If this article has caught your eye, I’m assuming you are well aware of the issue SEO faces with Google Analytics ‘Not Providing’ some keyword data. This is a work around that replaces not provided with the page’s title tags, allowing you to report back to your boss, client or colleagues on the impact of SEO.

For those of you who have yet to encounter the joy of ‘(not provided)’, here is a pretty good summary of it.

HOW BIG IS THE PROBLEM?

The Not Provided problem is huge. It’s similar to working with one eye shut; you can’t understand the depths of what is happening. To illustrate, here is a screen shot from a Google Analytics account showing which keywords brought traffic to the site.

The blanked out data is where we have been given the keyword data.

For 1,640 visitors, we have no idea of what they are looking for.

#ThanksGoogle.

For this particular account that makes up 61% of all organic visitors!

This is getting back to the old advertising standard of…

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.”

John Wanamaker

MARKETING IN 2013

This is 2013, not the 1900’s. There has to be some type of solution or work around for this SEO conundrum.

The fact is, unless you pay to use AdWords, you won’t be able to find out the exact keywords a visitors has used to find your site. Accept it, move on.

If you do use AdWords as a solution, you only get AdWords traffic data.

But what about SEO?

By the way I’d always recommend running both AdWords & SEO. If you turn off Adwords it can have adverse indirect effects on your leads.

For the majority of companies with an online presence, SEO is a key traffic driver. We therefore, needed to find a way round it!

THE SOLUTION WORK AROUND

We will never get that data back. Accept it, and let’s move on together.

The SEO industry has always had to adapt to what the 800 pound Gorilla, known as Google, throws at us. From algorithm changes to personalised search results, we adapt. And we will continue to adapt as long as business can be generated from SEO traffic.

The work around came from a post on Google Plus by Deric Loh, definitely worth following him!

As a result, we have been able to replace (not provided) data with detailed information about the page a customer landed on. We have found the best implementation of this solution is to replace (not provided) with the meta title tag of the page they landed on.

Doing this gives you a clear indication what they were looking for, as you should have well defined page title tags.

WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?

In Google Analytics, instead of getting just (not provided) if the keyword isn’t known, you’ll get…

The ‘np-’ is just a prefix for ‘not provided’, so you can pick out where the data has been provided. The title tag of the page they landed on is inserted after it. Due to privacy policy of Google Analytics I can’t show you the exact data, but hopefully from this you get the idea.

HOW GOOD IS THE SOLUTION WORK AROUND?

It’s not perfect, but it gives you more data than just not provided. Think of it as the difference between a colleague who always answers ‘don’t know’ and someone who says, ‘well you could try this or this’.

LIMITATIONS

Your home page will get a lot of traffic and for a huge variety of keywords, therefore the title tag data won’t be the greatest insight. You’ll also be found for keywords you never thought you’d rank for. However if it’s significant you’ll see some keyword data come through, so you’ll get a good idea.

You also have to make sure your pages and therefore title tags are targeted towards specific topics and keywords. However let’s face it if you’re not doing that you’ll have pretty limited SEO results.

A STEP BY STEP GUIDE

What you need:

1. Organic Traffic!

2. A Google Analytics account with admin access (very important)

3. Website with unique title tags

4. A week to a month’s waiting period (depends on traffic volumes)

Step 1. - Login to Google Analytics using the admin access & select admin.

You’ll know if you have admin access, because when you select admin you’ll be able to see a button called +New profile, highlighted below…

We are going to setup a New Profile in Google Analytics. We need to do this, as we are going to overwrite some data in Google Analytics. If you haven’t done this before, don’t worry, that’s why we are setting up a new profile. This avoids messing up your main account.

Step 2 – Create A new Profile

You guessed it, just click +New Profile. Select “Website” and give it a meaning full name, ideally with Not Provided in. Now select your preferred time zone. Click Create Profile. We’re doing well, nearly there.

Step 3 – Setup a Filter

From the tabs across the top click “Filter” and “+ New Filter”.

Now put in the following settings, not the dots in some fields.

Hit save and you’re done!

Step 4 – Wait

Because of the technique we have used, we’ll be collecting new data. This means we can’t apply this filter to previous data, sorry. Depending on how much traffic you get, you may have to wait a week or a month before you have enough data.

In the meantime, go produce some good content for your site that will earn you some links. Hey come on! How could I do a post on SEO and not get the buzz word of ‘content’ in there?

Step 5 – Review

Have you waited a week or a month yet? If so go back into Google Analytics and select the new profile you created a week or a month ago. It will be listed under the main account. Go to Organic traffic keyword report, as you would normally, and there you should have some more insightful data and how your SEO efforts have helped increase traffic, sales or enquiries.

OTHER SOLUTIONS TO NOT PROVIDED

The SEO community being as giving and open as it is, has also come up with some other work around you may want to try which could suit your needs if this technique doesn’t. I recommend reading the following…

Cyrus Shepard 7 Best SEO Tips for (not provided) Keywords

Adam Audette 3 Proposed Solutions for Regaining lost SEO Query Data

HOW DO YOU GET ROUND NOT PROVIDED?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments section below on how you’ve tackled the Not Provided issue.

Reminder – If you found this article helpful, please feel free to ‘tip’ the author with a share on your preferred social network. Thanks!

The post A Work Around to SEO “Not Provided” Keywords? appeared first on .

It appears to be restricted to the 26th, and no other data has been affected. As of yet we haven’t seen any official response from Google, but imagine it will be fixed soon.

Currently the only work around is restricting date range to just to the 26th which should provide the correct data for that day.

The post Google Analytics Glitch | 26th March, 2013 appeared first on .

Let me bring you up to speed. After testing the feature out for months, Facebook has decided to roll out new threaded replies and comments for Pages. Threaded comments and replies essentially allow Facebook Page managers to reply to specific comments in a thread, rather than the disjointed method of random name-dropping in the linear comments stream we’re all familiar with. In my opinion, this feature will make it much easier to interact directly with individual consumers and keep relevant conversations connected. So thumbs up from where I’m sitting.

But I knew all of this already. What came as a surprise this morning is that the most liked and replied to comments on a post appear to be pushing their way to the top of the comments section, while comments that are not replied to or are marked as spam will remain at the bottom. See below:

For a post with positive comments like the above for the Brisbane Broncos (disclaimer – not a client of ours) this feature is great! But what about when a customer posts an unrelated complaint in the comments section of that ‘cute cat Friday’ picture you just posted? And what if they have a lot of friends who love to ‘like’?

What had originally started as a great new feature has now turned into a pain in the neck. In the past negative comments could be somewhat hidden by the sheer mass of the comments stream, but now they have the potential to be highlighted, nay, glorified on your very own page!

This, friends of the Internet, is why businesses need a dedicated Community Manager in their ranks. Someone there to encourage and rally the advocates. Someone on the front line to dive onto ticking time bombs of public complaints. Someone to pick the brand up, dust it off, and keep on marching. And this is why businesses continue walking through our doors asking us to sort our their social media marketing for them.

And that is why I love my job.

The post Facebook Ordering Comments and Replies by Popularity appeared first on .

• Interactive Posts!
• Profile/page design overhaul (including larger cover images and revamped ‘about’ section)
• Sign in using Google+

UPDATE #1 - Feb 20, 2013 - There have been a couple of big changes to Google Plus over the last couple of months. I’ve now updated this article to also include:

• Google Plus communities
• Updated active usage figures
• One-to-one interactions for brand pages (including some tactics)
• Update on Google Plus promotion strategies
• Google Plus management tools
• Google forms integration

And with that, let’s begin!

