Get the most effective research strategies for communications professionals. The key topics covered include:
How to define and select the right audience
Identifying the pitfalls to avoid
Making the most of digital platforms and other tools
How to develop a strategy with the support of statistics
Practical methods which you can implement immediately
This was a talk at the monthly tweetup: SMBNH (Social Media Breakfast New Hampshire) on April 18, 2013 at NHPR's (New Hampshire Public Radio) studio in Concord NH. The main focus was using automated tools to gather intel about customers, partners, competitors and markets to better prepare and engage them online.
"Getting Started with Social Media Marketing" is part of an introductory course taught by Christopher Short and Jannette Pazer of Dragonsearch on How to Get Started Using Social Media Marketing to get your message out to the right people, whether they are customers, potential clients, donors or voters. This is Part 2 of the presentation focusing on how to manage your social community, the importance of engagement, and how to analyze what’s working using social platform insights and google analytics.
Check out Part 1 by Jannette Wing Pazer here: http://www.slideshare.net/cliffmama/getting-started-with-social-media-marketing-58775321
This was a talk at the monthly tweetup: SMBNH (Social Media Breakfast New Hampshire) on April 18, 2013 at NHPR's (New Hampshire Public Radio) studio in Concord NH. The main focus was using automated tools to gather intel about customers, partners, competitors and markets to better prepare and engage them online.
"Getting Started with Social Media Marketing" is part of an introductory course taught by Christopher Short and Jannette Pazer of Dragonsearch on How to Get Started Using Social Media Marketing to get your message out to the right people, whether they are customers, potential clients, donors or voters. This is Part 2 of the presentation focusing on how to manage your social community, the importance of engagement, and how to analyze what’s working using social platform insights and google analytics.
Check out Part 1 by Jannette Wing Pazer here: http://www.slideshare.net/cliffmama/getting-started-with-social-media-marketing-58775321
Getting Started with Social Media MarketingJannette Pazer
On February 22, 2016, Jannette Wing Pazer and Chris Short taught Getting Started with Social Media Marketing, an introductory course on how to get started using social media marketing to get your message out to the right people.
Topics included:
Which social media platforms are right for you?
How to find your target audience and your brand voice
How to plan your social media marketing strategy
How to grow and engage your audience
Creating and curating relevant social media content.
This is the 1st half of the class, focused on social media marketing strategy. I discussed business goals and identifying the target audience. Then we did a deep dive into the major social media platforms - how they work, what personality they had, and their pros & cons. After that overview we were able to identify which social media platforms were best suited to specific types of businesses. Then I covered some ways to grow your social media audience.
For the 2nd half of the class, see Christopher Short's slide deck at http://www.slideshare.net/ChristopherShort5/getting-started-with-social-media-58773602.
This presentation is done during Key Person of Influence under Raise Your Profile in Singapore for the first time on 13 June 2014.
Keynote Speaker: Andrew Chow
Networking Game Plan for Future Success
Join Networking Guru Renee Morley for an interactive and fun workshop geared at building your professional network by stepping outside your comfort zone! In this interactive workshop you will learn the tips and tools to create intentional, strategic and effective networking goals. The purpose of the workshop is so you can start connecting with confidence and conviction. Renee will help you develop a networking plan to utilize your time effectively when networking and look outs when having conversations with people in the industry. While networking has a different meaning for everyone, this workshop will help you develop networking strategy that works for you. You will learn how to:
- Mentally prepare for a networking event
- Enter a room and approach individuals and small groups with confidence
- Form questioning that will demonstrate the art of sincere curiosity and attract others to you
- Craft and deliver a concise, memorable message about you and your intention
- Identify who you would like to start networking with
- Plan and structure your elevator pitch
- Create your brand
- Utilize the information gained from a networking event for your personal benefit
You will learn through interactive discussion, Renee's personal networking experiences, and thought provoking exercises. A networking worksheet and booklet will be provided to follow a long during the workshop so you have a plan as soon as you step back out to the conference.
This presentation talks about how publicity for businesses can be done effectively. David Jenyns teaches the techniques that work like press releases, testimonials and media endorsements.
Want to learn more about how you can do publicity for your business? Visit http://www.melbourneseoservices.com/seo-services-australia/seo-press-release-service/
Prepared for SLA's First Five Years webinar series, this presentation covers why marketing is important, tips to do it successfully, real life examples and further resources.
Breaking the Code of Interview Implicit Bias to Value Different Gender Competencies
Bonita Banducci, Banducci Consulting
Live at Santa Clara University - Room #330C located on the 3rd floor of the Learning Commons
Session Length: 1 hour
Implicit Bias Workshops and exercises are being shared widely on the internet. Some of the solutions are:
"Determine precisely what skills and attributes you are hiring for."
"Ask exactly the same questions to each candidate."
But what about the implicit bias in determining what skills you are valuing--beyond traditional management and leadership competencies?
How can interviewers recognize the often invisible, unarticulated, undervalued and often misinterpreted competencies of more "relational and collectivist" people--often women and men and women from different cultures?
Bonita Banducci teaches Gender and Engineering class in Santa Clara University's School of Engineering Graduate Program. In video and cartoon representation as well as in person, her students apply Gender Competence®--understanding and skills to work with gender (and cultural) differences as competencies--to job interviews both as the interviewer and the interviewee, as men and women. They show how to "mine the gold" of difference for the best candidate AND to get the job as the best candidate while establishing the value of relational competencies in the workplace and marketplace.
Getting Started with Social Media MarketingJannette Pazer
On February 22, 2016, Jannette Wing Pazer and Chris Short taught Getting Started with Social Media Marketing, an introductory course on how to get started using social media marketing to get your message out to the right people.
Topics included:
Which social media platforms are right for you?
