GS MKT 306 CH 13 Digital and Social Media Marketing

How can—or better yet, how should—marketers use social media to achieve business-related goals? Generally speaking, nearly all social media marketing strategies and tactics can be grouped according to their main purpose:

1.Increase brand visibility through search-marketing techniques. 2. Apply content marketing strategies to grow customer engagement. 3. Utilize social media to promote brand-customer and customer-customer conversation about your brand. 4. Incorporate location-based marketing techniques to provide context to social interactions. 5. Activate customer advocacy by incorporating social media into loyalty programs. 6. Employ social media monitoring to listen to the voice of the customer.

Applause rate

Number of approval actions (e.g., likes, thumbs-ups, favorites) per post.

Ross Hornish SEO Manager ServiceMaster

My job is to position my brands as close as possible to the top of any searches you do in a digital environment. Search has evolved to be much more than just Google, so my job has evolved to include social search, voice search, and personal assistants, to name a few. How did you get your job? I got my current position through a mix of doing things that interested me and doing things that no one else wanted to do. I would handle my normal job functions and do what I needed to do, while coupling those activities with what I wanted to do. In my last semester of my M.B.A., I started making my own websites. I did a deep dive for 15 hours over a weekend taking online courses and studying multiple whitepapers on SEO. From there I held a number of positions in digital that weren't anything special—but they got me in the door to where I wanted to be. I kept immersing myself in all things digital to understand what makes a successful website. What has been the most important thing in making you successful at your job? Everyone wants a specialist, but to get to the position where you make the decisions, you have to know how the whole ecosystem works. That's where cross-training comes in. Throughout my career, I supported teams in a variety of areas: IT, Quality Assurance, Design, Development, User Experience, Project Management, Sales, Marketing, Merchandising, Finance, and Analytics. Learning these processes and how they fit into the whole corporate picture allowed me to build on my own job functions. What advice would you give soon-to-be graduates? Travel. Get out of your comfort zone. Take risks. you'll have so much time to make up those things that entry-level jobs teach, and you'll start to gain more of an understanding that in a global economy not everyone thinks, works, acts, or uses online platforms as someone with your upbringing. Don't be afraid to "fail young." You'd be surprised how much real-world experience you'll gain by running your own business or start-up. Past the risk taking, look into creative classes to understand how to think outside of your norms or those of your company; you'll constantly have to find innovative ways to solve complex problems. What do you consider your personal brand to be? This question is funny because I took a lot of time to brand myself. I'm in digital so my brand has to be digital. I have a logo. I have a website that's being built out as we speak. You have to pay attention to your social profiles and be true to what you're interested in to become a thought leader in those interests, even if they're not quite related. More than just a personal branding statement, you have to live what you speak. It's important to know what you are—but almost more important to know what you are not. That leads to my personal statement now which is, "Art School Drop-out. Digital Marketing Pundit." Learn a different language. I'm not talking about Spanish (although that will go a long way). I'm talking about Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), JavaScript, or any other programming language. Everyone who works in digital should learn how to code (or at least how to read code) to understand the framework of everything you will be working on. You'd be surprised to know how far even the basics in reading these languages can take you.

Conversation rate

Number of conversations (e.g., comments, replies) going on about the brand per social media post.

Amplification rate

Number of shares, retweets, re-pins, etc. on average for each post.

Trends in Branded Content Marketing Marketers strive to differentiate themselves if possible through the quality and creativeness of their branded content. Over the past few years, infographics have become a trendy way to share information about goods and services. Infographics are highly sharable, catchy to the eye, and more fun to read than a generic blog post. With more companies using infographics, the competition to stand out continues to increase.

One new branded content approach that is catching on with content creators and audiences is live streaming—broadcasting real-time, live video footage or video feed to an audience accessing the video stream over the Internet.

Average engagement rate

Percentage of audience that has engaged with a brand's content on a given social channel per reporting period.

Audience growth rate

Rate at which a brand adds (or loses) audience members across its social media networks.

Virality

Rate at which a piece of content spreads across the social web—for instance, by measuring total shares per piece of content per day.

There are literally hundreds of different metrics that can be derived from social media-related sources. Some are more widely used than others.

Table 13.1 provides a list of metrics commonly found on the dashboards of digital marketing analysts and managers. Reach Metrics

2 of 4 Website Design : Phase 2: Design : Images The use of pictures, animation, and other forms of visual imagery is another important design consideration. Our brains are built to process pictures—in fact, we actually think in pictures! So presenting information and telling stories about a brand using images is the most efficient way to present information to people.18 Evolutionary psychologists suggest a biological basis for the impact of images on our emotions and behaviors. Dating back to its earliest days on the African plains, survival of the homo sapiens species depended upon the ability to make quick decisions: Fight or flight? Is that berry poisonous? Which mate would produce the healthiest offspring?

These tendencies have been carried over into our modern environment, influencing our actions in ways of which we are mostly unaware. For instance, if someone who is attractive or liked is paired with a product in a website picture, the attractiveness or liking tends to "rub off" onto the good or service.20 Likewise, people tend to place greater trust in sources who appear similar to us or to an idealized version of who we'd like to be.

According to social media and customer service expert, Jay Baer, customer service is the new marketing: "Customers who have a problem that is successfully solved are

far more loyal, and spend far more dollars, than customers who have never had a problem," says Baer. A recovered customer can have as much as 20 times the impact of advertising on sales. As a result, the business case for applying social technologies to improving customer service is strong.

The power of digital communications has lowered barriers to market entry in many market sectors. This shift has enabled

many smaller, more nimble competitors to compete head-to-head with established brands. For instance, according to the Brewer's Association, craft beer sales grew by 17.6 percent in 2015 compared with a rate of just 0.5 percent in overall beer sales.

Engagement data can be contextualized and compared against internal benchmarks by taking into account the brand's social reach. Reach is a

measure of the total audience size for a given platform. Taking raw engagement metrics and dividing by the number of Facebook friends, Twitter followers, or another platform audience measure, digital marketers can add meaning to the raw engagement metrics by producing ratios reflecting conversation rate, amplification rate, and applause rate.

