5 Marketing Technology stories you might have missed 12-10-11


Marketing Technology 5

Marketing Technology Stories you might have missed

MT5 – #16

Stories this week: klout topics, Facebook subscribe, top B2B tactics, gamification and killer content (is hard).

1.  Facebook to Launch Subscribe Button for Websites

[link] Facebook announced plans to extend “Subscribe” to websites allowing updates from websites to appear on Facebook.

My Take: Personally, I prefer to stick with RSS, but I think the “Facebook generation” will adopt this readily. If you’re selling to millinnials, look to implement this feature.

2. Klout Lets You Add Topics, and More Importantly Find Influencers

[link] Klout added sashes and the ability to add topics. But if you play with the interface a bit, you’ll also find you’re able to find the top influencers on any topic

My Take: Klout hasn’t provided free access to the top influencers. In fact, even now it takes a bit of doing to find topic influencers. If you’re a product manager and you haven’t figured this out, get started. Let me know if you need help.

3. B2B Marketers Struggle With Compelling Content

[link] Marketers are grappling with two challenges that go hand in hand: producing enough content, and having the budget to produce enough content.

My Take: Everyone says “Content is King” but it’s hard to be awesome.

Content Marketing Challenges

Content Marketing Challenges

4. B2B Gamification: Bold strategy in conservative industry increased website visits 108.5%

[link] UK financial service company experienced dramatic results by updating it’s website and using a game to promote it.

My Take: I love this case study. Not only for the step by step process but also because it shows that gamification can be applied to most any business.

5. Marketing Research Chart: Tried-and-true tactics rank high in B2B marketing budgets

[link] Marketing Sherpa surveyed 1,700 B2B marketers to see how they invested their marketing budget.

My Take: Looking at the chart, larger organizations use more traditional marketing tactics (trade shows, print advertising) than their smaller competitors who rely on newer marketing tactics (email marketing, PPC, social media)

B2B budget allocation

B2B budget allocation

 

Use Site Ranking Engines to Measure Your Blog

Blog Technology

Blog Technology

Use Site Ranking Engines to Measure Your Blog

Why does it matter?

So let’s start with “why does this technology stuff matter?” This post covers how to measure your efforts with your blog. It provides specific things you can do to check your blog and see how you’re doing.

If you’re just starting your blog you may find that you score quite low, but set a schedule and check these stats quarterly. Record your results.  Use this information as a measurement stick: check your progress and motivate yourself to do better.

Check your score

  1. Hubspot – Hubspot provides wonderful blog resources. Their Website grader includes their blog grader. Do this first.
  2. Google Page Rank – Use the tool at PR Checker to check your page rank from Google. If you love your score you can download a site badge.
  3. Invesp – Search your blog name. If they have your blog you’ll see how you rank in your category and you can grab a badge code. If you’re blog doesn’t show up in the results, they may not be tracking your blog. You can submit you blog for tracking but be warned they say it takes 8-12 months to start tracking (Wah?!?)
  4. Technorati – Technorati’s blog ranking site ranks over 1 million blogs. Click here to search for your blog. I didn’t see a way to add a new blog.
  5. Adage – Adage’s has the Power 150. Adage actually tracks 1126 which is still a very small number of blogs considering there are millions of blogs out there.  Nonetheless, if your blog is ranked you’ll see a lot of useful information on it’s scoring. There is a blog submission form, but when I tried it I suspected it wasn’t working.
  6. Alexa – Alexa tracks top sites, but probably also tracks your blog too. If you search for your blog it will provide your traffic rank and the number of incoming site links. You can click Details to get much more useful information on popular searches that lead to your site.

I find Hubspot’s grader to be very informative and Invesp to be a great way to see how site ranking works. The Invesp ranking provides rankings by:

  • RSS feeds
  • Unique monthly visitors
  • Yahoo indexed pages
  • Google indexed pages
  • Number of incoming links (via Yahoo)
  • Ratio of incoming links to number of pages
  • Google page rank

Niche Blog Ranking

Perhaps your blog doesn’t garner a ton of traffic, that’s okay. You may find you can relevance within your audience – you don’t have to be big to be better.  Look for sites that rank blogs within your industry. Here are a few examples:

Summary

Your blog may not find itself in the top 50 list, at least not to start, however, setting goals and tracking yourself against these goals is a great way to continually motivate you to stick with it. Producing and curating content is hard work and it’s nice to see tangible results from your work.

If you’re just starting out, find out who is ranking blogs in your category and set a goal of making that list!