How to find your target audience and your brand voice
How to plan your social media marketing strategy
How to grow and engage your audience
Creating and curating relevant social media content.
This is the 1st half of the class, focused on social media marketing strategy. I discussed business goals and identifying the target audience. Then we did a deep dive into the major social media platforms - how they work, what personality they had, and their pros & cons. After that overview we were able to identify which social media platforms were best suited to specific types of businesses. Then I covered some ways to grow your social media audience.
For the 2nd half of the class, see Christopher Short's slide deck at http://www.slideshare.net/ChristopherShort5/getting-started-with-social-media-58773602.
This presentation is done during Key Person of Influence under Raise Your Profile in Singapore for the first time on 13 June 2014.
Keynote Speaker: Andrew Chow
Networking Game Plan for Future Success
Join Networking Guru Renee Morley for an interactive and fun workshop geared at building your professional network by stepping outside your comfort zone! In this interactive workshop you will learn the tips and tools to create intentional, strategic and effective networking goals. The purpose of the workshop is so you can start connecting with confidence and conviction. Renee will help you develop a networking plan to utilize your time effectively when networking and look outs when having conversations with people in the industry. While networking has a different meaning for everyone, this workshop will help you develop networking strategy that works for you. You will learn how to:
- Mentally prepare for a networking event
- Enter a room and approach individuals and small groups with confidence
- Form questioning that will demonstrate the art of sincere curiosity and attract others to you
- Craft and deliver a concise, memorable message about you and your intention
- Identify who you would like to start networking with
- Plan and structure your elevator pitch
- Create your brand
- Utilize the information gained from a networking event for your personal benefit
You will learn through interactive discussion, Renee's personal networking experiences, and thought provoking exercises. A networking worksheet and booklet will be provided to follow a long during the workshop so you have a plan as soon as you step back out to the conference.
This presentation talks about how publicity for businesses can be done effectively. David Jenyns teaches the techniques that work like press releases, testimonials and media endorsements.
Want to learn more about how you can do publicity for your business? Visit http://www.melbourneseoservices.com/seo-services-australia/seo-press-release-service/
Prepared for SLA's First Five Years webinar series, this presentation covers why marketing is important, tips to do it successfully, real life examples and further resources.
Breaking the Code of Interview Implicit Bias to Value Different Gender Competencies
Bonita Banducci, Banducci Consulting
Live at Santa Clara University - Room #330C located on the 3rd floor of the Learning Commons
Session Length: 1 hour
Implicit Bias Workshops and exercises are being shared widely on the internet. Some of the solutions are:
"Determine precisely what skills and attributes you are hiring for."
"Ask exactly the same questions to each candidate."
But what about the implicit bias in determining what skills you are valuing--beyond traditional management and leadership competencies?
How can interviewers recognize the often invisible, unarticulated, undervalued and often misinterpreted competencies of more "relational and collectivist" people--often women and men and women from different cultures?
Bonita Banducci teaches Gender and Engineering class in Santa Clara University's School of Engineering Graduate Program. In video and cartoon representation as well as in person, her students apply Gender Competence®--understanding and skills to work with gender (and cultural) differences as competencies--to job interviews both as the interviewer and the interviewee, as men and women. They show how to "mine the gold" of difference for the best candidate AND to get the job as the best candidate while establishing the value of relational competencies in the workplace and marketplace.
A Summary of Top 28 areas covered by EC Proposed Regulation for CRR, CRD IV and Basel III Regulatory Compliance and Implementation of the proposal: A publication by James Jeffrey Okarimia
Partner at RM associates: Partners in Enterprise Risk Managements
A summary of top 28 areas covered by ec proposed regulation and crd iv for ba...JAMES OKARIMIA
A Summary of Top 28 areas covered by EC Proposed Regulation for CRR, CRD IV and Basel III Regulatory Compliance and Implementation of the proposal: A publication by James Jeffrey Okarimia
Partner at RM associates: Partners in Enterprise Risk Managements
Building an audience is no mean feat. It takes a lot of time and dedication.
This session was recorded with Enterprise Nation and available as a recording on their platform. These slides go through everything that was discussed.
Key takeaways:
-Learn how to create a plan to optimise your site for search
-Understand the power of social media
-Discover how you can get featured in the media
How to decide between outsoucing and internal, presented by Barbara LissSocialMedia.org
In her Brands-Only Summit presentation, Motorola Mobility's Barbara Liss teaches a class on how to determine which functions are essential for your in-house team and what you should outsource to external agencies.
She provides clear steps to take and questions to ask when your team is faced with making the decision to outsource or keep the responsibilities internal.
Topics include: Everybody isn't your audience, target market vs. audience persona, creating an audience persona, and top tips for doing audience personas
Designing and Delivering an Effective Social Media Strategy.
• Elements of building a strategy – things to think about before getting social
• Digital Personas – who are we talking to and how?
• Some tools to Measure Success – how do we know we’re doing a good job?
• Create more powerful posts – top tips and tools to get a better response
• Over to you – what 'next steps' will you take tomorrow?
This introduction to social media for business was given at the open house of Miami University's Armstrong Institute for Interactive Media Studies. Presented by Glenn Platt and Peg Faimon, AIMS Co-Directors. The presentation was a "teaser" for a two-day workshop on social media marketing and online community engagement.
Setting Your Sights to Hit the Target: Tips and Tools to Help Identify Your K...RenoTahoeAMA
At the Reno-Tahoe AMA's Third Annual Marketing Workshop, held on March 26th, 2015, Jill Stockton, a communications specialist with the University of Nevada, Reno, discussed tools and tips to help identify your target audience.
