), and even while the Comcast Official website said nothing about the issues, the @ComcastCares Twitter team started helping users with solutions and answering questions about the outage and how to fix it.

Users with similar issues (and perhaps no Twitter account) – who got online via smartphone then looked to Google for answers and could see published Tweets with the words “Comcast Internet” in them, which helped them to locate the problem, and in many cases even find the solution within the Tweets they were reading!

Talk about some social troubleshooting!

To read some of the Tweets from the incident, check out the Google log here.

You’re an expert at what you do, and don’t mind letting people know over meetings, cold calls or coffee. Great. So where the heck are your newsletters, whitepapers, posts, tweets, and webinars then?

In case you haven’t noticed: online content creation is a big deal! Though it may seem daunting, a content creation strategy really isn’t that hard… and we think you can do it in less than 10 minutes per day. Read our Top 5 Tips for Creating Homegrown Content in Less than 10 minutes a day

E-mail messages that offer a social-sharing option generate a 30% higher click-through rate than e-mails without any sharing options, according to a new study released this week and featured on BtoB Online. If the e-mail includes three or more social-sharing options, the click-through rate jumps to 55%, according to the study.

The “Email Marketing and Social Media Integration Report,” which examined about 500 million e-mail messages sent by 19,149 customers in March, April and May, Twitter was the most popular social-sharing option, included in 67.2% of all social e-mails, with Facebook a close second at 62.7%.

E-mails shared on Twitter returned click-through rates of 10.2%, more than 40% higher than messages not linked to any social media, the study reported.

Over the past few weeks, all of the buzz online and in the air has been about Mother’s Day – and it seems that if it hadn’t quite “gone viral” through social outlets last year, it’s going pandemic this year this year instead.

Marketers of every shape, size, and variety are going to be trying to sell you what your Mom, Grandma, or that special lady in your life “needs” (or so they say) – but we think that the companies that are going to get ahead this Mother’s Day season are going to offer Mom’s gifts a little differently – in places where friends and family can chime in.

A prime example of this “sharing power” comes from a company called YouFloral.com (they were recently featured on the Today Show, video below). YouFloral has a novel idea – customize a vase for Mom (or anyone else for that matter) with a photograph, quote, or message – but they take it one step further by enabling their users to create and share these flowers on Facebook and through other social media sites without even having to purchase a bouquet of flowers. So, you can send Mom (or a wife, coworker, or friend throughout the entire year) virtual flowers with just the click of your button – and your social communities can look at them too. Users who send and receive these virtual flowers also have the option of ordering the real deal off of YouFloral too! The Facebook Application even reminds you of upcoming friends birthdays who you may want to send an arrangement to!

Here at ListEngage, we’ve tried out YouFloral to send to family and friends—and have had great success. We were able to design, choose flowers for, and receive our flowers in no time! And they were beautiful too! Although we certainly support sending and sharing “virtual flowers” for Mother’s Day – we think the real ones will get an even better reaction.

Check out YouFloral on the Today Show!


Have any other great innovative Mother’s Day ideas that embrace social media and sharing tools? Let us know on Twitter, Facebook or in the comments below!

Can your business really stay on the sidelines of the social media revolution?

Smart businesses are starting to realize that there is opportunity to be had in building an engaged fan base by interacting with clients, prospects, and passerbys on Facebook Fan Pages.

What some businesses haven’t realized yet, is that there is an even bigger chance to pull in prospects, catch someone’s attention, and deliver a precise call-to-action when you create a “Custom Fan Page” for new visitors to land on.

When you let passersby that are interested in your organization land on your Facebook Wall, it’s like letting someone new visiting you for the first time – straight into a conference call or an important meeting without educating them about your brand or company.

We’ll illustrate the point with two real life examples:

Imagine this: you’re an organization that is looking to get people on board to help Ban Asbestos in the US. You’ve got an important message to convey and know that Facebook is a great place to generate buzz and build a grass roots campaign for this good cause.

If you make the Facebook Wall the very first thing your potential supporters land on when they visit your Fan Page then this is what they’ll see…

Keep Reading…

Become a Fan of ListEngage on Facebook

Balancing a busy schedule isn’t anything new: for most of us, there will always be too much work, and too little day to squeeze it into. But nowadays we’re expected to run a business, pick the kids up from practice, and make sure to update our Facebook status?  Social media has brought a whole new meaning to “managing your Social Calendar”.
Though there might not be a “magic bullet” to solve all your problems, we do have some tried and true solutions to save some sanity in the future. Here are our

Top 5 Ways to Tackle Your New “Social Calendar”:

1)      Delegate: Debby from Marketing—you’re on Facebook Fan Pages. Carol from PR—you’re in charge of tweeting all company media coverage on Twitter. Ok,Go!

2)      Automate: Use sites like socialoomph.com and ping.fm to automate your Tweets and connect all of your social media initiatives together in one place. Then, when you send one message, you won’t need to log into 5 different sites to repeat it!

3)      Measure: Check in once a month to see how you’re doing on these sites. Don’t use followers/fans or conversions as milestones (yet!) – measure your success through interactions, @mentions of your name or company, click thru’s on links you post, and/or increased website traffic. After a few months, if a site just isn’t working for you, it might be time to refocus your energies.