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Photo credit: Travelin’ Librarian

Blog Technology: Most Downloaded WordPress Plugins

Blog Technology

Blog Technology

Blog Technology: Most Downloaded WordPress Plugins

If you’re a WordPress blogger, you know the key to the platform is extending the basic platform to meet the goals of your blog. So what are the most popular plugins? I couldn’t find a definitive list on the WordPress site, but through a bunch of searches, I came up with the following list.

After compiling the list I found a list made by Marko Saric in July.  That list validated my results it also allowed me to see which plugins where rising (or falling) in popularity. You’ll see they’re change in position next to the plug-in.

Top WordPress Plugins As Of Dec 2011

  1. All in One SEO Pack (no change)
  2. Akismet (no change)
  3. Google XML Sitemaps (no change)
  4. Contact Form 7 (no change)
  5. NextGEN Gallery (no change)
  6. WP Super Cache (no change)
  7. Google Analytics for WordPress (no change)
  8. WP-PageNavi (+1)
  9. AddToAny: Share/Bookmark/Email Buttons (-1)
  10. Fast Secure Contact Form (no change)
  11. Google Analyticator (no change)
  12. WordPress Importer (+4)
  13. WP e-Commerce (-1)
  14. SexyBookmarks | email, bookmark, and share buttons (no change)
  15. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (no change)

 

Photo credit: Travelin’ Librarian

Blog Technology: Platform Reader Poll

Blog Technology

Blog Technology

Blog Technology: Reader poll

A few months ago I surveyed readers to see which blog platforms they use. Picking the right blog platform is a key decision. If you’re technology adverse, you can quickly find yourself in over your head. Conversely, if you’re the sort that likes to be in control of how things look and work, you could waste time on a platform that doesn’t meet your needs.

One thing that struck me was the number of readers still using Google’s Blogger. It’s and old platform but it’s gotten a new facelift, perhaps that’s what has kept bloggers there.  No surprise that WordPress has such a strong showing since it has the largest market share.

Blog Technology: Reader poll results # users

Blog Technology: Reader poll results # users

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blog Technology: Reader poll results by %

Blog Technology: Reader poll results by %

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo credit: Travelin’ Librarian

5 Marketing Technology stories you might have missed 12-3-11


Marketing Technology 5

Marketing Technology Stories you might have missed

MT5 – #15

Stories this week: Email myth busting, web 2.o same as web 1.0, opt-in vs opt-out, pencil technology and mobile email campaigns

B2B Social Media Myths Busted: Is Email Dead?

[link] This is Part Five of a Five Part Series with Tyler Pyburn, Host at The Pulse Network, and Stephen Saber, Chief Executive Officer at The Pulse Network, in which they aim to make plain some of the biggest business to business social media myths.

My Take: I agree with Stephen, email marketing isn’t going away, it’s just adapting.

Social 2012 is Web 2000

[link] In this AdAge article, Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff compares the current hype and hysteria surrounding social media to the fervor that came with the web in 2000.

My Take: You’ve likely heard this headline before, but Bernoff’s examples do a great job of pressing the point.

Click to Open rates Opt-in vs Opt-out

Click to Open rates Opt-in vs Opt-out

Do Opt-In Lists Really Perform Better Than Opt-Out?

[link] Although Opt-in email open rates are higher, the difference in click to open rates are much less dramatic.  In this study of over 300 million emails delivered, it appeared that once the email was opened, recipients of opt-in and opt-out campaigns responded to the offer in the same manner.

My take: Considering it’s easier to get opt-out addresses than get potential customers to opt-in, it may be worth starting with an opt-out program.

The Right Technology May Be a Pencil

[link] The author reminds us not to become overly enamored with our wiz-bang gadgets. Keeping it simple (pencil and paper) keeps you from being restricted by application constructs.

My Take: I like this out of the blue thinking. Just today I had a meeting in the community where we run a big annual project. The organizer had a huge, organized 3 ring binder that was really easy to follow. All of the information was created digitally, but the 3-ring binder layout was the best construct for communicating the plans. Use the right tool for the right job – even if it isn’t the flashiest.

Share of Emails Opened on Mobiles Jumps in H1 ‘11

Email open rates on mobile

Email open rates on mobile

[link] The share of all email opens occurring on mobile devices reached 20.24% in the first half of 2011, representing 51% growth from 13.36% in Q4 2010, according to a report released in November 2011 by Knotice.

My Take: Another finding in the article was the relatively poor click to open rate (CTOR). This requires additional thinking about how your construct your marketing email offers. Increasingly marketers need to simplify their email templates and have one clear offer.

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