Jill is an experienced public relations professional with more than a decade of diverse experience. Currently she is serving as the Communications Specialist for the University of Nevada, Reno’s Reynolds School of Journalism. She has also worked as a Communications Director for the University of Nevada, Reno, a Communications Manager for the Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority, and a Senior Account Executive for The Ferraro Group, a public relations and public affairs agency with offices in Reno, Las Vegas, Carson City and Phoenix.
Jill sits on the Board of Directors for the Tahoe-based non-profit High Fives Foundation, is a member of the Holland Project advisory board, and the American Marketing Association advisory board. She’s also a past President of the Sierra Nevada Chapter of PRSA.
These are the slides for my talk at MarketingProfs 2014 B2B Marketing Forum in Boston. It contains some pretty pictures and checklists for creating personas and tone of voice guidelines.
Sarah Fitzgerald, director, Self Communications
Visit the CharityComms website to view slides from past events, see what events we have coming up and to check out what else we do: www.charitycomms.org.uk
Monthly Social Media News Update May 2024Andy Lambert
TL;DR. These are the three themes that stood out to us over the course of last month.
1️⃣ Social media is becoming increasingly significant for brand discovery. Marketers are now understanding the impact of social and budgets are shifting accordingly.
2️⃣ Instagram’s new algorithm and latest guidance will help us maintain organic growth. Instagram continues to evolve, but Reels remains the most crucial tool for growth.
3️⃣ Collaboration will help us unlock growth. Who we work with will define how fast we grow. Meta continues to evolve their Creator Marketplace and now TikTok are beginning to push ‘collabs’ more too.
What’s “In” and “Out” for ABM in 2024: Plays That Help You Grow and Ones to L...Demandbase
Delve into essential ABM ‘plays' that propel success while identifying and leaving behind tactics that no longer yield results. Led by ABM Experts, Jon Barcellos, Head of Solutions at Postal and Tom Keefe, Principal GTM Expert at Demandbase.
The Secret to Engaging Modern Consumers: Journey Mapping and Personalization
In today's digital landscape, understanding the customer's journey and delivering personalized experiences are paramount. This masterclass delves into the art of consumer journey mapping, a powerful technique that visualizes the entire customer experience across touchpoints. Attendees will learn how to create detailed journey maps, identify pain points, and uncover opportunities for optimization. The presentation also explores personalization strategies that leverage data and technology to tailor content, products, and experiences to individual customers. From real-time personalization to predictive analytics, attendees will gain insights into cutting-edge approaches that drive engagement and loyalty.
Key Takeaways:
Current consumer landscape; Steps to mapping an effective consumer journey; Understanding the value of personalization; Integrating mapping and personalization for success; Brands that are getting It right!; Best Practices; Future Trends
[Google March 2024 Update] How To Thrive: Content, Link Building & SEOSearch Engine Journal
March 2024 disrupted the SEO industry. Websites were deindexed, and manual penalties were delivered—all to produce more helpful, more trustworthy search results.
How did your website fare?
Watch us as we delve into the seismic shifts brought about by Google's March 2024 updates and explore strategies to not just survive, but thrive in this dynamic digital landscape.
You’ll learn:
- How to create content that is valuable to users (not just search engines) using E-E-A-T.
- How to build links that can boost rankings and withstand algorithm updates.
- Best practices for content creation and link building so you can thrive during algorithm updates.
With Vince Ramos, we'll examine the implications of the latest algorithm changes on content creation, link building, and SEO practices, and offer actionable insights from businesses like yours that have remained steadfast amidst the volatility.
Using real-life case studies, we’ll also show you the effectiveness of manual link building techniques and person-first content strategies.
Whether you're a seasoned SEO professional, a budding content creator, or anyone in between, this webinar will help you weather the changes in Google's algorithms and capitalize on them for sustained success.
Check out this webinar and unlock the secrets to thriving in the new Google era.
The digital marketing industry is changing faster than ever and those who don’t adapt with the times are losing market share. Where should marketers be focusing their efforts? What strategies are the experts seeing get the best results? Get up-to-speed with the latest industry insights, trends and predictions for the future in this panel discussion with some leading digital marketing experts.
Is AI-Generated Content the Future of Content Creation?Cut-the-SaaS
Discover the transformative power of AI in content creation with our presentation, "Is AI-Generated Content the Future of Content Creation?" by Puran Parsani, CEO & Editor of Cut-The-SaaS. Learn how AI-generated content is revolutionizing marketing, publishing, education, healthcare, and finance by offering unprecedented efficiency, creativity, and scalability.
Understanding
AI-Generated Content:
AI-generated content includes text, images, videos, and audio produced by AI without direct human involvement. This technology leverages large datasets to create contextually relevant and coherent material, streamlining content production.
Key Benefits:
Content Creation: Rapidly generate high-quality content for blogs, articles, and social media.
Brainstorming: AI simulates conversations to inspire creative ideas.
Research Assistance: Efficiently summarize and research information.
Market Insights:
The content marketing industry is projected to grow to $17.6 billion by 2032, with AI-generated content expected to dominate over 55% of the market.
Case Study: CNET’s AI Content Controversy:
CNET’s use of AI for news articles led to public scrutiny due to factual inaccuracies, highlighting the need for transparency and human oversight.
Benefits Across Industries:
Marketing: Personalize content at scale and optimize engagement with predictive analytics.
Publishing: Automate content creation for faster publication cycles.
Education: Efficiently generate educational materials.
Healthcare: Create accurate content for patients and professionals.
Finance: Produce timely financial content for decision-making.
Challenges and Ethical Considerations:
Transparency: Disclose AI use to maintain trust.
Bias: Address potential AI biases with diverse datasets.
SEO: Ensure AI content meets SEO standards.
Quality: Maintain high standards to prevent misinformation.
Conclusion:
AI-generated content offers significant benefits in efficiency, personalization, and scalability. However, ethical considerations and quality assurance are crucial for responsible use. Explore the future of content creation with us and see how AI is transforming various industries.