When someone asks me about Google+, I’m sure they usually regret it. Not for any reason other than the fact that such a simple question is often met with an excited barrage of stats, strategies, tactics and farfetched hypotheses.

I am of course a HUGE Google+ fan.

However, instead of inflicting my love of “The Plus” onto my friends and family at every chance I get, I’ve decided to let it all out here on the Reload Media blog. Maybe I’ll even get a UTM tracked QR code tattooed to my forehead so people can just scan my face and visit this article whenever the topic pops up in conversation!

But seriously, if you are a marketer, a business owner or are just curious about what all the fuss over Google+ is, this article is for you. Some of the things I’ll be discussing include:

• What is Google+
• Why you need to get on board as soon as possible
• Setting up a business page
• Tactics for building your following both on and off the platform
• How Google+ can boost your AdWords campaigns, and
• A list of additional tips and tricks I’ve found along the way on top of the many that are peppered throughout this article!

As this article is quite long, I’ve included a PDF download link for those of you who would like to keep some of these tips and tricks on file or read the article again at a later date.

However, if you do download the PDF or if you found this article helpful in any way, please consider the +1 button (at the top of the page) as our tip jar and feel free to leave a tip. Linking to this article is also very welcome! For those of you reading this on your smartphones, any social sharing would be greatly appreciated!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FREE PDF NOW!

So now, without further adieu…

What is Google+?

In June 2011, Google launched a platform that changed the social media landscape as we knew it. For the first time, a real challenger to Facebook had emerged – Google+.

However, the really unique feature of Google+ is ‘Circles.’

Circles allow users to create custom groups of people that they would either like to receive updates from or send updates to. Even though Facebook and Twitter have both introduced ‘lists’ which are somewhat similar, circles are by far the most robust and customisable social media audience segmentation tool available out of all the social media platforms.

From a business point of view, the ways you can use circles are only limited by your own creativity! Send exclusive updates and insights to just your clients, share cat photos with just your family or even share news to all of your circles AND to their extended circles.

But there’s so much more to the platform than just circles. Check out this video to get a quick overview if you’ve never used or seen Google+ before:

But There’s Nobody on Google+?

Like the Android operating system vs Apple’s iOS, many people believe that if Google+ and Facebook were released at the same time, Google+ would be the leading social network in the world. As we all know, that simply isn’t the case.

In fact, for many of you reading this, at this early stage in the game you probably don’t have a huge amount of family and friends on the platform (if any at all). And that’s fine. But before you claim the “nobody uses Google+ defense”, consider the following:

• Google+ has grown to 400 million users in just over a year
• 150 million are ’30 day actives’ across Google
• 100 million are active on a monthly basis on Google+
• 50% of these actives sign in daily and spend up to 12 minutes a day on their Google+ stream (up 3 minutes from August 2012)
• Google+ is backed by one of the largest, most successful companies in the world
• It is very obvious that the development and growth of Google+ is Google’s number one international priority for the foreseeable future, and
• Google+ is not just a social network, it is a recommendations engine. More importantly, it is a recommendations engine that is being integrated into the search results of the world’s most popular search engine. Consider what that could mean for your business in six to twelve months time’

Update – As of January 2013, Google+ is now the second largest social media network in the western world. Check out this great graphical representation from the team over at Dustn.tv:

Why You Need to Get Your Business On Board…

If you only take away one thing from this article, let it be this – all businesses that rely on Google as a major source of their online traffic and revenue need to develop their Google+ strategy as soon as possible.

Here’s why…

Authorship

Authorship is basically the process of telling Google which content you have personally produced either on your website or around the web. You may have already seen examples of Authorship in action. If you’ve been on Google recently and have seen the little profile images showing next to the search results, this is an example of successful Authorship linking. Here’s an example of how one of my past posts looks like with Authorship set up correctly:

• An image of the author
• A ‘byline’ linking to the author’s Google+ profile
• An indication of the author’s credibility by way of listing of how many people have the author in their Google+ circles.

Even though having authorship linked won’t have an enormous effect on your search rankings at this point in time, it can certainly help with your click through rates in the natural search results.

Visit this link to find out the two ways you can set up authorship linking manually.

If you have a WordPress blog, you can install this simple plug in to make life a bit easier.

AuthorRank

Here’s where it all gets REALLY interesting. In 2007, A guy by the name of Bill Slawski wrote about a patent that Google filed in 2005 called ‘Agent Rank.’ This patent basically explores the idea of ‘ranking agents’ based on the content they create (read Bill’s original post and hypotheses here).

In the patent, Google describes ‘agents’ as all sorts of entities; authors, publishers, brands and more. The problem was that, at the time, Google had no way to really identify agents in a meaningful way. Then along came Google+; a social network that easily doubles as an ‘identity proving’ platform.

At the moment, as authorship is the only rich snippet that appears in the search results, the SEO world has settled on the term ‘AuthorRank’ as opposed to ‘Agent Rank’ as the next game changing algorithm update.

The idea of ‘AuthorRank’ is this – if Google is able to identify and verify reputable authors in certain fields, they will then be able to weed out spammers and only serve up legitimate, relevant content by content creators that have proven themselves to be influential and relevant in their industry vertical or niche topic area.

In simpler terms, the higher your ‘AuthorRank’ is for your specific niche, the higher the content you produce for that niche will rank in Google.

Wow. Mind = blown!

So, although Google haven’t officially announced any change in ranking factors based on an author ranking system yet, the SEO world is buzzing as all signs are pointing to it coming to a Google search results page near you in the next six to twelve months or so.

So How Will it Affect My Business?

There’s talk that this could be one of the most significant algorithm updates in recent history. Many pundits believe that, if and when the update rolls out, content that has reputable authors linked to it will gain a large rankings boost above content that does not.

This is an amazing opportunity for you to get ahead of the algorithm (for once) and to prepare your business for what the SEO industry believes is inevitable.

Mike Arnesen wrote an amazing article on AuthorRank and described what he believed to be some of the factors that individuals and brands will need to work on to help build their AuthorRank:

• Google+ engagement levels
• Number of people who’ve circled you
• Posting frequency
• Authority of publishing websites
• Comments per post
• +1s per post
• Shares per post
• Relative authority on non-Google social networks
• Outside authority indicators
• Average Page Rank

Check out Mike’s post here.

There are a lot of great suggestions in Mike’s article and across the web on how you can start building your AuthorRank today but the main take outs in my opinion are to:

• Get a Google+ account;
• Get Authorship set up for both the posts on your website and the posts on sites you’ve been published on;
• Choose a niche or a couple of niches that you want to become an authority on;
• Be real and connect with real people in the niche you want to build your authority for;
• Interact and develop conversations like you would at any social gathering or networking event; and
• Regularly create great, sharable content.

Search Plus Your World

Google Search Plus Your World is basically a Google search filter that allows users to adjust their search results according to their social graph (when they are logged into their Google account). This feature explores the concept of ’social search’ and is currently live in the US. We do see glimpses of this in the Australian Google search results but not to the extent of the US implementation.

The ‘Search Plus Your World’ filter means that, with the toggle of a switch, users are be able to display their search results not by the standard, natural search rankings, but rather, by which friends and acquaintances in their own social circles have recommended and ‘connected with’ online content.

It will be critical for businesses and brands to build up their Google+ following in order to reach their follower’s extended social circles in these filtered search results.