Whatever the social media metrics an organization tracks, demonstrating a positive ROI for the brand or organization on its social media investment will always be the ultimate criteria. By tracking key metrics through a dashboard, marketers can

more readily answer questions relating to the comparative effectiveness of social media channels and which channels produce the greatest number of leads and sales.

SEO targets various kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, academic search, news search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.31 SEO tactics influence

organic page rankings by influencing the relevance and popularity of web content. Websites and pages that remain stagnant signal to search engines that the content is likely to be less relevant to user searches. It is critical that online marketers continuously update their sites with new, interesting, and relevant content.

By integrating mobile applications with sensing technologies embedded into today's devices, businesses are able to

provide personalized services and offers based on location, interests, and social context.

Over the past few years, retailers have been experimenting with Apple iBeacons. These use geo-fencing technology to track customers; they send

relevant messages and offers to customers' iPhones based on their location. For instance, Major League Baseball (MLB) has used iBeacons since the start of the 2014 season to engage fans at ballparks.

The essence of content marketing is the belief that if businesses deliver valuable information to buyers, customers will

reward them with their business and loyalty. It focuses on delivering useful and relevant information that makes an interested buyer more intelligent, rather than wasting resources pitching goods or services to prospects with limited interest in the offering.

Many location-based marketing campaigns incorporate the use of location-based services. A location-based service is a

social, entertainment, or information service that allows a company to reach and engage with its audience using tools and platforms that capture the geographic location of the audience. The delivery mechanisms used for location-based services include mobile applications, short message service (SMS) text messaging, and even in-store digital signage.

Digital marketing is an umbrella term that refers to

the marketing of goods or services using digital media, such as e-mail, websites, search engines, and social media platforms.

For many customers, social media are the preferred channels to engage with brands on customer service issues, as opposed to

e-mail or phone. According to a 2013 Page 456report, 67 percent of consumers had reported using a company's social media site for servicing, compared with 33 percent for social marketing.

Mike Masnick, a blogger for Techdirt, subsequently coined the term Streisand effect for attempts to remove content from the Internet that actually cause it to

instead spread more broadly. Not only is Barbara Streisand's house still visible online (these images are easily found using Google Image Search on "Barbara Streisand house"), but also her name has become synonymous with futile attempts to remove content from the Net.49 Be sure to protect your personal brand and don't fall victim to the Streisand effect!

Website conversion consultant Jeremy Smith says consumers in the modern web audience are accustomed to the call to action: "This doesn't mean they are going to convert. It simply means

their minds are prepared for the experience of being called to act. They know it's coming. Their minds have already decided that there will be a CTA."

Search marketing encompasses two closely related practices: search engine optimization and search engine marketing:

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of getting more traffic based on higher rankings of free or "organic" search results on search engines. In contrast, search engine marketing (SEM) is the process of generating website traffic by purchasing advertisements on search engines.

Mistakes happen. What truly makes the difference for customers is how companies respond to mistakes—or

if they respond at all. Businesses that invest resources into providing more responsive customer care can expect to reap higher brand loyalty, reduced customer turnover, stronger word of mouth, and greater profits.

Marketers often seek to encourage deeper interaction through the use of a call to action. A call to action (CTA) is an

image or line of text that prompts visitors, leads, and customers to perform a desired action. It is quite literally a "call" to take an "action." While the idea of a call to action is not new to marketing, incorporating a CTA into digital content is. Calls to action on social media enable marketers to enhance the interactive nature of the experience.

Whether marketing to consumers or businesses, nearly all online marketing revolves around the establishment and maintenance of one or more branded websites. Broadly speaking, the website design (or re-design) process follows four phases:

1. planning, 2. design, 3. development, and 4. testing and launch.

A CTA can be placed anywhere within a marketing communication—on your website, in a tweet, a Facebook post, an e-book, or an e-mail, or at the end of a blog post. Conversion expert Chelsea Baldwin offers several ideas for improving CTA conversion rates:38 1. Replace generic wording. "Submit" is standard wording in a lot of CTA form-creation software. Because it's so common, it's a word to omit from your online business vocabulary. Nobody cares about the action of submitting. The same holds for "Purchase," "Download," and "Sign Up." What customers care about most is what they are getting in return. The headline for your CTA should reflect this fact.

2. Add visual cues. For humans, faces are among the most important visual stimuli. As a species, we are constantly monitoring each other's faces. We pay close attention to subtle details that can give some insight into the emotional state, engagement level, or the object of attention of others.39 Even with images on a website, when we find a face and the person is looking in a certain direction, our eyes tend to follow that direction, to see what the person is looking at. By locating a call-to-action button in that direction, marketers can improve conversion. 3. Write CTA headlines in first person. Most copywriting uses second person ("you") to facilitate conversation. But when people read website copy, their thoughts are typically about their own benefits: "help me," "my time," "my money," and "I want" or "I need." Instead of using button text that says "Get your free eBook," write button text that says "Send me my free eBook." Changing the wording of the CTA to first person eliminates the "brain friction" in which the prospect's mind has to translate second person into his or her own first-person thoughts.

1 of 4 Website Design : Phase 1: Planning (continued) Choosing a Domain Name Making a memorable first impression with online consumers begins with the choice of a domain name—the organization's Internet address. This is a critical consideration during the planning phase and an important marketing decision. A company's website is the calling card of its business. A good domain name makes the site stand out in a positive way. A poor one is easily forgettable, or worse, widely ridiculed.

A domain name should give potential visitors an idea of what the site is about. After all, a visitor isn't going to be happy if she visits a site with a domain name that suggests toys but finds content on the site that is related to cars. Common suggestions for choosing an effective domain name include the following: • It helps if your brand and domain are the same name. This tells people where to go when they are trying to find you, and it makes it easier to build brand recognition. • Shorter domain names tend to be easier to remember. • Avoid using hyphens and underscore symbols. Many people will forget to type them in or will type them incorrectly. • Take the time to research competitors' domain names. Selecting a name that is too closely related to a rival's website creates confusion and potential lost sales.