Connect with Us:
Follow Cut-The-SaaS on LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and Medium. Visit cut-the-saas.com for more insights and resources.
In this presentation, Danny Leibrandt explains the impact of AI on SEO and what Google has been doing about it. Learn how to take your SEO game to the next level and win over Google with his new strategy anyone can use. Get actionable steps to rank your name, your business, and your clients on Google - the right way.
Key Takeaways:
1. Real content is king
2. Find ways to show EEAT
3. Repurpose across all platforms
Mastering Local SEO for Service Businesses in the AI Era is tailored specifically for local service providers like plumbers, dentists, and others seeking to dominate their local search landscape. This session delves into leveraging AI advancements to enhance your online visibility and search rankings through the Content Factory model, designed for creating high-impact, SEO-driven content. Discover the Dollar-a-Day advertising strategy, a cost-effective approach to boost your local SEO efforts and attract more customers with minimal investment. Gain practical insights on optimizing your online presence to meet the specific needs of local service seekers, ensuring your business not only appears but stands out in local searches. This concise, action-oriented workshop is your roadmap to navigating the complexities of digital marketing in the AI age, driving more leads, conversions, and ultimately, success for your local service business.
Key Takeaways:
Embrace AI for Local SEO: Learn to harness the power of AI technologies to optimize your website and content for local search. Understand the pivotal role AI plays in analyzing search trends and consumer behavior, enabling you to tailor your SEO strategies to meet the specific demands of your target local audience. Leverage the Content Factory Model: Discover the step-by-step process of creating SEO-optimized content at scale. This approach ensures a steady stream of high-quality content that engages local customers and boosts your search rankings. Get an action guide on implementing this model, complete with templates and scheduling strategies to maintain a consistent online presence. Maximize ROI with Dollar-a-Day Advertising: Dive into the cost-effective Dollar-a-Day advertising strategy that amplifies your visibility in local searches without breaking the bank. Learn how to strategically allocate your budget across platforms to target potential local customers effectively. The session includes an action guide on setting up, monitoring, and optimizing your ad campaigns to ensure maximum impact with minimal investment.
For too many years marketing and sales have operated in silos...while in some forward thinking companies, the two organizations work together to drive new opportunity development and revenue. This session will explore the lessons learned in that beautiful dance that can occur when marketing and sales work together...to drive new opportunity development, account expansion and customer satisfaction.
No, this is not a conversation about MQLs and SQLs. Instead we will focus on a framework that allows the two organizations to drive company success together.
Come learn how YOU can Animate and Illuminate the World with Generative AI's Explosive Power. Come sit in the driver's seat and learn to harness this great technology.
When most people in the industry talk about online or digital reputation management, what they're really saying is Google search and PPC. And it's usually reactive, left dealing with the aftermath of negative information published somewhere online. That's outdated. It leaves executives, organizations and other high-profile individuals at a high risk of a digital reputation attack that spans channels and tactics. But the tools needed to safeguard against an attack are more cybersecurity-oriented than most marketing and communications professionals can manage. Business leaders Leaders grasp the importance; 83% of executives place reputation in their top five areas of risk, yet only 23% are confident in their ability to address it. To succeed in 2024 and beyond, you need to turn online reputation on its axis and think like an attacker.
Key Takeaways:
- New framework for examining and safeguarding an online reputation
- Tools and techniques to keep you a step ahead
- Practical examples that demonstrate when to act, how to act and how to recover
The What, Why & How of 3D and AR in Digital CommercePushON Ltd
Vladimir Mulhem has over 20 years of experience in commercialising cutting edge creative technology across construction, marketing and retail.
Previously the founder and Tech and Innovation Director of Creative Content Works working with the likes of Next, John Lewis and JD Sport, he now helps retailers, brands and agencies solve challenges of applying the emerging technologies 3D, AR, VR and Gen AI to real-world problems.
In this webinar, Vladimir will be covering the following topics:
Applications of 3D and AR in Digital Commerce,
Benefits of 3D and AR,
Tools to create, manage and publish 3D and AR in Digital Commerce.
The Forgotten Secret Weapon of Digital Marketing: Email
Digital marketing is a rapidly changing, ever evolving industry--Influencers, Threads, X, AI, etc. But one of the most effective digital marketing tools is also one of the oldest: Email. Find out from two Houston-based digital experts how to maximize your results from email.
Key Takeaways:
Email has the best ROI of any digital tactic
It can be used at any stage of the customer journey
It is increasingly important as the cookie-less future gets closer and closer
Mastering Local SEO for Service Businesses in the AI Era is tailored specifically for local service providers like plumbers, dentists, and others seeking to dominate their local search landscape. This session delves into leveraging AI advancements to enhance your online visibility and search rankings through the Content Factory model, designed for creating high-impact, SEO-driven content. Discover the Dollar-a-Day advertising strategy, a cost-effective approach to boost your local SEO efforts and attract more customers with minimal investment. Gain practical insights on optimizing your online presence to meet the specific needs of local service seekers, ensuring your business not only appears but stands out in local searches. This concise, action-oriented workshop is your roadmap to navigating the complexities of digital marketing in the AI age, driving more leads, conversions, and ultimately, success for your local service business.
Key Takeaways:
Embrace AI for Local SEO: Learn to harness the power of AI technologies to optimize your website and content for local search. Understand the pivotal role AI plays in analyzing search trends and consumer behavior, enabling you to tailor your SEO strategies to meet the specific demands of your target local audience. Leverage the Content Factory Model: Discover the step-by-step process of creating SEO-optimized content at scale. This approach ensures a steady stream of high-quality content that engages local customers and boosts your search rankings. Get an action guide on implementing this model, complete with templates and scheduling strategies to maintain a consistent online presence. Maximize ROI with Dollar-a-Day Advertising: Dive into the cost-effective Dollar-a-Day advertising strategy that amplifies your visibility in local searches without breaking the bank. Learn how to strategically allocate your budget across platforms to target potential local customers effectively. The session includes an action guide on setting up, monitoring, and optimizing your ad campaigns to ensure maximum impact with minimal investment.