We’ve done an extensive post on Google Search Plus Your World here which delves much deeper into the what’s, how’s, when’s and why’s of this feature.

However, if you just want to check it out, watch the quick demonstration video below:

Be a (Late) Early Adopter

We’ve already discussed the rapid growth of Google+. But it’s true, in Australia, only a small portion of the population is actively using the platform. This is a huge opportunity for you as business owners and marketers as you have a chance to get onto the platform and build a name for yourself before it REALLY takes off.

The platform is still an extremely friendly place where everyone is trying to help each other out to grow their followings and connect with more people. What should be more enticing however is the fact that you have an opportunity to become an early adopter in your field and get a huge head start on your competitors before any inevitable, ’author’ focused algorithm changes come into play.

At Reload, we believe that as soon as Google announce that Google+ signals will affect search results in some way, businesses will be clamouring to get their Google+ strategies up and running on the social network. As the goal of these strategies will be to pull their large consumer bases onto the platform in an effort to increase their following and authority, it won’t be long before the social network hits full speed.

As soon as this announcement occurs (if it ever does), I don’t believe it will be too long before we see ’calls to actions’ directing users to Google+ pages instead of Facebook pages in traditional advertising channels.

Our advice – get onto the platform before the rush!

Google+ Local

At Reload, we’ve also written extensively about Google+ Local as it is a core part of our SEO packages. Earlier this year, Google changed the name of their maps listings from ‘Google Places’ to ‘Google+ Local’ in a bid to better integrate maps and business listings into the Google+ platform. Further to this, all Google Places listings were migrated over to the new Google+ Local platform.

Google+ Local is basically just a much more social version of Google Places and is integrated heavily into the Google+ platform. There were three main changes that occured after the worldwide migration from Google Places to Google+ Local:

1. The Zagat ratings system was introduced. We’re not sure how much longer this new ratings system will be in place but, for now, it’s being used as a new way for customers to review businesses more accurately in different industry verticals. Expect to see improvements to this area as time goes on.
2. Users now have the ability to filter their local reviews by their own circles. This give more weight to the idea that Google+ is becoming a recommendations engine as this allows users to filter reviews by trusted sources in the online social circles.
3. If you have set up a Google+ business page in the ‘local business or place’ categorisation, you have the opportunity to link your Google+ Local listing to your Google+ business page. This will allow you to create an even richer social experience with your customers as you will then have the ability to let your reviewers add you to their circles (and you can follow them back once they’ve done this!)

Google+ Local maps listings are hugely important, especially for bricks and mortar stores that rely on Google to provide phone numbers and directions to their customers. With Google working to integrate Google+ into more and more of its products, Google+ Local will need to make up an important part of your Google+ strategy.

For more information on Google+ Local, check out the in depth article we published after the launch earlier in the year here.

Or, just check out the video below:

Show Google That Your Brand is Legitimate

And finally, having a Google+ account is a great way to signal to Google that your brand is in fact legitimate and trustworthy.

Once you hit ‘a meaningful number of followers’ on your Google+ business page, you are able to apply to be verified by Google. This means that your page will receive a tick of approval from Google as being a legitimate company/brand/entity.

For more information on how to get your page verified, check out this link.

Setting up your Google+ business page

Setting up your Google+ business page is a pretty straightforward process. If you haven’t had a chance to create one, check out my quick tutorial video below on how to get started:

Building Audiences For Your Google+ Business Page

So now we get into the juicy part of the article. If you’ve already got your Google+ page set up and are just looking for some strategies and tactics to drive the growth of your page and your website’s +1s, get ready for some crackers!

However, before we get into that, it’s important to understand the difference between goals, objectives strategies and tactics.

Like anything in marketing, it is absolutely critical that you set your goals, objectives, strategies and tactics before jumping into Google+. As a refresher from your ‘Marketing 101′ textbook:

Goals: These are the broad, overarching outcomes you would like to achieve out of your Google+ activity.

These might be something along the lines of ‘increase brand awareness’ or ‘position our brand as a digital leader in our vertical’ or even ‘set up Google+ as a customer service channel for our users’.

Objectives: Objectives are much more specific and measurable indicators of how you are going towards reaching your overarching goals.

For instance, if your overarching goal was to increase brand awareness, then an objective to help contribute towards this goal might be to ‘increase the amount of followers of our Google+ page by 150% over a 6 month period’.

Now, you know I’m going to say it, but make sure your objectives are SMART!

Again, as a refresher, every single one of your objectives should be:

Specific;

Measurable;

Achievable and Attainable;

Realistically possible through available resources; and

Timed.

Strategies: Strategies are basically what you are going to do to achieve either one or a number of objectives. These are basically the general game plan of what you are going to do. It is important to note that strategies will generally encompass a number of tactics.

For example, if we were to follow on from the previous objective of increasing followers by 150% over 6 months, a strategy to help achieve this objective could simply be to ‘develop an engaging, entertaining and/or educational content schedule that our target audience will enjoy and interact with.’

Tactics: Tactics are the specific activities you will undertake in order execute your strategy and achieve your objectives. This is the fun part!

As the aforementioned strategy is to develop an engaging content schedule, the tactics in this case would include the actual details and calendar of the content schedule itself.

For example: ‘On December 24^th, post a video from our CEO wishing all of our customers a happy holiday.’

Ok, so now we’ve got that out of the way, I’m going to split this section into two distinct areas:

1. Strategies and tactics for building your audiences on the Google+ site; and
2. Strategies and tactics for driving follower interactions and growth outside of Google+.

Tactics on Google+

Page Tactics

It is really important that you set a good first impression on your Google+ page. A few tactics to help make your page stand out include:

• Create a great, integrated cover image and profile picture. You can get as creative as you like here and you can even use animated gifs to really stand out. However, if you are going to use animated gifs in your cover image, it’s our recommendation to make these very subtle so they don’t become a distracting. Here’s a great example of how an animated gif can bring your Google+ profile and page to life:
  (The animation looks much slicker on the actual page – visit https://plus.google.com/+MartijnVreugde/posts to check it out!)

UPDATE: Google have increased the size of the cover images on both profile pages and business pages on Google Plus to a massive  2120 x 1192 pixels!

While many people love these new cover images, there are some who believe it is just TOO big. Never fear, here is a link to a bit of a hack that will allow you to reduce the size if you don’t want your cover image taking up so much screen real estate.

• It’s important to also consider the ‘about’ section of your page. This is especially important for mobile users as it is the first thing they will read after clicking on your name.
• Furthermore, the links on this page are ‘followed’ by Google!
• A tip for the introduction section of your profile would be to try to keep your first sentence at about 10 words as well as this is what will show up when people search for your brand on Google+. For example:

This…

Circle Tactics

I know, I know! We’ve already discussed circles. However, here we’ll talk a little bit more how you can use circles to grow your following.

One thing I haven’t mentioned yet about circles is that they are extremely easy to share. Therefore, a valid strategy would be to try and get you or your brand page into as many highly shared, relevant circles as possible.

If there are not any out there that you can find, why not try creating and sharing your own?

In order to test this strategy, we developed a circle filled with what we categorised as 30 of the top Australian business pages operating on Google+:

Another tactic we employ is the creation of an ‘our followers’ circle which allows us to follow back every single person who follows our page. This passively indicates that we are in fact an active brand and that we have taken the time to add them back. Over time, these users may or may not move from the basic follower circle into other circles based on the amount of interactions they have with us and their areas of interest.