4)      Use your Younglings: Let’s face it, whether you like it or not, your Gen Y workers are going to be on social networking sites—and blocking these sites doesn’t make you any friends in the process. Why not reach a happy-medium with them: allow them to cruise on Facebook, but put them to work in the process!

5)      Outsource: Sometimes you just don’t have the man-power to take on these new initiatives. Consider hiring a third party to spearhead these operations for you. Not only is it off your plate, but you can rest better knowing your efforts are in the hands of people who actually know what they’re doing.

Try these ideas for starters, or Tweet us @listengage with other suggestions on how you manage your “Social Calendar”. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

According to a new article published today by eMarketer, links to social networking sites may be rising quickly—appearing in 20% of marketing e-mails in July 2009, up from just 2% in February.

This dramatic increase is slightly dampened by the fact that the majority of leading online retailers have yet to jump into the mix. In fact, of the top 100 Internet Retailer sites, only about half of them promoted either their Twitter or Facebook profiles in their email messages, and less than 30% with these profiles displayed them prominently on their website.

As for everybody else, it seems that linking customers and prospective clients to any affiliated website is almost always a good thing—and it appears that these numbers will continue to grow for small to medium sized businesses.

The question begs, are these big brands helping or hindering their already well known brand-names by not entering these new social media realms while their smaller competitors are? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.
Is your business looking to augment your social media or email marketing campaigns? Click here and find out where to begin.

In the past the question, “Are you on Twitter” was used as a code for “Are you hip to Social Media”? Not anymore. You’ve heard of Twitter, the buzz is everywhere—the Presidential campaign, Time Magazine cover stories, the Iran elections, your Dad’s Retirement Fly-fishing Club, etc…

So maybe you’ve put your marketing hat on, created a profile and tweeted for the first time: “Just trying to figure this twitter thing out.” And the response? Not exactly staggering.

For the average incoming user, marketing on Twitter is like standing by the freeway pitching your product at the top of your lungs-and hoping to get a lead. There’s too much noise, commotion, and distraction; even if one in a million people actually hears your message, they’re not exactly going to pull over and offer you their business. So why-if it’s so hard to gain followers or attention-is Twitter worth your time? The key lies in your “Engageability”-or, how well you brand, build relationships, and monitor the Twitter universe during your stay there.

Here are three very basic examples to help illustrate the point…

You own Slushtastic Slushies and there are a two other Slushy dealers in town. Neither of them come close to the supreme taste and quality of your slushies but Ken’s Slush-o-rama is right off the highway and Nana’s Slushy Shack is two blocks away from the Elementary school. Where do you get your edge then? Well, you have something that Ken and Nana don’t: The power of Twitter…

To read the entire Twitter Strategy Article follow this link…

First of all, we’d like to say “Congrats” to those of you who have held their breath and leapt into the often uninviting waters of social media—despite fears and disbelief that “this thing really works”. Believe it or not, you’re still ahead of the curve as far as Web 2.0 users go, and you should be proud that you’ve already taken the plunge.

We’re sorry that you’re not John Mayer, Shaq, Lindsay Lohan or a boatload of other famous people who instantly attained millions of followers upon their entry to Twitterville. And it’s really too bad that your company might not be as exciting to Facebook users as McDonald’s—whose actual business page gets trumped by a grassroots-created page with almost 2 million fans! Don’t worry, we still like you.

The hard-truth is that social media requires time and effort, and you won’t be instantly popular unless you’re already wildy popular in the mainstream media. Even then, there are stark examples of both how well and how poorly well known brands are doing on Twitter, Facebook, and the likes. Check out Kodak versus Fuji Film; Pizza Hut versus Dominos. Some sink, others swim.

The honest truth is, you have to “work for it” with social media—and we’ll be the first to admit, it’s not easy: we’ve been grappling with ways to promote our Facebook page on a closed network that’s usually meant for chatting and posting funny pictures. The question to ask yourself is—what do I have to offer that people will be interested in (and what makes my company unique)? Whether that means offering daily discounts, positioning yourself as an “expert” in your field by writing helpful blog posts, or using social media as a forum for direct customer relations, your business will dictate the answers. But the first step is doing it, and doing it consistently.

Just think: if you had just left your two-wheeler in the street the first time you skinned your knee, would you have ever learned to ride a bike? If you hadn’t stopped calling until she agreed to see a movie with you, would you have those two beautiful kids and that stunning wife? The point is, every success story starts with a challenge. Sure, adopting social media is tough, especially when it it takes away from “more important things” like paying bills and making money, but we guarantee that it will pay off in dividends if you treat it like any other challenge, and just “keep at it.”

For now, take some comfort in knowing that you’re not the only one who’s sitting in the office scratching their head and asking “But how the heck does this fit into my business plan?” and be proud—thinking about these problems and finding very few solutions is still a thousand times better than just sweeping them under the rug. Give yourself a pat on the back; then start taking the next steps to help build your social media brand (and boost you social media ego!).

Think you might still need a jumpstart to your social media strategy? ListEngage says “Don’t Go It Alone”, we can help you plan the steps you’ll need to take in order to start thriving in social media: contact us or send us a tweet @ListEngage. We’re here to help.

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