2. Overview
• Introduction
• What is an audience?
• How to question
• Internal research
• External research
• Toolkit
• Creating personas
• Starting a strategy
• Recap & final questions
5. “The assembled spectators or listeners at a public event such as a
play, film, concert, or meeting”
- Wikipedia
What is an audience?
“The assembled spectators or listeners at a public event such as a
play, film, concert, or meeting”
- Wikipedia
“My customers”
- -Grumpy CEO
People you want to talk or listen to
- Hotwire Labs
9. Questions to ask
What channels do you use?
Why do you love/hate us?
Who do you think our competition is?
What do you do before you like a brand?
What marketing activity really annoys you?
Who’s a figurehead in the business?
What is the experience like?
How do you ‘discover’ the business?
What emotions do you get from the brand?
What do you want to talk about?
What have you read about us?
Who influences you?
What does ‘new’ mean to you?
What’s our purpose?
What do you think customers think we stand for?
What do you think we stand for?
17. External research
MediatrendsSurveys
SearchtrendsSocialdata
Can identify
• Who has covered them before
• Who is organically interested
• Who is writing similar articles
• Who is interested but not aware
• Who the competitors are
• How the competitors fare
• When coverage appears
• Which journalists are most
interested
• Which publications to target
• The angle to take
• Content ideas
• Direction for messaging
• Events to have a presence at
18. External research
MediatrendsSurveys
SearchtrendsSocialdata
Can identify
• How people find the client’s site
• What search terms they use
• What search terms are being used
generally
• How the client ranks against these
terms
• Who is performing best in search
• Where the client ranks against
competitors
• How search changes across the
year
• Which topics to use on site
• Keywords to be using in online
content
19. External research
MediatrendsSurveys
SearchtrendsSocialdata
Can identify
• Volume of online discussion
• Sentiment of conversations
• Social channels people use
• Keyword clouds
• Top topics among the online
community
• How keywords are connected to
each other
• Performance of client online
• Benchmarking against competitors
• Who the influencers are
• What influencers talk about
• When to post content
• What content to post and where
20. External research
MediatrendsSurveys
SearchtrendsSocialdata
Can identify
• Answers to question you have
• Statistically sound results
• High volume of results at low cost
(from $0.10 per response)
• Ability to slice and dice results
• Region
• Age
• Gender
• Phone OS
• Parent / non-parent
• Etc.
42. Use your data
What channels do they have?
Who do they want as their audience?
What audience do they currently have?
What channels are their audience on?
What are their competitors doing?
Who are their competitors?
What are their business goals?
What other marketing activity are they doing?
Who are the spokespeople?
What is their website like?
How are they ranking on Google?
What does their audience think of them?
What does their audience talk about?
What coverage are they getting?
Who are their influencers?
What are their influencers talking about?
What do their influencers think of them?
What negatives surround them?
Are their specific job roles or demographics that matter to them?
43. Personas, you’re doing it wrong
Samantha is 30, married with 2 kids, has a dog called Colin and likes to drink white wine
on Saturdays while watching the X Factor.
44. The right way to create personas
Characters
Needs
Interests
Experience
Objectives
56. Put your learning at the centre
Personas
Channels
Topics
Journeys
Goals
57. Generate new leads by creating meaningful
relationships with potential customers online, through
content on Twitter and LinkedIn. Measured with link
tracking and Salesforce.
Summarise
Generate new leads by creating meaningful
relationships with potential customers online, through
content on Twitter and LinkedIn. Measured with link
tracking and Salesforce.
60. Recap & questions
• What is an audience?
• How to question
• Internal research
• External research
• Toolkit
• Creating personas
• Starting a strategy
Today, I want to be able to provide you all with a bit of a foundation in identifying, understanding and actioning an audience.
This isn’t a one stop shop of everything you need to know, but it will give you the structure to be able to go and discover more for yourself and hopefully influence the way you approach your next communications challenge and strategy.
So what will you leave with today?
Well other than a smile on your face, I hope to leave you with an understanding into:
What an audience is
What questions we should all be asking ourselves
Where to go for answers both internally and externally
What tools we can use to help us
What to do with the data
And how to begin implementing this into a strategy
But first, let me introduce myself…
(introduce yourself, experience, expertise etc.)
Any questions before we start?
BREAK FOR FIVE MINUTES AS WE PUT THIS QUESTION FORWARD TO THE CLASS:
THE IDEA HERE IS THAT THEY ALL COME BACK WITH BUSINESS ORIENTATED RESPONSES – I.E – THEY ARE CUSTOMERS, CONSUMERS, TARGET MARKET, ETC.
REMIND THEM THAT IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT POUNDS AND PENCE – AN AUDIENCE IS ALSO YOUR NUMBER ONE SOUNDING BOARD, YOU CREATIVE BRAINSTORM, YOUR MESSAGE GENERATOR.
YOUR AUDIENCE IS YOUR NUMBER ONE MARKETING RESOURCE
Traditionally, an audience is a group of people who gather together to watch or listen to something. What we are talking about today is the reverse.
By it’s definition they’re passive and there to observe and absorb.
That’s just not fit for purpose in this comms age. Our audiences are not passive recipients. They’re active members of your brand ecosystem. They may never spend a penny with you, but they may provide you with the basis of a campaign or a tactic that delivers real organisational and business change.
Name a social network. You can probably listen to your audience there.