For example, we have a circle full of people who have engaged with our brand on more than one occasion in the past so that we can target future posts specifically to them.

Content Strategies and Tactics

A well thought out, strategic content strategy is vital to the success of your Google+ page. Your content strategy, in my opinion, is like your key into your follower’s social sphere. I know that the cocktail party analogy has been done to death but there’s a reason for that – it’s just so damn accurate!

If you haven’t heard it before, it goes something like this:

’Social media is like attending a cocktail party. If you walk into a cocktail party dressed as a salesman and then start spruiking your products and services to everybody, you aren’t going to be very successful. In fact, you are going to irritate almost everybody at the party and be ignored; possibly even kicked out!

However, if you treat the cocktail party like a networking event and strike up some real, meaningful conversations with the guests, you are going to both have a much more positive and memorable experience.’

When a user decides to follow your business or brand, consider this an invite to the cocktail party. They have accepted you into their social sphere and their conversations. It’s critical that when you speak, you are saying things that are engaging, entertaining or educational and in a manner that is suitable to the relationship. This is your content strategy.

When developing your content strategy, ask yourself some of these questions:

• Will my target market find the content engaging?
• Will my target market enjoy seeing this content in their news feed?
• How does this content fit in with my brand/brand personality?
• Will this content assist my social media goals and objectives?
• Does this content encourage interaction or sharing?

Unlike Facebook, with Google+ you are able to segment your content strategy much more based on whatever circles you decide to create. This means that you could in fact be creating multiple content strategies for a number of different people.

Reload Media for example might only share SEO posts with followers who are clearly only interested in SEO while, at the same time, be sharing funny office moments with marketing students (who may one day either be looking for a digital marketing agency or for a digital marketing agency to employ).

Engagement Tactics

It’s one thing to post great content, but to become a truly social media savvy you actually need to interact with your people!

Now, at the moment on Google this can be difficult as a brand as you can only interact with people who have posted on your page or added you to their circles. However, when you HAVE managed to build up a following and your audiences are engaging with your awesome content strategy, it’s critical that you continue the conversation (where applicable) in order to develop the relationship.

This is where social media can get hairy for a lot of businesses as it can be hard to allocate resources to respond to your social media channels. However, at Reload we always like to use the ‘ringing phone’ analogy. If a phone is ringing in your office, you are not going to let it just sit there and keep ringing; you’re going to pick it up.

Enacting a Google+ strategy is like installing a new phone line into your office. If you are going to install the phone line, you’d better make sure there’s someone there to pick up when someone rings (and trust me, if you follow some of the steps in this article, it WILL ring!).

WARNING! SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT! If you simply don’t have the resources to handle your social media community management in a best practice manner, Reload can help you out here. Moving on…

But don’t just respond to comments made on your own content, go and comment on your follower’s posts and content and show them that you don’t just care about what YOU have to say. This again relates back to the cocktail party analogy. You can’t just talk about yourself in a conversation; you need to listen to what others have to say too!

I’ll admit though, engagement is much easier and much more natural when you are doing it as a person as opposed to a brand. Google+ allows individuals to reach out and connect with anybody on the network. If you want to build your own personal authority in a particular niche, start by seeking out the leaders in the field on Google+ and striking up some conversations with them. If they add you to their circles then this will just add to your own credibility and may even help with your search rankings down the road.

Update:  Google Plus brand pages can now interact with individual user profiles without the prerequisite of first being in these user’s circles!

This is a huge step forward for business pages. In the past, brand pages were only able to interact with those users who had already circled their page. This was an extremely limiting factor to growing a brand page as most pages were required to rely on external strategies or top notch content schedules in order to build their followings.

Now however, brand pages are able to interact with all Google+ users and can develop real, one-to-one relationships with influential users and user groups.

In saying that, it’s critical that brand pages do not abuse this new found communication freedom and use it to drive engaged follower growth and enhance brand-consumer relationships.

Posting Tactics

At Reload, we’ve found a couple of posting tactics that work really well that we’re more than happy to share with you:

1. Ritualistic Posts - We have two photo albums that we add to on a regular basis on Google+ that have been really successful for us:

• Meme Mondays – an album where we post a new digital marketing based ’meme’ every Monday morning (around the time that people start work) – check it out here.

• Geek Shirt Fridays - An album that feature our staff members who wear the geekiest t-shirts in each Friday. The best shirts are featured and the public can vote on the best ‘geek’ shirt each week using the +1 button – check it out here.

2. Exclusive Google+ Content - One really great way to draw your customers into Google+ is by posting exclusive content that is only accessible via your page and nowhere else. On the Reload Media page, we post weekly exclusive digital marketing ’tips and tricks’ videos that are only available through our Google+ business page. Here’s an example of one of these exclusive videos.

3. Send an Email to Your Circles - If you are posting some great content to a circle of yours that has less than 100 people in it, you can tick a checkbox that will send an email to everyone in this circle and push a notification to their phones if they have this feature turned on. This is a great way to drive traffic to your page initially but be careful not to abuse this function! No one likes a circle spammer!

4. Circle Count - This amazing free tool can give you loads of data on both your own and your competitor’s Google+ page. With regards to posting, you can easily discover what day of the week and what hour of the day your posts are getting the most traction:

6. Mentions - You can mention specific people in your post simply by typing a ’+’ or ’@’ symbol before their name. This will notify that person that you have mentioned them and will encourage interaction and conversation. Just don’t overdo it!

7. Hangouts & Hangouts on Air – Google Hangouts is an absolutely incredible tool and is literally getting better and better every day. This tool allows you to video conference with 9 other people. Hangouts are just another way to create exclusive, engaging ’content moments’ with your audience. You could literally do anything from focus groups with your most influential and engaged users to a cooking show with your ’Loves Cooking’ circle!

Here’s a video that explains hangouts in a bit more detail:

What’s even more exciting however is Google’s ’Hangouts On Air’. This extension on Hangouts allows you to not only video conference with 9 people, but to broadcast your content live across the internet! Furthermore, Google+ automatically saves this video when you finish and adds it as a video in your Google+ account which can later be used as webpage content if you so choose.

Here’s a video showing a few examples of Hangouts On Air in action:

Update (additional ‘On Plus’ Tactics):

8. Google Plus Communities - Since this original post went up, Google introduced Google+ communities. This is basically the equivalent of Facebook groups but, in my opinion, a much more powerful solution. Both brand pages and individual users can set up and moderate communities.

You can use communities yourself or for your brand to in order to build up a very targeted group of individuals in relation to a specific topic, theme or industry. A community will give you a home base to communicate with these individuals while allowing you to build trust and authority amongst the group. You can also join other relevant communities and become an authoritative source of information in these groups as well.

Below is a quick video explaining Google+ communities:

I’m embedding a video below created by Martin Shervington who is a world leader in the area of Google Plus strategy and tactics. Check out the video below and, if you enjoyed, I’d strongly recommend you check out his Google+ profile!

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

9. Google Forms - Another really cool feature that Google have recently announce is the ability to share your Google forms (from within Google Drive) onto Google+ and allowing users to fill out these forms without needing to log in.

The answers from these forms are collated in a live spreadsheet in real time so you can gain instant access to your form results. The possibilities for the usage of forms are really massive so it’s probably best that you just go and have some fun with forms and let us know how you go!