Churn rate

A measure of the number of audience members who leave over a specific period of time divided by the average number of audience members over that same time span.

Companies such as Meerkat and Periscope offer live streaming audio and video applications that can be launched from your smartphone. Live streaming offers several unique advantages.

As opposed to podcasting, it is real time, giving content the urgency of watching or listening now. Another benefit is that it allows viewers to be involved, enabling users to participate and share with the tap of a tweet.

Facebook started out as a social network but has grown into something much more. It is a personal operating system of sorts, where friends and experiences are interconnected in ways that connect people with each other as well as with brands that matter the most to them.

As such, social media provide an information distribution ecosystem that rivals the most powerful news and broadcast networks. In order to reach today's always-on consumers, marketers must learn to understand, adapt, and ultimately become part of this revolution.

2 of 4 Website Design : Phase 2: Design We know that store layout and atmospherics affect customer experiences and behaviors in a physical store. Website design plays a similar role in B2C and B2B websites. Wireframing is an import first phase in designing web pages and sites. A wireframe is a visual guide that represents the skeletal framework of a website. It is like an architectural blueprint that depicts page layout and the arrangement of the website's content. The wireframe usually lacks typographic style, color, or graphics—instead, its main focus lies in functionality, behavior, and priority of content

At a deeper level, however, wireframing is useful for determining how the user interacts with the interface. For example, wireframes may include details of how users will navigate the website using buttons, menus, and links. Figure 13.1 shows an example of a wireframe layout of a standard welcome page. Wireframing is useful tool for improving the ease with which users complete tasks on a website. Web designers cannot afford to ignore aesthetic elements either. Features such as color, font, spacing, and the use of images influence user mood.

Location-Based Marketing: Bringing Relevance to Digital Content Factoring location into marketing campaigns is an established practice. For example, marketers have for many years targeted people at the community level using media like a local newspaper.

Brands, retailers, and advertising agencies use location-based marketing (LBM) to adapt content, messaging, or service delivery to a target's location, using GPS data transmitted from an individual's mobile device. Advances in technology have made this method accessible to organizations and marketers with budgets of all sizes.

Until the rise of mass media in the early 20th century, markets were a physical space, a bazaar where people came to buy what others had to sell—and to talk.

Buyers had as much to say as sellers. They spoke directly to each other without the filter of media or the shading of advertising and public relations. The introduction of broadcast radio and TV in the early 20th century started a new age of communications. One-to-one, two-way communications between buyers and sellers diminished. In their place, a new one-to-many model of one-way information transmission took hold. The traditional marketplace was dramatically altered: Markets were dominated by big national and multinational organizations pumping out brand messaging via large-scale advertising and promotional campaigns.

Cost per conversion

Dollar amount of how much a brand pays in order to obtain a single conversion.

Engaging Consumers through Social Media The ability to share, tweet, and interact on any kind of online site is now almost a given. Thanks to social media, personalized interactions between brands and consumers are fast becoming the new normal in the online world. Social interaction begins with establishing and maintaining a strong social presence. Inbound marketing firm HubSpot asked nearly 600 consumers what kind social media presence they expect of any brand. Consumers reported that they expect brands to be active Page 445on at least three to four social channels.

Figure 13.5 details results from the study with respect to preferred social channels. There was some generational variation in social media usage and preferences, but the research almost universally suggests that a Facebook presence is a must. Consumer expectations for Twitter presence were about 10 points lower. They were lower still for Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and Google+.

Competing search engines include sites like Yahoo!, Bing, and Ask.com. One of the ways these rivals seek to differentiate themselves is by search criteria.

For instance, some work with keywords, some allow you to ask a question, and some include advanced features like keyword proximity or filtering by age of content. The search engine's ranking algorithm checks each search query against billions of pages. It tries to determine how relevant each page is to the search terms that were entered. This operation is so complex that companies closely guard their own ranking algorithms as patented industry secrets. Why? Competitive advantage, for a start. As long as the search company is giving you the best search results, it can stay on top of the market. Second, keeping this information private prevents others from gaming the system and giving an unfair advantage to one site over another. Search engine optimization experts strive to constantly adjust key word terms and website features in order to improve organic search performance results.

While it is possible for a trained employee to conduct such analysis manually, most companies utilize specialized software to produce sentiment metrics. Some of these tools are freely available.

For instance, you can visit sites like www.sentiment140.com or www.twitonomy.com to check out interesting Twitter-related sentiment and other social media stats for your favorite brands.

One group of location-based mobile apps that you might be familiar with include "social check-in" apps:

Foursquare is a mobile app that allows you to check in to any location—cafes, sports stadiums, workplaces, restaurants, bars, and more. Gowalla, another mobile app, uses "passport stamps" that a user collects as he or she checks in to various places. Once you check in, you can share your location on Facebook or Twitter.

2 of 4 Website Design : Phase 2: Design : Color Dating back to the ancient Greeks, colors have been closely associated with emotional states and even personality traits: Red is commonly associated with energy, vibrancy, and youth. CNN uses a bold red interface to make its users alert and ready to read the news. Pink evokes a sense of femininity and softness, which lingerie giant Victoria's Secret uses to great effect.

Green gives viewers an air of optimism. Since it also shares a hue with plants, green is often a go-to color for environmental websites, like green living website Treehugger. Blue recalls a sense of trustworthiness and openness. It's no surprise that blue is the color choice of social media giants Twitter and Facebook

Engagement Metrics Engagement is one of the most important areas to measure in social media. In most social media settings, content can be both shared and replied to. Engagement measures activity such as:

How are people participating in the conversation about your brand? Do they engage in conversation, by commenting? Do they share or retweet your posts or tweets? How many demonstrate their approval or agreement with a retweet, a like, or +1?