Some are completely open and public – Twitter, YouTube and Tumblr are all largely open, with over 90% of users hosting freely available content.
Others are more locked down, such as Facebook and LinkedIn. But you can still find your audience, either through their advertising platforms (and remember, for research you won’t even need to run an ad) or through the tools we have at our disposal. More on this later.
ASK THE AUDIENCE – ANYTHING MISSING HERE?
THEN ASK THEM – OK SO FIND OUT AN INTERESTING FACT ABOUT THE PERSON NEXT TO YOU.
THEN SEE HOW MANY OF THEM GO TO TWITTER FIRST – THE POINT HERE IS TO SHOW THAT BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE – START WITH ACTUAL CONVERSATIONS
FYI – the symbols are Vimeo, Flickr, RSS (blogs), LinkedIn, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook & YouTube.
As an industry we have put waaaaaaay too much emphasis on going outside our organisation to see what Twitter tells us.
Twitter and other social media assets are an ingredient to the wider picture, in fact, before we even think about going outside a business, we always recommend we start inside an organisation.
There is a janitor waiting to tell you what the culture is like.
A sales rep who is begging for a conversation around a an absolute gem of information a customer has shared with them.
Before we start with Tweets and likes, get up, get talking to your organisation. Have real conversations.
You’ll uncover a lot, but you’ll also begin to get an idea of the most important part of doing effective audience research – understanding what questions to ask!
We can find out a hell of a lot. Just taking one tool as an example, Pulsar, we can find:
Volume of mentions, volume of reach, volume of visibility (how many people actually see something, versus how many potentially can, which is reach), sentiment, sentiment by reach, sentiment by visibility, top posts, by reach, by visibility (in fact, just remember everything can be by volume, reach or visibility from now on), density of content over different times and dates, channels used, keywords, key phrases, connections between words and phrases, top posters, top engaged contributors, top topics, specific items of content and their social imprint, specific sites and their social imprint, specific influencers and their social imprint, and locations, either globally or to even street level – like Google maps with a live Twitter feed.
That’s a lot. And just through one tool. Today I’ll provide you with a full toolkit of services to use to gather a huge amount of data on your audience.
As we have seen. You’re going to be able to generate a huge amount of data.
Too much in fact.
So, you need to learn to question properly.
BEFORE REVEALING THIS – ASK THE QUESTION TO THE AUDIENCE FIRST
There’s a myriad of questions you can use, and make sure you use as many as possible. Question everything.. But then focus on those with the most valuable responses.
Here are some sample questions. Collectively they tell us a great deal about a brand, where it sits in the lifecycle and what people believe it stands for.
Questions drive our research. They give it purpose.
Let’s move on to look at the types of research you can use, starting with internal research.
Internal research is the discovery you can do in-house. It can be the most accessible to you, although the scale of office politics will certainly have something to say about that.
Internal research most commonly means reports you have previously commissioned or have access to.
Staff are another resource available to you – interview them, question them and get their opinions and responses to the questions you have laid out. This may be a survey, through focus groups or during one on one sessions.
Like staff, you are also best placed to speak to your customers. Their opinions are incredibly valuable. These are the audience that you’ve managed to convert. They bought into you. Why? Ask them.
Here’s an example of internal research we’ve helped with. We have been helping Darwinex with their messaging. We created a discover report which included staff and customer interviews, aiming to identify why people choose to use Darwinex (a trading platform) and work out how to find more people that would convert.
BREAKOUT – AND SHOW THE CLASS THE POST IT NOTE SESSION
ALSO SHOW THE CLASS THE PROBLEM VS SOLUTION SESSION
If asking questions to your staff or customers sounds pretty simple, then you’re going to be blown away by this next set of internal research.
If you have a website or social channels, you’ve probably been collecting data for a very long time. Now’s the time to look at it.
On your website, you probably have Google Analytics (or something similar).
Your site analytics will tell you who is visiting and what they’re doing on your site. The top right graphic shows Facebook insights – these tell you who your Facebook fans are – gender, age, location. All of it. Moving clockwise, we see Twitter analytics. This provides similar information to Facebook, and provides insight into what interests your audience have. Maybe you sell IT software, and they dig it, but they’re also into baking – potentially of use (maybe).
And lastly, we can see LinkedIn analytics. Most social networks have analytics, so look at all the platforms you’re using and analyse the data.
Let’s move on to external research.
External research is the data you need to go on the hunt for. It isn’t readily available to you, but it doesn’t have to be a chore.
I’m going to run through 4 ways if sourcing data for which you can build audience profiles against. These are media trends, search trends, social data and surveys.
Researching media trends helps you understand how journalists and media sites are talking about your brand. Remember, the media is an audience too. They may not be customers, but they sure as hell influence them.
The symbol is actually that of a tool called Trendkite, one we use for analysing media discussion. With this tool you can go broad or specific, searching on volume, share of voice or sentiment, or diving in to specific items of coverage that reached your customer-base.
Search trends tell you how your website is performing, with data that isn’t available to you directly through Google analytics or similar tools.
With search trends, you can see what keywords people use to find your site, and how you rank against competitors. So if you’re selling bespoke Italian leather shoes, but not appearing until the 7th page on Google, you’ll know you have some work to do.
Social data uses the power of the social web – a vast network of various channels where individuals post their thoughts in an unfiltered, open and accessible manner. It makes you wonder why, but we don’t mind so much as it creates the world’s largest focus group for our research.
By searching for groups of people based on the key terms they use, you can identify an online audience, look at the channels they use, the topics they discuss and the people they are influenced by. This is all valuable information when it comes to building a strategy.
And surveys, these give you unique and original data that no one else can provide. It costs money, but there are tools out there to reduce the cost – and it’s incredibly worthwhile.