To give you an idea, here’s a form we posted to our Google+ page that asked users what content they most enjoyed from Reload and what they would like to see more of:

Tactics Off Google+

Integration Tactics

In around 1996, when the internet was still a relatively rare thing to find in the average home, I distinctly remember seeing a web address on a Rice Bubbles box and getting very excited.

After a while however, web addresses began popping up everywhere until my reaction changed from one of excitement, to a mere eyebrow raise, to ignorance. The only web addresses I took notice of from that point onwards were those that told me what I was going to get if I visited them (or those I was actively looking for).

Fast forward 10 years and we saw the exact same audience reaction with Facebook. The early innovators who slapped Facebook logos on their TV commercials and packaging increased their Facebook fan counts by thousands. This was because this had never been done before and users were curious. Now however, you can’t even walk into the local vet without seeing a big old Facebook logo plastered somewhere letting people know that they too have a page!

The problem with just adding a logo these days is this – unless you’re amongst the first integrate a new platform into your other customer touch points, you need to give your audience a clear reason as to WHY they should visit or interact with your social media assets. Simply adding logos to your flyers or website footers just isn’t going to cut it.

So with this in mind, here are a couple of tactics we use recommend in order to drive Google+ interaction and follower growth:

1. Simple call to actions next to the +1 button on all website pages:

• Facebook VS Google+ interactive tally:

2. Pay With a Plus - If you are releasing huge articles on your blog (like this one), it can be beneficial to include a ’Pay with a Plus’ functionality. This will allow your users to uncover hidden content (like a pdf download link) after they +1 your article. Now you need to use your common sense with this tactic. People are not going to publicly endorse your content if they don’t know what they are endorsing! Our recommendation for you if you want to try this out would be to either give user’s a preview of what they are going to get before you ask them to endorse you. You can either have a go at developing your own custom ’Pay With a Plus’ functionality or you can try this paid subcription based WordPress widget.

4. Other Social Channels - You can leverage the followings you’ve developed on your other social channels to drive traffic to your Google+ page. For example:

Update: This promotion is now live!

6. Integration into offline touch points – If you are going to integrate your Google+ presence into other, offline touch points like television, radio, print ads, point of sale or packaging, just be sure to give your audience a reason to visit and engage with you. You will have much more success this way.

7.Use AdWords - Consider developing a Google AdWords campaign that drives traffic to your Google+ page. Again, make sure users have a reason for following your page in your ads and support this when they arrive.

Update:

8. Google+ Sign In - We wall knew it would be coming at some point but Google officially released Google+ Sign In earlier this month. This allows users to login to apps and websites using their Google+ account (much like Facebook Connect).

For developers, here’s a link with all you need to know on how to implement this.

For interested marketers, here’s a video that explains Google+ Sign In:

The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.

9.Interactive Posts - Probably one of the coolest additions to the Google Plus box of tricks is the new ability for interactive posts! This new feature allows website owners to optimise their Google Plus sharing to include very specific ‘call to action’ buttons on the content that the user is sharing.

For example, if you share an item from an online clothing store, the store might like to add an ‘Add to Cart’ button to this particular item so users can purchase the product directly from the social network.

Another example might be if a user share’s their score on a game or app while signed in through Google+, the score could include a ‘Challenge’ button so other users can try to beat this score! We’re extremely excited to see some of the applications of this new feature…

For more information on how it all works, check out the developers guide here.

Update:

10. Management tools – At Reload, we recommend Hootsuite for all community management activities. This is no different for Google+. If you would like to schedule you Google+ posts or manage all of your social posts in one place, then Hootsuite is the tool for you. Check this video out on how to add your Google+ page to your Hootsuite account:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Linking Google+ to AdWords

If you have a Google+ page and you have a Google AdWords account but the two are not yet linked, I’d recommend doing this a.s.a.p. Follow the steps on this page to get started.

What does this do?

Well basically, having your ads linked to your Google+ page will allow you to have social extensions appear in your ad:

The notification on how many people have followed you comes in two varieties:

1. Basic - This is what you can see in the example above. It simply tells you how many people have followed the brand on google+
2. Personal - This notification will appear if you have any connections on Google+ that currently follow the company in the AdWords ad. For example the ad might say ‘Llew Jury and 362 other people +1’d or follow Reload Media.’

Although Google say the average uplift in CTR across all industries is between 8 – 12% on ads with social extensions, we’ve had clients with increases in click through rate by well over 200% and decreases in cost per conversion by 55% to 85%!

Tips and Tricks

And just to finish off with, here are a few extra tips and tricks to help you soar ahead of your competition on Google+.

1. Formatting font in posts and comments

Here’s a few trick that will allow you to either bold, italicize or strikethrough parts of your Google+ posts or comments:

• Any words that you would like to be bold, just enclose them with asterixs (*). E.g. *word*.
• Enclose and words that you would like to strikethrough with a hyphen (-). E.g. -word-.
• Any words that you would like to be italic, just enclose them with underscores (_). E.g _word_
• You can also combine these as much as you would like.

2. Link to a post

On every post you submit there is a small arrow in the top right hand corner. Clicking this will allow you to grab a link that you can use to send directly to a post. We use this feature a lot when directing our Facebook audience to a particular Google+ post.

3. Drag and Drop

You can post images and other content directly from your compute by dragging and dropping directly into your share bar

4. Edit your posts

If you’ve posted something and want to change it, you can edit it whenever you like (unlike other social networks). Just hit the arrow on the top right hand corner of the post and click ‘edit this post’:

5. Lock your posts or disable comments

In the same way you can edit your posts, you can also disable comments or lock your post. Locking your post means that no one is able to reshare it which is a great option for when your are sharing something privately or only to a specific circle:

6. Mute posts

If you’ve interacted with a post that is getting a huge amount of engagement and you would like to stop receiving notifications, you can simply mute that particular post by again, hitting the arrow in the top right hand corner of the post:

Final thoughts

Wow. That felt good to get all of that off my chest! I hope you’ve been able to take away some useful tips from this article and this article has been able to help you see Google+ in a new light. If you have anything to add or debate or if there’s something you’d like me to expand on, please feel free to leave a comment below. Also, if you did find this article helpful I’d love it if you could share it on whatever social network you prefer to share this type of content on!

Thanks for reading!

The post The Ultimate Guide to Google Plus for Businesses appeared first on .

Over the past month I have been conducting an experiment with insertion of keywords in display URLs. The typical display URL includes the keyword at the end as seen below:

Whilst this is great and makes the viewer think the ad is extremely relevant to them, there doesn’t seem to be much experimentation in the display URL realm. This got me thinking about other ways to insert keywords. Which lead me to inserting keywords as sub domains, which can be seen below:

Hypothesis

My first hypothesis was that by using the sub domain keyword it would be more eye catching to users because it was different to the majority of competitor ads.

My second hypothesis was that having the keyword shown a second time directly below the head line would attract more attention due to a larger area of bolding.

I would consider either of these hypotheses true if I saw an increase in click-through-rate.

Method

In order to attain reliable results I ran the experiment over a 30 day period. The control ads had the keyword inserted at the end of the display URL. The experiment ads had the keyword inserted as a sub domain in the display URL. The rest of the ad copy was exactly the same for both the control and experiment ads. Each group of ads were split roughly 50/50 between 100% of traffic.

Results

Conclusion

From this initial experiment it’s quite clear that sub domain keywords are a much better use of the display URL region. Click-through-rate was 6.52% higher than the standard display URL, cost-per-click was 4.88% lower, and average ad position was 1.41% lower (meaning in a better position on the SERP). These results aligned quite closely to my hypothesis.