Marketing professionals from these organizations understand the impact of social media in establishing brand identity and building social connections with consumers. Customers don't go to social media to buy.

In fact, they tend to respond negatively to blatant sales attempts. By interacting with consumers in a fun, helpful, and interesting manner, social media can help build a successful brand, in two main ways: • By allowing the firm to develop deeper relationships with customers. • By generating positive word-of-mouth communication about the brand across social networks.

Using Social Media to Improve Brand Loyalty and Customer Advocacy Fully engaged customers have a strong emotional attachment to a company. They act as brand ambassadors for the company: Often they rally on its behalf to friends, family, and coworkers and go out of their way to purchase its products or services. Some might even say that they "love" that company.

In light of this, companies increasingly recruit their followers to spread word-of-mouth recommendations about their products. These fans act as ambassadors and advocates for the brands they like.

Influence

Influence scores (offered by providers like Klout) measure a person or brand's influence on a particular channel.

Social media refers to

Internet-based applications that enable users to create their own content and share it with others who access these sites. Social media are playing an increasingly important role in how consumers discover, research, and share information about brands and products.

Social media marketing uses combinations of digital tools such as websites, online videos, e-mail, blogs, social media, mobile ads, mobile apps, and other digital platforms.

It seeks to engage consumers anywhere, anytime via their computers, smartphones, tablets, Internet-enabled TVs, and other digital devices. Marketing organizations are committing increasing percentages of their resources to social media marketing for one simple reason: More and more people are spending more and more of their time on these platforms.

What Happens Online, Stays Online—Forever Marketers should remember that whatever content goes online tends to stay online—somewhere, forever. This is true for both images and text.

It's worthwhile to stop and think before publishing social content or interacting online in a manner that may be perceived by some as either tasteless or rude. Brands that seek to remove or restrict such materials are often sanctioned in a very public and humiliating manner. Online marketing gurus refer to this phenomenon as the Streisand effect.

In addition, social media-based loyalty programs create an easy and visible mechanism for identifying and rewarding social brand advocacy. Recognizing customers for their social activity goes a long way. A simple thank you coupled with points or other reward/benefit makes participants feel special.

Loyalty program expert Jessica Williams offers a few tips:40 1. Give your customers a specific hashtag and CTA so you can easily monitor and reward mentions. Hashtags also make it easy to analyze which channels and promotions work best. 2. Assign a social currency or value to the social actions your consumers take. These actions could include mentions of your brand when they're talking directly to you or to their audience, or recommending something to a friend. 3. Be prepared to surprise and delight someone for his or her actions as they happen. Over time, these activities enable the brand to increase loyalty-program engagement and acquire new brand loyalists organically.

Access to social media content and apps has been a huge driver in smartphone and tablet adoption by consumers. In turn, capabilities embedded within the devices themselves are responsible for providing some of the most engaging user-generated content distributed via social media channels:

Most mobile computing devices are equipped with high-quality digital cameras and microphones. Users effectively have an audio/video recording studio that fits in their pockets. Mobile apps enable users to create content and share it online with the push of a few buttons. It's as if we all suddenly became news reporters providing updates on our lives and the happenings around us. Smartphones and tablets also include an array of non-communication-based onboard technologies, such as gyroscopes and global positioning satellite (GPS) capabilities. These technologies heighten the real-time, temporal relevance of tweets, posts, check-in's, and other social content. Sensors embedded in the devices provide opportunities for businesses and other organizations to offer personalized content and new services that provide value by recognizing where we happen to be at any given point in time.

Brand advocacy

Number (or percentage) of visitors (or social media mentions) that reflect brand advocacy.

If consumers expect a brand to be active on Facebook and possibly two or three other social channels, the next question is, "What do they want from companies there?" A good way to determine this is to examine which companies have the most loyal social media following.

One recent study examined posts by the brands with the most loyal followings on Facebook.36 Posts from these brands included: • Costco (1.2 million fans): Deals on items consumers need. • Ziploc (1.5 million fans): Holiday cake recipes like cakes encrusted with peppermint stick crushed in Ziploc bags. • St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (1.7 million fans): Photos of children recovering from cancer. • Reese's Candy (12 million fans): Information about peanuts and dessert ideas incorporating Reese's Cups and Reese's Pieces.

4 of 4 Website Design : Phase 4: Testing and Launch (continued) Website usability is all about how easy it is for visitors to achieve their objectives when interacting with a website. For example: • If the goal is to find the address of a local sporting goods store, is there a prominent, easy-to-find link on the front page that says "Store locations"? • If your objective is to buy a Steph Curry jersey as a present for your nephew, is there clear categorization—e.g., jerseys > NBA > Golden State > Curry? How long does it then take for you to personalize a birthday message, select the wrapping option, and complete the shipping address information?

Online consumers have a world of options at their fingertips. If a home page fails to clearly state what a company offers and what users can do on the site, people leave. According to usability expert Jakob Nielsen, usability is defined by five attributes: 1. Learnability: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the design? 2. Efficiency: Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks? 3. Memorability: When users return to the design after a period of not using it, how easily can they reestablish proficiency? 4. Errors: How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors? 5. Satisfaction: How pleasant or enjoyable is it to use the design?

Volume

Overall number of online brand mentions per period. Perhaps the most common metric—and the easiest to measure—is the volume of mentions. People tend to talk about things they either love or hate, but rarely do they talk about things they simply don't care about at all. So, volume is a great initial indicator of interest

Research conducted by the Content Marketing Institute in association with the market research firm Nielsen recently investigated the impact of these different content types at various stages of the consumer decision-making process.

Overall, the impact of expert content was the most consistent across stages and categories. But study findings also suggest that each of the three types of content plays a role in the consumer's decision-making process. Moreover, the data show that there is an optimal order to follow in content marketing: 1. A baseline of trust is critical to your brand's success with consumers. The quickest route to building a solid foundation of trust is to lead with credible expert content. 2. Once trust is established, you need to maintain that trust while also empowering consumers with additional information. That information comes via user-generated and branded content. Both content types help educate customers, enabling them to make informed decisions.

