Article that suggest what we all already know – Social Media plays an important role in driving users to our owned sites. However, it is unclear how much traffic can be attributed to social media. It becomes even more difficult to attribute sales or acquisition data to social media.

Anyone has any good methodology?

Search the word “Slanted” in Google Mobile and the resulting search page will be tilted slightly. This works also in all languages.

2 key take away:

1. Opportunity – the best time to get something done is when one is young

2. 3 years – usually the time it takes to either make a success of what is being done or to make a mess and forget about it.

Will be keeping and open mind to see what unique opportunities present themselves.

Not to be deterred by the growing influence of Facebook due to extensive social graph it creates with the “Like” button, Google has recently launched it’s owned version of a recommendation engine.

This is interesting because Google’s recommendation engine is not merely for sharing with friends on a single SNS, but it becomes an open platform for consumers to share recommendations which shows up in a search engine results page (SERP). Search by itself is already a powerful tool, because of the relevancy of the results in relation to the search keywords. However, these are all based on Google’s perspective of what is relevant. Moving forward, search results will be taking a greater leap of relevancy – by using users’ recommendations.

Consider SEO friendly sites, that optimize for the sole purpose of getting consumers to click through to their site in hope of driving huge amounts of traffic. Relevancy is only on the surface, and consumers usually do not get what they are looking for. Now, useful sites will get the thumbs up from users, in turn giving the search algorithm a signal that this site is found useful by many users. This would really help to surface and uncover many hidden gems that have possibly so far been buried in SERP due to poor SEO.

Looking forward to seeing how this will play out in the future.

Thanks to s8web for sharing on weibo: http://t.sina.com.cn/1646417027/zF4kBLtasn

An awesome use of digital to interact with users in a very traditional Out-of-home (OOH) environment. A very simple idea that had been executed brilliantly to earned the interest and mindspace of the audience.

When I saw this video, it reminded me of the time when my team had proposed to a client to have 3D projections of people to interact with audiences in an open space. I realized how wrong we were now. It is not about using the best technology or imagining sci-fi kind of technology to deliver the wow factor. In fact, today’s technology is sufficient to create loads of meaningful and interesting engagement with the consumers.

Digital as you know it, should not be merely called digital. Hence, I emphasized again why I believe Interactive Marketing is the true essence of the entire industry.

My answer is yes it can be done, and that it is not as difficult as it seems. The key is to have all the stakeholders agree on the final business objectives and to adhere to 3 very fundamental principles.

1. Stay true to the brand

What ever brand you are, you will have a beginning, a history, a culture, a philosophy, a vision that represents who you are and where you are headed. This cannot and should never change as you expand into new markets and target new audiences. The values of the brand are fundamental to everything a brand should do. It should guide your marketing, your communications, your product strategy, etc.

Global brands are also usually well respected by consumers, especially if these brands have already had a proven track record overseas. When launching such a brand into China, there would already be a pent up enthusiasm that builds up that comes from having the brand feel so near (you can read about it online) but yet so far (because it is not physically in stores yet). Leveraging this energy well to create awareness for your brand.

Another reason to stay true to your brand is that consumers can “smell a rat” from far away. If a brand drifts away from the true brand values, consumers are usually the first to sniff it out and they will be up in arms over the issue. Think how consumers became upset over the new Gap logo.

2. Speak with a local voice

There are 2 ways to ensure that you are local enough. 1st make sure that you know where your consumers are and you can speak to them on their terms and playing field. This could mean getting your brand into the various social media platforms that are available. For example in China, go onto Renren to talk to undergraduates, go onto Kaixin001 to talk to white collar executives (mostly females), go onto Sina Weibo to talk to young and trendy crowd, go onto QQ to talk to tier 2 & 3 consumers. There is a whole myriad of partner choices in China to partner with, so it is really important to identify who your TAs are and where their digital “homes” are and speak to them there.

2nd, you should also consider leveraging local influencer (online editors, opinion leaders, celebrities, etc) to tell your brand story. A caveat to this is to ensure that your influencer must be someone with actual influence (whether digital or in the real world). No one pays attention to “plain jane”, but everyone will be interested in what “celebrity xxx” has done.

Now that you have selected who will be your voice, prepare the what you are going to say and make sure that it’s told in the most compelling and authentic manner, to ensure that both the brand values and the local authenticity comes across.

3. Live up to your brand promise

All that talk is good but eventually it is about fulfilling something that the consumers need. Ensure that your brand lives up to it’s promise and deliver against the users expectations.

Basically, these are the 3 key areas I believe would make a brand successfully relevant in a local market. Do share your thoughts.

My point today is that there really isn’t a perfect formula for determining how you should split your budget between offline and digital.

1. It varies with your brand and your target audience – ask, ask, ask

Depending on who you are, and who your consumers are, how you split your marketing budget will vary. For example, you were a purely online business, you might decide to invest more heavily in digital to drive immediate sales. On the other hand, if your target audience were the baby boomers (born in the 1950s), you might consider investing more in traditional offline media to ensure that your message will be noticed and read by your consumers.

The best way to really know how is to conduct on-going research about your consumers and truly understand their needs, motivations, habits and behaviours.

2. It changes rapidly – test, test, test

Today’s marketing world is a fast changing landscape, what is popular today maybe gone in a couple of weeks. Long term planning, while good, might not be as efficient and effective as it was long before digital media came onto the scene. You should never set your plan into stone for long periods of time. Instead, create nimble teams that can react quickly to market changes.

Always test your plan. Ensure that every plan that you execute, has measurable results that can inform the next marketing decision that you make.

Finally, the industry is still very young and many of the veterans are also constantly being challenge with new shifts in technology that enables a whole new breed to media, digital executions and user experience. There is nothing else we can do, but constantly conduct informed tests.