The Unexpected Results

The best thing about running experiments is when you get results you didn’t factor in! What I didn’t factor in was cost-per-click decreasing, and average ad position improving.

My reasoning for the decrease in cost-per-click is that the quality score was improved due to the increased click-through-rate, which in turn placed our ads in better positions because our ad rank was higher due to an improved quality score.

This goes to show how important click-through-rate is in determining quality score and also how important it is to split test ad copy.

Reminder – If you’ve found this article interesting or helpful in any way, please feel free to ‘tip’ the author with a share on your preferred social network. Thanks!

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Making compelling content from start to finish

We all want to find the creative genius within ourselves. We all want to be the person who comes up with ideas in a pinch and executes it flawlessly. These days, your online audiences are craving quality educational, engaging and/or entertaining content.

We’ve all seen and experienced examples of great content; from the dollar shave club to the amazing Toyota 86 landing page. Yes, quality content is an idea we’re all familiar with – but how do we ensure we’re getting the best possible ideas out of ourselves? Where do these creative ideas come from, and how to we make sure we fulfill them to their maximum potential?

I find it best to go through a step-by-step process to ensure I’m getting the most out of the creative genius that flows through Reload. I’d like to take you through a normal process that helps explain how we develop something memorable from nothing!

Here’s a quick infographic I’ve whipped up to help illustrate the different steps that I go through every time I’m asked to develop a piece of quality content for Reload or for one of my clients. If you’d like a bit more information, read on after the infographic where I detail the steps I take in a bit more detail:

Embed this infographic on YOUR site

<img src="http://www.reloadmedia.com.au/searchstrategy/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/creativityprocessbreakdown4.gif" alt="7 Steps of Creative Content Development" alt="7 Steps of Creative Content Development"></br><a href="">Reload Media | Quality Content Development</a>

Step One: Calm yourself

You’ve got a new project, a new opportunity, and a clean slate. This may be where you start to feel your heartbeat go up a bit. You have lots of thoughts going on in your head already, but do your best to cleanse your mind and relax. The best creative thinking is done after your prepared, relaxed and ready to dive into all your creative concepts.

Step Two: Research

Ah yes, the most exciting part!

Who is the client? What is their product or service? How long have they been in business? What makes them unique?

Nothing you learn will be of waste! Look for flaws that can be avoided or possibly shown in a positive light. Make a list of attributes that define the product/service and highlight the parts you think are most valuable. Research competitors for insights on the market and ideas that have been used previously. Finally, consider putting yourself in the mind of the buyer – what would interest you in regards to the client’s product or service?

If the client is in a competitive industry, make sure to look for a niche or a way to separate them from the competition. For example, if the service is personal training, check to see the cities where they are located. Do they visit customer’s homes? Do they have a unique method?

Anything that helps separate the client from the rest will give you an edge on creating a memorable idea.

Step Three: The SMALL idea group

Get a small team of people together to discuss possible creative ideas regarding the brand. When I say small I mean 2 to 3 people, tops. Large groups tend to snuff out ideas from quieter group members and, more importantly, the group can get into a ‘hive mind’ where people jump on a bandwagon instead of grazing over lots of ideas.

At this initial stage, you should be looking for quantity; lots and lots of ideas where nothing is shunned or ignored. Dean Kean Simonton, from the University of California, did a study on over 2,000 famous scientists throughout history and their connection with ‘creative genius’. Some of the more popular scientists included people like Einstein, Tesla, da Vinci and Charles Darwin. One of his major finds within this study was the ability for people to create large sums of work. Einstein published 248 papers in addition to his famous piece on relativity. Simonton had found that among all of the ground breaking ideas were also relatively standard and forgettable ones, concluding that one of the most important aspects of creative thought is creating in quantity as well as quality.

Make sure you get all your points across but listen for opportunities with other people’s ideas. Many times the best ideas are fused from bits and pieces. I like to write down ideas on a white board and connect similar ideas together. Consider it some kind of ‘safe room’ where you can say anything you want…anything at all. No matter how strange or impossible, ideas should be heard. This meeting should be filled with laughter, loud noises and accentuated gestures.

Step Four: Connecting the Dots

Take all your bits and pieces and lay them out on a large table. Look for patterns and opportunities to make something larger than just one piece of content. Often our best ideas come from idea merging or looking at the larger picture. da Vinci was throwing pebbles in a pool of water and watching the ripples move outward when thinking about the concept of sound. He merged the two ideas together to formulate that sound actually travels in waves, similar to the ripples in a pond. Be open to finding the gaps and connections between your goals and ideas.

Do additional research to make sure your ideas are actually possible. Remember to ask yourself throughout this stage, how will this help reach the goals I’ve made? Does this fit within my current constraints? What are the opportunities and drawbacks of this idea?

Start to narrow down your choices and number your options based on your own criteria, crossing off ideas that just aren’t working. You should still have about three solid choices, but one in mind at this point.

Step Five: Sit and think

Take a break, go get some coffee and do something else for a bit. Sleep on it and come back to it later. Give yourself time to reflect on all the things you’ve just created! It takes time to see things with fresh eyes.

You’re most memorable products will most likely develop or be recognised after a good amount of time has passed. Paul Cezanne, a French Impressionist, never had an exhibition of his work until he was 56. Accomplishments take time.

Don’t expect this step to be done in a day. You really need to refresh and give yourself time. Don’t be afraid to throw everything away and start again! You need to be sure the ideas you’ve come up with are genuinely good, not just something you fell in love with at first. It’s best you do it now than once you’ve begun the creative.

Step Six: Pick a medium and wireframe

To put it bluntly, ideas aren’t worth very much. Without adequate skill and considerable effort, an idea will remain an incomplete idea unless it is realised. Inspiration and motivation form only the starting point of creativity, not the final product.

The next step is to prototype your idea into something tangible. Look for fresh minds to give you feedback and be careful to not get attached to your idea just yet. Understand that the product at this point is still very new and can be molded and refined. You should be open to reviews and recommendations from peers, looking for ways to improve on what you’ve started.

Take time to review all feedback and look at it objectively. Remind yourself of your goals and ask if your idea will meet them.

Step Seven: Construction

Begin the final stage with enthusiasm. You went through a great amount of inspiration and creativity to get to this stage, but the best pieces of work only come to those prepared through hard work and hard thought.

Perseverance will be the main goal at this stage. Working tirelessly to finalise and deliver the product you cradled from the very beginning. Oversee workflow with great consideration and care to make sure that it’s created to your specifications.

The little details will matter at this stage as well. Look for any and all flaws and focus on the end product. Ensuring quality will make the difference between a satisfactory and extraordinary accomplishment.

Enduring the long road of creativity is incredibly rewarding, and it’s a process that will benefit you throughout your life, both in business and in everyday life. Using a proper creative structure will keep you focused on creating a unique and memorable product, and just possibly help you find the creative genius in you.

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Fast forward to this morning and I noticed that one of my clients was eligible to participate in the new roll out of features. So I decided to give it a go. Let’s just say I was pleasantly surprised by some of the key new enhancements being implemented. My previous expectations for the update had extremely underestimated how great some of the improvements would be!

My second favourite feature is bid adjustments based on locations. For example when a campaign is targeting a capital city and regional locations. The capital city max cost-per-click bids will usually be much higher than the regional areas. What you can now easily do is adjust the bids of the regional location to be decreased by a certain percentage. This means you will no longer be bidding at a capital city cost-per-click level in regional locations.