Today, integrated marketing communications experts broadly categorize their media investments across three categories:

Paid media—publicity gained through advertising, such as buying a 30-second Super Bowl commercial, taking out a billboard along a busy stretch of road, or sponsoring a local golf tournament. Owned media—publicity gained via a brand-controlled source, such as a website, blog, or Facebook page. Earned media—publicity gained through editorial influence or by grassroots actions, such as product reviews on Consumer Reports, online reviews via an online social source such as Yelp, unsolicited brand conversations on Twitter, or a viral YouTube video featuring a company's product or service.

2 of 4 Website Design : Phase 2: Design : Typography Typography refers to the spacing between letters and lines and the use of reader-friendly fonts. These issues are also important, not simply from the standpoint of legibility but also with respect to influencing visitors' perceptions and emotions. In one study, readers were exposed to the same article with font type and spacing manipulated to create poor- and high-quality layout conditions.

Participants who read content from the better reading layout frowned less and reported "feeling better." They also exhibited a stronger sense of clarity and focus. The researchers concluded that although well-designed reading environments may not help you understand better, they do make you feel good, causing you to feel inspired and more likely to take action. Other research has found serif fonts to be associated with tradition and professionalism. Related research has shown that readers tend to agree more with statements printed in a serif font.17 Sans serif fonts, by contrast, are used to evoke a feeling of modernity and fun. Silicon Valley giants like Google and Apple use sans serif fonts to appear more cutting edge.

Share of voice

Percentage of a brand's portion of the conversation on social media compared with others in its space.

Conversion rate

Percentage of audience members or website visitors who take a desired action.

Click-through (CT) rate

Percentage of audience members who click on a post.

Sentiment

Percentage of overall brand mentions that are positive, negative, or neutral in sentiment.

Social media conversion rate

Percentage of total conversions attributable to social media, found by dividing social media conversions by total conversions.

Traffic ratio(s)

Percentage of visitors who reach your site based on various measures: • directly typing a URL into their browser (direct visitors) • a search query (search visitors) • a link from another blog or site (referral visitors) • through social media (social media visitors)

Bounce rate

Percentage of visitors who went only to a single page of your site, bouncing back to the place they came from rather than clicking further into the site.

Integrating Social Media into Loyalty Rewards Programs Brands are also beginning to recognize the significant role social media can play in growing their loyalty programs. Loyalty programs that are integrated with social channels or mobile apps provide a tremendous mechanism for driving participation.

Such integration improves loyalty-program customer experience and helps track the sales impact of loyalty-program participation and brand advocacy. Social media increases loyalty participation by adding the exponential power of human connections. With just the push of a button, members can share with their network of friends and family members information about the benefits of their participation.

How do marketers break through the clutter and noise to reach their audience?

The answer is relevance. In the mass-media era, companies could dominate their market space largely based on the scale of their marketing and communications budget. Today, having the most visible or creative branding is not enough. The quest to create consistently relevant marketing content involves the following: 1. Understanding your customers and providing them with content that is valuable—that is useful, informative, engaging, and entertaining. 2. Making content visible in places where customers spend their time. Doing this requires placing your messaging on the same platforms and channels your customer are spending their time on. 3. Making sure that the message is delivered or accessible to the customer at the point when the consumer most needs it to make a purchase decision.

Mobile computing is technology that allows transmission of data, voice, and video via any wireless-enabled computing device, without a fixed physical connection.

The combination of social media networks and mobile computing has had a particularly profound impact on consumer behavior, and in turn, on marketing practice. Mobile computing gives social media and other forms of digital marketing a stronger sense of immediacy—its "now" factor.

In order to improve social media marketing performance, digital marketers typically track selected metrics on a daily, ongoing basis through some form of social media marketing dashboard.

The dashboard provides data visualizations that illustrate performance over time across a range of measures. Dashboards are a convenient way to keep track of performance, but it is important that marketers consider why they are collecting the data to begin with: to improve decision making and marketing performance. Before selecting which metrics to track, it is important for marketers to consider how those metrics are tied to business objectives that the organization cares about.

In the words of A.G. Lafley, the company's CEO, "The best brands consistently win two moments of truth." 26 These are:

The first moment of truth (FMOT) is the incredibly short window of three to five seconds after a shopper first encounters a product on a store shelf. In these precious moments, marketers must appeal to shoppers' senses, values, and emotions to convert them into customers. The second moment of truth (SMOT) is the actual experience a customer has with a product once he or she buys it and returns home.

Sociologists and organizational scientists have expressed growing concern that constant use of social media to check on and strengthen virtual connection is actually making users less social in face-to-face settings.

The potential effect is to damage real-world personal and business relationships. A widely cited 2014 report published by Virginia Tech University suggests that the mere presence of mobile technologies has the potential to divert individuals from face-to-face exchanges and weaken interpersonal connections.

3 of 4 Website Design : Phase 3: Development The development phase is the point where the website itself is created. At this time, the web designer will take all of the individual graphic elements from the wireframe prototype and use them to create an actual, functional site. This is typically done by first developing a home page, followed by a "shell" for the interior pages.

The shell serves as a template for the content pages of your site and contains the main navigational structure for the website. Once the shell has been created, the designer will take prepared content and distribute it throughout the site to the appropriate areas.

In order to create value and strengthen brand relationships, marketers today must do more than simply create content and post it on a website.

They must meet, converse, and interact with consumers where they spend their time. Increasingly, that interaction is through some sort of social platform or website. It is important for students, both as consumers and future managers, to understand the potential ways for organizations to effectively employ these tools as means of enhancing their value proposition and deepening customer relationships.

As customer brand engagement grows, however, so do customers' expectations with respect to greater brand transparency. Customers today want to know more than simply features and benefits—they want brands they can believe in.