We are fans of Google consumer surveys. When you think about it, Google has the greatest reach when it comes to presenting people with a survey. In fact, sites such as the FT allow people to bypass their paywall by taking a survey powered by Google.
The results are statistically accurate too, as shown by analysis undertaken by Nate Silver, who accurately predicted the latest Presidential election with the service.
You can ask whatever you want, so the things you can identify are endless. Essentially, you can get real, honest opinions on any topic.
Let’s move on to how you can perform the research, using a variety of different tools. I’m going to show you over 15 tools to add to your toolkit. We will run through these, so just note down the URL and give them a try at your leisure.
First, let’s take a look at the free tools, since you can get started with these right away.
Answer The Public will show you how people search for things. So, here, we see how people ask questions around ‘xbox’.
Why is this useful? It tells you that people are looking for certain information. The fact they have to search for it isn’t ideal. If I was Xbox, I’d be building a lot of my content around these types of questions.
Boardread is a forum search tool. You can find specific discussions and forums for a set topic, but most importantly you can see the trend and volume – in the graph you can see on the right hand side.
This helps you understand if forums are important to your audience. What kind of person is engaging in forums and when they get used most.
We often find the most engaged audience are on forums, and they can swing one way or the other – complete evangelists or extreme critiques.
Echosec is a tool best used for events. If you know your audience will all be in London for social media week, but you don’t have access to the data to show which session was most poular, Echosec will tell you.
The tool shows tweets based on location. So, in our example, you’d be able to identify the venue and time at which people were tweeting most. Maybe the Pepsi-Cola marketing session was most popular – if you’re a marketing solutions brand, then perhaps start blogging about Pepsi’s strategy to capture your audiences attention.
Google analytics is one of the most powerful free tools there is. Integrate this into your website and you’ll be able to see rich information about your visitors and how they interact with your website.
Using the data, you can see what pages perform best, which don’t, which blog posts are of most interest, which aren’t. You can even see which social networks drive the most traffic and whether your audience are iPhone or Android users. Plus, lots more data. You’ll be like Alice going through the rabbit hole.
Adwords by Google is how you buy ads that show up on the search engine. And their keyword planner helps you find which words and phrases people are using most when search for products or services such as yours.
You don’t need to be using Google ads yourself to access adwords either, anyone with a Google account can use the planner. So use it to find out which key phrases you should be using in all of your content, especially if that content is going online.
Another great service by Google is the Consumer Barometer. If you’ve ever wanted to know the shopping habits or mobile usage habits of the UK population, this is the tool for you. Since Google has more data on us than the Government.
So long as your audience is covered by the metrics the site covers (and as normal people, they’ll be covered), you’ll be able to understand, on a broad scale, how they interact with certain things – such as social media, or online recommendations.
Just like Google Analytics helps you measure statistics on your own website, most social networks have analytics pages helping you understand how people find your account, which content they prefer and who they are, through demographic data.
Generally, type analytics. Before the URL, or put /analytics after the URL and you’ll find the analytics page for the social network. Otherwise, a quick Google search will find the link for you in no time. We use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn analytics all the time for our clients, to help understand what is working for them, what isn’t, and whether our strategic recommendations are improving the stats on the sites.
Followerwonk allows you to search through people’s bios on Twitter. It is the quickest way to find people by job role on the network, which even Twitter’s own analytics don’t even provide.
So, let’s say you want to find CTOs, because you’re selling new computer software, and want people in the UK, you could use followerwonk for just this. Remember, all these tools do not need to be used independently. Once you have a list of the audience, you could analyse their conversations with another service.
Iconosquare is another platform specific tool, this time for Instagram. Remember, Instagram is bigger than Twitter, so its certainly not one to dismiss.
Instagram is driven by hashtags, so beyond using the tool to analyse your own Instagram performance, it can also be used to find the most popular hashtags for the audience you’re identifying.
So, if you work for Xbox and want your instagrams to be seen, you’d use #xbox, #xboxone and #xboxlive. All quite obvious, but you can quite often be surprised.
YouGov’s profiler tool is one of our favourites, not just because it displays the information in an incredibly accessible manner.
Profiler allows you to find out key behaviours for the audience you’re looking at. So, if you want to find people who are into food and drink, YouGov will use all of its survey results (and that’s a lot) to bring togther a detailed profile of that audience.
Brands are welcome too, so why not search your own to find if you’re audience expectations match the real thing.
Blogs are huge. Social media gets all the praise nowadays but blogs were the original dominators of the Internet and they will often have much more influence than a single Twitter account or Facebook Page. In fact, some blogs have more reach than mainstream titles such as The Guardian.
So in order to find which blogs are important to your audience, use Notey. Type in a keyword and it will provide you with all the latest blogs on the topic, so you can quickly skim read summaries to identify which are positive and most prolific.
Topsy is so good Apple decided to buy it. Thankfully, they didn’t shut it down. The service is a free social analytics too, providing data that you’ll pay thousands for on other services.
We use it for volume searches and in comparing different topics. In the graph shown you’ll see we have searched to see which brand was mentioned most when Activision Blizzard bought King Digital, owners of Candy Crush Saga. You can see that up until the day it was announced, no one really cared about King Digital.
Let’s now take a look at the paid services you can use. Like free services, there are plenty out there, but unlike free services, you need to shell out a lot of money to find out which are the best. We’ve used them all. So we’re presenting our favorites – the only ones we recommend investing in.
Radian 6 is a social listening service by Salesforce. It’s not changed much in over 5 years, but it’s a powerful beast that you can guarantee will find each and every mention of your brand online.
It’s not cheap, nor does it have the greatest customer service in the world, but if you’re looking to search the web, Radian6 is more powerful than Google.
Pulsar is similar to Radian6, but much more modern and user friendly, especially in displaying the data. You don’t need the data skills required with Radian6 so it’s a good option for anyone new to this.