So far I have only just scratched the surface of these new updates, and will be eagerly reading PPC blogs to see what other cool things users discover.

Have an idea on how to implement these new enhancements? Post it below!

The post AdWords Enhanced Campaigns: The Best New Features appeared first on .

If you find this article interesting or thought provoking, please feel free to tip the author with a Plus 1, Tweet, Like or LinkedIn share.

After months of speculation, the 2013 Australian Federal election date has now been set. Australia will go to the polls on September 14th.

With eight months until the big day, there’s plenty of time for both sides to plan, execute and deliver on their communication and marketing plans. In this article, I give my personal take on what we should expect to see from both parties.

Let me be clear, this isn’t a political opinion piece advocating for one side or the other. My aim is to present what I would do from a marketing perspective (and particularly digital marketing) if I was in charge of both campaigns, and how that fits with what I’m actually expecting to see. In eight months time, we’ll see how much of this actually unfolded.

The Labor Marketing Campaign

The first tactical move with the Labor campaign is the length of the “notice period” before Election Day. The argument that a longer campaign benefits Labor is premised on the belief that the Coalition, and in particular Abbott, can’t go that long maintaining a purely negative stance towards a “bad Government.”

In my opinion, that’s a good move. It stops what would have been one of the Coalition’s main catch cries of the first half of 2013, that of Labor being a “bad Government” and calling for an election. With that out in the open, it has forced a change of tact from the Coalition.

Where this campaign will be won or lost for Labor rests with how well they can “sell” their achievements and vision for the future, and paint the Coalition as a dangerous alternative. In the last election, this was done quite poorly (from both sides) and ended up with Australia basically being undecided as a result.

Labor needs to focus on its successes from the past 6 years (yes, that includes the Rudd era) including the Stolen Generation apology, the UN security council seat, and the fact that amongst OECD countries, we avoided a recession and have one of the lowest unemployment rates going around. Positive, future building initiatives like the NBN should also be front and centre, although that too actually needs the benefits to the “average Australian” and small business in particular (a key Coalition demographic) more clearly communicated.

The issues above are critical because, according to most political polls in recent times, these are the issues on which the majority of Australians actually agree with Labor’s position. So, how do you do it?

Aside from the usual television commercials and print ads that put these achievements up in bright lights for 30 seconds, an eight-month campaign window opens the door for more subtle PR, social media and digital marketing tactics used to “educate” voters. For example, by using remarketing campaigns that target users who have engaged with this kind of content online, they can continually reinforce the message over a long period of time. Likewise, contextually targeted display advertising, that sits with related online news coverage, blogs and opinion pieces can be used to sway opinion.

I would also be building a campaign microsite designed to explain the policies in simple, easy-to-understand bullet points, as well as showcasing the positives of previous initiatives, backed by facts and figures that are integrated with social sharing capability. Too much of their previous campaigns have centred upon “push” digital marketing, where official channels bombard users (and in most cases, users who are already on their side anyway) with campaign material. The switch in digital and social needs to be to “pull” in voters who are still undecided or could be swayed with the use of targeted advertising. Search Engine ads could then also be targeted to Google search terms like “carbon tax”, “nbn” and “tony abbott” to redirect users to relevant pages on that microsite to “explain the facts.”

On the attack front, I’d be hitting the angle that (statistically) most Australians already agree with, that Tony Abbott is too negative. High-jacking the search term on Google would be a good place to start, but for more mass market appeal I’d run a 30 second TV ad that cuts together a montage of Abbott saying “no” about 15 times, before finishing with “Can you trust Abbott to be positive about Australia’s future?” before one final Abbott “no.”

I’d back this up with pages on the microsite dedicated to video snippets and exact quotes of his previous “gaffes.” Focus on what he’s done since becoming leader of the opposition, and more pertinently, what he’s done since the last election.

In a direct lesson from the recent US political campaign I’d also be developing a series of micro-targeted social media, phone and digital lists to hit particular demographics. Small business owners or regional Australians should be targeted with the benefits of the NBN to them, overseas-born Australians reminded of the Coalition’s aggressive asylum policy, first-time voters reminded of positivity over negativity, etc. These lists should be extensive and built through social media channels, remarketing lists, online petitions and phone polling.

It’s also important what I wouldn’t focus on. Proactive, mass-targeted ads around the carbon tax or refugees would be a mistake, leave that to subtle education tactics. I’d also steer away from Abbott’s past or his position switches on big issues. Both of these would invoke more negative responses than positives, and would reignite the “union slush fund” debate and broken promise of “no carbon tax.” A bad area to venture into.

I’d also let Kevin Rudd do his thing. His “national” campaign for the local seat of Griffith may actually help win some surrounding seats in QLD, and he can run off the QLD Premier’s fading popularity. Let him run.

The Coalition Marketing Campaign

Firstly, I like what Abbott has done since the announcement of the election date. He’s been on TV and radio with his sleeves rolled up, walking around the stage with a microphone, and looking very much the “statesman” in what is an obvious attempt to mirror US-style political tactics. He’s making himself look like a real leader. I’d be keeping that up.

I think the key to a Coalition victory is to ensure that there is enough of a sentiment of “bad Government” with Labor, whilst positioning the Coalition as a proactive and ultimately positive force for Australia.

I would immediately be cutting back the negativity. If they persevere with an eight-month “bash the Government” campaign it will play into Labor’s hands of painting Abbott as too negative. It will also become old, fast. Message fatigue will set in, and in eight months, support could actually swing against them. Beasley tried and failed at that twice, as did Mark Latham. When Rudd did win, he did it with a largely positive campaign.

The recent QLD state elections saw a largely negative “bash the Government” campaign, which resulted in a landslide victory to the LNP, but since then support for the Premier has fallen. For one, this was a much shorter campaign though, only four weeks in total (it appears that lesson was picked up on by Federal Labor). The other key thing to note is that Newman led Bligh in all the preferred Premier polls leading up to Election Day. Abbott does not have that luxury, despite overall his party having a decent lead.

They need to remind the Australian voters of their “bad Government” stance, and focus on the broken promises of the carbon tax, as well as the failed policies of the last two terms. Again, I’d advocate a microsite for that. Like with the Labor campaign, they also need to focus on their proactive policies as well, and what they will do for the economy, jobs and the “average Australian.” Like with the Labor campaign, I’d be supporting this with social media integration and contextually targeted display ads.

The economy is an area where they have a huge opportunity, because despite Australia’s economic position being the envy of the Western World, general sentiment in Australia doesn’t seem to be overly aware of that. Counter the Labor line that Australia’s economy is strong and growing by painting them as “out of touch” and not realising that whilst top line numbers look good, there are still middle-income families who are hurting as a result of business downturns in many sectors and job cuts. In other words, target one of Labor’s strongest demographics with a niche-targeted attack campaign.

This leads to the same recommendation for the Coalition’s campaign in regards to highly-segmented lists of voters. Given the early signs that the Coalition may be borrowing some tactics from the US election, they could already be preparing something like this. Independent thinkers reminded of the union influence within Labor, middle-income families disgruntled with the carbon tax, etc. These lists go on.

One thing I would change is this focus on “trust.” In a borrowed line from Howard’s 2004 election, Abbott has taken to asking “who do you trust to run the country?” The problem I have with this is that “trust” typically favours the incumbent, as it’s a case of “better the devil you know, than the one you don’t.” Howard was the incumbent in 2004. It worked. Abbott is not, and his personal approval rating suggests that voters don’t trust him already. Reminding them of that doesn’t seem wise.