They want to investigate the inner working of a company themselves, to know that their favored brands are actually walking the walk not simply talking the talk. If marketers attempt to convey a message that is not supported by the actual experience of the product, then the feedback will overwhelm the message; the audience will know the truth. On the flip side, if the brand experience supports or exceeds the message, then the audience will heap praises on the brand in the public eye.

For over 50 years, in the mass-media era, marketing communication was largely one-way—from the seller to the buyer. In that time, marketing management focused on the portion of a marketing budget devoted to "paid" media—things like advertising, personal selling, and sales promotion.

This no longer makes sense in a two-way communication world.

Brand Democratization In days gone by, a brand was—first and foremost—a way for companies to specify a set of differentiating attributes. For example, when Anheuser-Busch wanted Budweiser to be seen as a premium product, it started calling it the "King of Beers." After billions of dollars spent on advertising campaigns, the perception stuck.

Today, many experts see this type of company-controlled brand management as rapidly fading. Dan Lewis, Chief Public Affairs Officer at Molson Coors, suggests, "Brands don't belong to companies any more—they belong to the people who choose to buy them."10 Thanks to the growth of the social web, consumers today are experiencing a validating and influential form of empowerment. The process of defining, building, and maintaining a brand is now a collaborative one.

Audience (or impressions)

Total number of people (e.g., fans, followers, etc.) within a brand's various networks.

1 of 4 Website Design : Phase 1: Planning The first phase of creating an effective website begins before the first line of programming code is typed. Planning begins by working with stakeholders to develop a clear understanding of the site's target audience and the needs they are seeking to address as consumers when they visit a website.

Using data from a large-scale national survey, researchers at the public relations firm Ruder Finn categorized user online motivations into the following seven reasons, descending from most common to least common. 1. To learn: for self-education, for research, to keep informed. 2. To have fun: to pass the time, be entertained, to escape. 3. To socialize: to connect, to share, to discuss, to be part of a community. 4. To express oneself: to share opinions, to entertain, to emote, to be creative. 5. To advocate: to influence others, to actively support, to join a cause. 6. To do business: to work, to manage finances, to sell. 7. To shop: to compare, to purchase. With this understanding in mind, the website development team should next seek to establish objectives for the site that reflect customers' goals. For instance, if the website's main goals are directed toward educating and informing the target audience, site objectives may relate to increasing the number of subscriptions to a newsletter or white paper downloads.

Nanette Heard Executive Director United Way of Northeast Arkansas

What has been the most important thing in making you successful at your job? I think there are two "most important" things: developing relationships with people in the community, and my optimism. We have incredible donors who share our passion for helping people in our community, and it is essential that I develop strong relationships and listen to them to make sure we are helping them have the positive impact we all want. Being optimistic is essential to leadership. There are challenges in any role with any organization, but having and displaying optimism helps you and your team get through those challenges. What advice would you give soon-to-be graduates? Make a positive difference in whatever you decide to do. I believe that every person can make a difference in the company or community. New graduates will have more focus and energy when they find a way to make that fulfilling, positive impact each day. How is marketing relevant to your role at the United Way? Marketing is a big part of my job each day. We are constantly promoting events or campaigns for which I oversee entire marketing plans. I have to make decisions on digital and social media each day, what ads to buy on television or in print, and what I want our brand to represent in our community. I have many responsibilities, but none are more relevant to my success than marketing. What do you consider your personal brand to be? I believe my personal brand is someone who genuinely cares about others and uses the talents that I have to try to make things better for my community. I love what I do, and I hope that inspires others around me. How does social media marketing affect nonprofits like the United Way? Social media marketing is an incredible tool for nonprofits. It gives us a low-cost way of reaching people and sharing the work we are doing in our community. It is also powerful because it allows donors and supporters to advocate for the United Way and the programs we support to their friends and followers.

What social media platforms are marketers using? Figure 13.4 displays data from a 2016 industry study that identified key social media marketing trends.34 Some 96 percent of B2C respondents say their business uses Facebook as a marketing tool;

about 88 percent of B2B respondents say the same. YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest are more popular with B2C marketers. LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, and SlideShare are more popular with B2B marketers.

Marketers often attempt to gain information from the underlying sentiment toward a brand by examining the types of words typically associated with it. Sentiment analysis, also known

as opinion mining, is the analysis of the feelings (attitudes, emotions, and opinions) behind the words, using natural language processing tools.59 It is a way to measure the tone of the conversation—is the person happy, annoyed, or angry?

Many firms are investing customer-support resources into programs that monitor social media. They seek to respond

before complaints damage online reputations. Digital business guru Brian Solis suggests that the cost of reacting to experiences is far greater than the cost of proactively creating and defining those experiences from the onset: "[Customer] experience is everything.... Businesses must invest in defining not only a positive experience, but also a wonderfully shareable experience. Doing so influences others to join the fray while offsetting negative inquiries and the damaging viral effects of shared negative experiences."

In order to create an index, search engines need to know first what

content is available on the Internet. Search engine companies actively read and analyze content on web page links from all across the Internet and store it for retrieval in subsequent queries. They accomplish this task by using automated software programs, called web crawlers or spiders, to visit each page—just as you or I would do, only very quickly. The last step is the part that you see as a user. When you perform an online search, the search engine scours its billions of documents and does two things: 1. It returns only those results that are relevant or useful to the searcher's query. 2. It typically assumes that the more popular a site, page, or document, the more valuable the information it contains.

Content is the currency of the social web. Content marketing is a marketing approach focused on

creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined and profitable audience.

Questions and complaints posted from customers on social media sites allow companies to provide direct feedback. They potentially resolve a specific problem faster than they could have otherwise. However, social media also raise

customer expectations about how quickly their problems should be resolved. According to a Nielsen study, 42 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds expect customer support within 12 hours of posting a question or complaint.