Pulsar will find volume, visibility, sentiment, topics and influencers. It tracks a number of social channels, so gives a great view of the entire web and where your audience lies.
Listening Post is a tool we built and run ourselves. You can’t sign up online, but if you’re interested in using it, speak to me after the session.
Listening Post will find influencers using Twitter. It maps a social graph together and identifies who is influenced by whom. You can find who the most important people are within your audience, and set a strategy to win them over – with everyone else following in their footsteps.
Search metrics allows you to measure how well you, or any other website, performs in search rankings. It will tell you the keywords you rank for, and where you rank in comparison to other sites and keywords.
Since search is a major factor in how people discover new companies and services, have a website that ranks highly is essential for any modern business, and search metrics will tell you what you need to do.
Lastly, trend kite is a tool that measures news stories online.
Put in your brand, or a keyword of a campaign you ran, and you will find the volume of coverage, share of voice, sentiment and message pull-through from online news.
Best of all, trend kite is simple to use and can generate beautiful reports automatically, saving you time. Your PR team will thank you a thousand times for using it.
A persona is a way to model, summarize and communicate research about people who have been observed or researched in some way.
Remember, use the date you have gathered when you asked all of these questions. Bring it all together and segment the audience you found into different characters.
Before we get into personas, let’s just clear something up. The purpose of a persona is to guide everyone when aiming to reach the audience. They should help with messaging, branding, web design and content creation.
The majority of personas you see will give someone a name, an age, they’ll give them a family and say they’re interested in X, Y and Z. I’ve even seen personas go into such detail to state the person was looking into buying a new Ford to replace their Vauxhall. For a B2B software brand.
This sort of information is non-essential and diverts attention. The worst case is that someone uses the persona and only targets people searching for Fords who have been shown to own Vauxhalls. If you’re selling security software to IT managers, the car they drive has nothing to do with the decision.
So, how should you write a persona?
Keep it simple. Seriously simple. Too much depth just allows for irrelevant detail. There is a theory that the mind fills in the gaps and you get bias from the person reading the persona, so remember to keep that in check, but don’t solve the problem by creating another.
We recommend creating a character. They’re nameless, but they have needs, interests, a desired experience and objectives. Focus on these areas rather than what their wife is called or their zodiac sign.
Here’s an example. This is a persona matrix. There are no names, only key behaviors. The entire thing can be summarised in one page, or as a poster in the office. This means it isn’t just concise, but people will probably read it too!
Flick through these personas quickly. Briefly running through the points.
Highlight the fact they have no names or genders. These are too specific. If you created an ad, would you really want to target just men because the persona says so? Probably not, at least for gender-neutral roles, products or services.
Point out the ‘why and audience’ section which helps the person reading the persona build a picture of why this person matters, and understands the use cases of this persona.
Flag that internet literacy is specific to this particular client and project, as it is for a web build. It doesn’t need to a section in all personas, but related topics should be included. If you’re in the business of sat navs, then ability to use technology, touch screens or maybe even likelihood or journeying somewhere new, may be a section.
Point out that these are built on data. In this example we have used website data to build the personas out, with usage patterns and device usage clearly defining different use cases.
In this example browsing predictions helps us understand how this persona may interact with our client’s site, and give clues for ways to change it – it will help designers create better pages.
And the experience is vitally important. It tells us of what is expected of the persona. Never forget to include this and make this a priority to answer when building your strategy.
Once you have built personas and understand the experience they’re after, you’re extremely close to knowing your audience.
So, to recap. Make characters, but nameless ones. Give them needs, interests, a desired experience and objectives. Simple, straightforward and useful.
Congratulations, you’ve now defined your audience.
So what is the next step? You’ve got to know your audience. Masterclass complete! But it doesn’t stop there. The entire purpose of finding an audience is to do something with them. Usually – sell.
Let’s take a look at the process of building a strategy from what you have learned.
In the discovery stage you learned a lot about your audience. From there, you were able to build personas.
Put these personas at the heart of your strategy. Never forget the audience you’re going after.
Now, consider the audience, but also what channels they use, the goals they have (and you – find a balance), the topics they discuss and the journeys they take.
Pull this all together into a single statement for how you will reach them and make that sale.
Here’s a strategy. It’s for no one in particular, but fits well with strategies we have created in the past.
It’s short. Concise. And tells you everything you need to go on and develop a campaign.
(CLICK)
Generate new leads is the goal.
Creating meaningful relationships with potential customers online is the process, the how.
Through content on Twitter and LinkedIn is where. It specifies where you will do this.
And link tracking with Salesforce is the measurement.
This is a typical strategy, built on insight. Leads – they’re what the client wants, but creating meaningful relationships, that’s something the discovery would show – research may have shown people have loyalty in this industry, and Twitter and LinkedIn were the channels used most by the audience. The measurement stage should be in each and every strategy – without it, how do you know it worked?
Strategies evolve into campaigns, jam packed full of tactics. When Microsoft came to us asking for helping in launching Office 365, we didn’t immediately think ‘band in front of bus’ and neither would you.
But our strategy, built on insight, led us to targeting office influencers, the people who understand flexible working and are able to sell in the idea to major corporations around the UK. We took the influencers on a road trip around London, in the 365 bus. On-board, we proved flexible working is possible anywhere, even on a bus. We did this through Ignite presentations, performed live on the bus as it moved around London, live streamed to the world through a ‘Catch the 365 microsite’ – which drove over 4,000 downloads of Office 365 alone, from our target audience.
Office 365 has since been sold into many organisations and even most personal users use the subscription model over the pay-once model.
And why the band? We needed press too. Crowds always help a photo opp.
Move quickly on to the next slide for the recap.
Recap by running through bullets.
Ask for questions.
Move to next slide to push Labs offering.