On the attack front, the background to many of Labor’s MPs should come under attack. In particular, some subtle reminders of the union slush fund allegations wouldn’t hurt. Even though Abbott’s background isn’t super-clean, he will probably come out better in the wash on a direct comparison in the eyes of most voters. The broken promises of the Labor Government and the inner turmoil with Rudd should also be hit.

The Rudd-Turnbull “fantasy election” is also one that works in the Coalition’s favour. They have the luxury of being able to use Turnbull in a way that Labor can’t use Rudd. I’d have Turnbull appearing in many posters, TV ads, websites, etc, ensuring his face is prominent. Having it seem like the more popular Turnbull is “second in command” will likely help improve Abbott’s personal approval. Back this up in online display advertising, and ensure the Turnbull social media team are well equipped. It may also help sway voters who are concerned about the issue of the NBN.

The Final Word

Overall, both sides need to improve their messaging from the last election. An undifferentiated campaign led to an undecided Australia, which resulted in a minority Government decided by a handful of Independents. Neither side of politics wants that again.

More integrated digital campaigns, focused on building robust and segmented marketing lists will be key to ensuring the right message gets to the right people at the right time. An individual is typically not going to agree with every single policy or position from either side, so the key is to make sure the message that resonates most is the one they see the most.

Online marketing and integrating offline campaigns with digital allows a campaign of exactly that nature to develop, and I believe has the power to win this election for either side.

Let’s see what happens!

If you would take a different marketing approach from those detailed above, please leave a comment below so we can discuss!

The post The 2013 Australian Federal Election: A Marketing Preview appeared first on .

So you’ve set your Facebook strategy live and now you’re trying to report back on the S.M.A.R.T objectives you’ve set for your business. If you’re anything like me you could spend three weeks analysing one day worth of data and still be able to find further insights after that!

If you don’t have that kind of time, see below for my top 5 Facebook insights you should make time to track…

1. Page posts insights

Page post insights are a great way to measure the success of your content and community management strategy. Facebook charts the individual posts made to your page and provides insights around:

• The reach the post received i.e. the number of unique impressions the post has had (note, this is only tracked for up to 28 days)

• The number of people ‘talking about this’ i.e. the number of unique users who engaged with the post in some way which subsequently, created a story which may appear in their friends ‘Facebook ticker’. (Have you seen in your personal ticker.. “Kate Cook likes Reload Media’s photo” No – because you’re probably not my Facebook friend, but you see where I’m going…)

• The virality of the individual post i.e. simply the percentage of users who have engaged with the post out of the total number of unique impressions (talking about this divided by the reach)

• The engaged users i.e. the number of total users who have engaged with the post in some way, with a breakdown of how they engaged with the post and what feedback they gave (if any). This is what we’re most concerned with.

So what do you do with this data? You can monitor how many users have given negative feedback and on which kinds of posts. Ask yourself:

• Are there any similarities between posts where users gave negative feedback?
• Are there any similarities between posts where users gave positive feedback?

You’ll slowly build yourself a winning recipe for community management and content creation based on what your target audience wants to hear and and how they like to engage with you.

2. Percentage difference in audience demographic & geographic data

• Facebook gives a running total of the specific countries and cities your audience comes from. In order to track the percentage increases in this data, I’d recommend simply doing a little Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V into a spreadsheet you can refer back to.

• Make sure to include the date you obtained the data so you can keep track of your running total!

3. Spikes in page views

Just as you would add annotations to your Google Analytics account for spikes in traffic, make sure you do the same (in a spreadsheet or anecdotally) for Facebook.

Ask yourself what other marketing activity you were running that helped to achieve this spike in total/unique visits. Did you:

• Send an eDM out to your database?
• Send an SMS linking to your Facebook page?
• Run a TVC campaign that had a secondary Facebook call to action?
• Have QR codes and vanity URLs on your POS?

Facebook will also, where possible, track the source that your visits came from.

4. Unique users by frequency

• This metric, displays the number of unique users who viewed content produced by the page within the specified time period.

• Although we aren’t able to see the specific posts that received a number of unique user engagement, we are able to track overall return visit rates and thus, how many users within the audience are truly engaged with your brand.

• Track the number of users who viewed content more than 5 times in a month and try to increase this number in the following month through analysing the content that was produced and the engagement rates achieved (refer back to point 1).

5. Pages who ‘like’ you

This feature allows you to see which businesses or brands are endorsing your page on Facebook.

• Not only should you return the favour if the brand is relevant to your industry (social media etiquette) but keep your eyes peeled for any cross promotion opportunities.

• One of the easiest ways to gain relevant and specific followers to your page is to cross promote with pages whose existing audience is likely to be interested in your pages content.

Now that you have an idea of how your strategy is going, you can look to employ tactics to shake things up if you need to, or even just ensure you’re still on track with reaching your goals.

The next step is to start tracking against your competitors! But that’s a blog post for another day…

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Since then, we’ve seen Facebook wiped off 50% of its IPO value, Zynga struggle and Twitter and LinkedIn battle to find significant revenue streams.

What this has led to is all the social platforms attempting to find new ways to boost revenues. Facebook’s promoted posts and mobile ads, Twitter’s sponsored tweets, the list goes on.

However, up until now this has mainly been an increase in the proliferation of ads, an understandable move considering we get to use their products for free and something that most users have come to expect.

Over the last few months, however, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend amongst many social media platforms with some of the changes they’ve been making to their products above and beyond simply adding more ads.

Many of these changes, or “improvements,” have been at odds with what users have actually been asking for, and, are actually damaging the user experience in the quest for revenues.

The updates to Instagram’s terms of use is perhaps the most public of these changes in recent times but isn’t actually the most surprising.

Instagram’s other recent decision, to stop photo previews appearing in Twitter feeds, is possibly more damaging to its long-term user base. Twitter was where Instagram made its name and ignoring those users is likely to lead to significant drop-off.

Also take Facebook, which responded to the threat of Google+’s circles feature by rolling out “lists,” including some default lists like ‘Close Friends’ and ‘Acquaintances.’

What I’ve begun to notice in recent times is that even though some people have been added to my ‘Close Friends’ list, their updates aren’t showing up in the news feed, despite getting the notification alert.

In short, it appears Facebook’s news feed algorithm is overruling my (the user’s) preferences over what info they want to see.

What was interesting was that when using an aggregation tool such as Flipboard, all the updates were visible again.

Just this week LinkedIn removed some of the filtering options for a user’s stream (like filtering by coworkers – EDIT: this has now been reversed), meaning what shows is left to LinkedIn’s news algorithm, further taking control away from the user.

What all of these changes have in common is that they are designed to increase ad revenues by making ads more prominent, by rendering unpaid content harder to find or by driving users toward a path that forces them to use the service in a way they’d prefer not to.

Whilst these current changes may seem small, they represent the first steps away from what users want in their social media product, a dangerous trend for any business.

At the moment, only one social network appears to be going the other way, Google+, which is constantly rolling out new features.

The beauty of the Google+ model is that they won’t have to put ads on that network if they don’t want to (as a side note I think they eventually will). They make their revenues by targeting advertising to your interests across all their other platforms. Google+ can simply act as the means to gather that info.

The question becomes, if social media sites continue to make changes that users don’t want, how long can they expect to maintain their user base before another alternative takes them away?

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