Share of voice helps marketers to evaluate how conversations about one brand compare with conversations about its competitors. This might include

determining what percentage of the overall conversation about brands within an industry is focused on one brand compared with its main competitors. Since so many social media conversations (and data) are public, you can measure your competitors' impact just as easily as you can measure your own.

Using search-marketing techniques, brands can increase the likelihood of appearing in the golden triangle. Search marketing is a marketing practice whose goal is to

generate traffic from search engines through both paid and unpaid efforts.

An always-on digital lifestyle can take a mental toll. One study looked at what happened when people shut off their attention to social networks. Many began to feel

isolated and grew concerned that they were missing out on what was occurring in the world around them. People have termed this feeling fear of missing out (FOMO). As this feeling continues to strengthen with the use of social media sites, observers caution that individuals' perceptions of reality can become skewed and affect their own life satisfaction.7

3 of 4 Website Design : Phase 3: Development (Continued) Much of the work during the development phase is managed through a content management system (CMS). Much like an operating system on a computer or mobile device software, developers use a CMS system to

manage the website. Although there are any number of free and paid CMS options, WordPress is used on more than half the world's websites and by website developers of all types—from Mommy bloggers to Fortune 100 companies alike.23 The WordPress platform is open source, secure, extremely powerful, user friendly, and best of all, free. Literally thousands of free and premium WordPress themes options are available. Whether the site is about travel, gardening, cooking, or pretty much anything else, there is likely a theme tailored to that interest.

In some instances, creating effective brand content and communications may not even require the use of words. According to data gathered by marketing agency Deep Focus, 4 out of every 10 millennials would rather engage with

pictures than read.48 Most prominent among this shift to pictorial communication is the emoji, a small digital image or icon used to express an idea or emotion in digital communication.

SEM uses paid listings—purchased links that typically appear either at the very top or upper right of a search-results page. Google AdWords is, by many measures, the most

popular paid search platform used by search marketers. It is followed by Bing Ads, which also serves a significant portion of ads that appear on Yahoo!. After preparing a small ad to appear on either of these platforms, marketers choose search terms that will make an ad show up in the search results. With Google AdWords, the price-per-click for these search terms will vary based upon demand. The marketer specifies a daily budget for the paid ad and the ad is then ready to go live. While paid search is effective for targeted campaigns, nearly three-quarters of click-throughs on search pages result from organic (free) search results.

A search engine is a software system designed to

search for information on the World Wide Web. The search results are generally presented in a list of results, often referred to as search engine results pages (SERPs). The information may be a mix of web pages, images, and other types of files. In general, the higher and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users. Search marketing is an in-demand field and an attractive area for students interested in pursuing digital marketing careers.

Geo-fencing is a location-based technology that uses small sensors to send messages to smartphone users who enter a nearby, defined geographic area. Some companies use geo-fencing to

send promotions to customers' smartphones when they enter a store, mall, or neighborhood. By using these small sensors, businesses can spur demand by tailoring offers based on holidays, new events, or product availability. For example, 1-800-Flowers deployed targeted ads for bouquets priced at 20 percent off in the days leading up to Valentine's Day. The ads could pop up in any app someone was using when they entered a specified area.

With the social web, brands have the opportunity to "listen in" and even participate in those discussions. Social media monitoring, also known as

social listening, is the process of identifying and assessing what is being said about a company, individual, product, or brand on the Internet.

Why do search results determine click-through success? It's due in large part to people's habits of visual attention. Figure 13.3 displays a heat map that shows

the relative amount of visual attention devoted to search listings aggregated across dozens of study participants. The areas looked at most are shown in "hot" colors (red, orange, yellow), and the areas looked at the least are shown in "cold" colors (blue and gray). Experts refer to the top left part of the page as "the golden triangle." It is the area of the page where users read the title and the description of each search result, which eventually results in higher click-through rates. For digital marketing purposes, getting a website into the golden triangle of any search result page is the key to increasing traffic to a site.

"Markets are conversations." This simple statement was the first of 95

theses outlined in a visionary 2001 business book titled The Cluetrain Manifesto. It challenged business-as-usual views of the then-emerging digital economy and predicted the Internet would upend the nature of consumer-brand interactions.

The most effective way of understanding what works and what doesn't with any human-computer interface is to watch people actually use it—a process referred to as

usability testing. Typically, this involves recruiting a small sample of representative users and providing them with a realistic scenario that requires them to accomplish a task using the feature or web page being evaluated. Even with as few as five subjects, usability testing provides the types of rich qualitative insights that help designers improve their websites and applications.

In contrast with P&G's philosophy, the zero moment of truth (ZMOT) is the moment when a customer

uses a digital device to begin learning about a potential purchase. In Lecinksi's own words, it is "that moment when you grab your laptop, mobile phone, or some other wired device and start learning about a product or service (or potential boyfriend) you're thinking about trying or buying." He argues that while there is no denying the importance of the first and second moments of truth, consumers' newfound abilities to search for virtually anything at any time has created new moments of decision before the consumer even gets to the store display case. Figure 13.2 graphically illustrates the ZMOT concept.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM). Search engine optimization consultant Vanessa Fox, in her book Marketing in the Age of Google, states, "Those businesses that don't realize we've experienced a shift in consumer behavior and that customers and customer data are now centered on search will lose market share to those that do."28 Not sure if you believe that? Consider the following facts:

• 93 percent of online experiences begin with a search engine.29 • Click-through rates also greatly depend on the link's position on the first page. In total, links listed on the first page of a Google results page obtain over 90 percent of clicks. • Studies have consistently shown that the first organic search result (organic meaning not a paid ad) on the first page gets at least 30 percent of clicks, and the first three search results get between 50 and 60 percent of clicks. That is, the difference in performance between being the first listing and the second is much greater than that between the second listing and third, and so on.

3 of 4 Website Design : Phase 3: Development (Continued) Once the theme is set, the site is ready to begin adding content. No matter the ultimate purpose of the website, there are a few common pages found across the majority of websites that make it easier for visitors to get around. • Home page: This is the landing page for the website. It can be either a static page that explains a little about a person or organization or a dynamic page that updates with each new blog post.

• About page: This page presents information about the company, management, or individuals as well as any other information that should matter to visitors. This is a highly trafficked page. It is important to make the copy on this page informative but, if possible, a bit fun or intriguing. • Contact page: This page tells readers how to get in touch with the person or organization. Whether using a form plugin or simply displaying an e-mail address or phone number, the contact page makes it as simple as possible for people to connect. • Product, service, or "hire me" page: Whether managing a full-blown e-commerce website with merchandise ready to ship or promoting yourself to the outside world through a blog or personal site, the product page is essential to your revenue. Make it as easy as possible for visitors to see what you have to offer.

Content Marketing Techniques and Sources You likely are already familiar with a number of such tried-and-true content marketing techniques and sources: • A blog (short for web log) is an online journal in which people or companies post their thoughts and other content. Blogs are usually related to narrowly defined topics. According one source, there are more than 31 million blogs in the U.S. today. Many bloggers use social networks such as Twitter and Facebook to promote their blog content. • A white paper is a concise yet authoritative report or guide that seeks to inform readers about a complex issue and presents the issuing body's philosophy on the matter. It is meant to help readers understand an issue, solve a problem, or make a decision.

• E-mail marketing lets marketers send highly targeted, personalized, relationship-building e-mail messages. However, spam—unsolicited, unwanted commercial e-mail messages that clog e-mail inboxes—is a source of continuous irritation for many customers. To address concerns relating to spam, most legitimate marketers now practice permission-based e-mail marketing. They send product information only to customers who "opt-in," and they make it easy to "unsubscribe" if the recipient tires of the e-mail relationship. • Video marketing involves posting digital video content on brand websites or social media sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and others. Shoppers find visual content helpful for informing decisions. Research found videos 50 times more likely to receive an organic first-page ranking than traditional text pages.44 Recent neuromarketing research shows that animated videos are particularly effective in "hijacking" consumers' attention systems and help to make content more memorable.

4 of 4 Website Design : Phase 4: Testing and Launch After creating the website, it is important to test how well the pages load and display. Directly testing a site is the only way to know for sure that it works as intended on visitors' machines. As websites become more complex, it may become necessary to create a dedicated mobile website and application so that users can more easily navigate a website's content. Google recently announced the release of a new service that tests a website's mobile-friendliness and page speed for desktop and mobile all in one place (try it out at https://testmysite.thinkwithgoogle.com/).24 The service offers scores (ranging from 0 to 100) on the following dimensions:

• Mobile-friendliness: The quality of the experience customers have when they're browsing your site on their phones. • Mobile speed: How long it takes your site to load on mobile devices. If customers are kept waiting for too long, they'll move on to the next site. • Desktop speed: How long it takes your site to load on desktop computers. It's not just the strength of your customers' web connection that determines speed but also the elements of your website. This tool makes it much easier and more affordable for small businesses and start-ups to test their websites. Google will also provide users with an e-mailed report that offers specific fixes for designers and managers to improve website performance.

1 of 4 Website Design : Phase 1: Planning (continued) Identifying a Hosting Service for the Website Another consideration in the planning phase is the choice of a hosting service for the website. A web host is basically a company that has many computers connected to the Internet. Getting a web hosting account is comparable to renting office or shop space for the business. Selection of a web hosting service is driven by operational needs and budget considerations. Both free and commercial hosting services are available:

• Most free hosting services make money by selling advertising. For instance, some require you to place a banner ad on your pages; others display pop-up windows each time your site loads. Free services may limit the amount of web space and impose restrictions on the size and types of files that can be uploaded. • Paid hosting services are typically offered in tiers. Greater speed, reliability, control panel features, e-mail, and support come at a higher monthly or quarterly rate.

Content marketing can deliver powerful benefits:

• Search engines reward businesses that consistently publish quality content; such results pages are typically more relevant and popular with search users. Better search results should generate greater website traffic and interest in an organization's market offerings. • By coupling useful content with a social media strategy, organizations and individuals are able to establish a reputation of expertise within their industries. Ultimately, the added credibility drives inbound traffic and sales leads.

What makes a zero moment of truth? • It happens online—typically starting with a search on Google, Bing, Yahoo! YouTube, or any other search tool or engine. • It happens in real time, at any time of the day. More and more, it happens on the go, in a store parking lot or even in the store itself, as consumers use mobile search on their smartphones and tablets.

• The consumer is in charge, pulling the information she wants rather than having it pushed at her by others. • It's emotional. The consumer has a need he wants to satisfy and an emotional investment in finding the best solution. • The conversation is not a monologue or even a dialogue. It's a multi-way conversation, with the consumer, marketers, friends, strangers, websites, and experts all participating. How do companies make sure their websites and other online content are the first ones found when consumers reach a ZMOT? A big part of that answer is through the use of search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM).

How Does Online Search Work? Successful search marketing requires, at minimum, a rudimentary understanding of how search engines work. Search engines have two major functions:

• To build an index of all web content. • To provide search users with a ranked list of the websites they've determined are the most relevant.

Companies can and should use other existing sources of content. Examples are the press coverage a brand receives from public relations efforts or the user-generated content voluntarily contributed by satisfied customers. Content marketing categories can generally be broken into three types: • Expert content: Credible, third-party articles and reviews from unbiased journalists. This is the earned media that is often the result of PR efforts.

• User-generated content: Content created by your brand's fans and followers. It communicates a brand's value in users' words rather than the company's or Page 451those of a neutral party (like a journalist). User-generated content can include reviews from users (like product reviews on Amazon.com) and other customer-contributed content (like posts on social media). Ideally, this type of content would come from satisfied customers. • Branded content: Any content developed and owned by the brand. This can include blog posts, white papers, research reports, infographics, or any other content that a brand produces for itself.