Pioneers’ Questions

Great idea Katherine, I am happy to contribute content and consultancy around any areas of digital marketing. Please let me know what you need!

Privacy is a major topic at the moment with Facebook taking centre stage as always. Yet people may not know that these issues also apply to Twitter as well.

Did you know that if you delete any tweet it has to be removed by anyone that is showing it? That goes for any third party page, twitter client or application that filters tweets and is meant to maintain your stream across all platforms, but not all platforms have been adhering to the policy.

Its always wise to Google yourself from time to time as some things you may think have been deleted are being held on another site or in a cache (stored content) somewhere online.

Barry

Hi Katherine,

That is a very broad question, and I would agree with Barry in certain respects, but the issue of privacy is a question more legislative, directed toward the social providers than businesses – certainly at the level at which most if the Pioneers will be working at.

The question that I get asked the most by Pioneers within this network and from the Digital Buying process seminar I ran at VM London in October, is more focussed on how they gain visibility within the convoluted digital marketplace, and how do they assess the value of digital marketing activities they invest in.

Most start-ups and SMEs do not have resources to apply a blanket strategy across all mediums, so it is essential to identify which ones are relevant for engagement with their prospects and customers.

The answer lies within a solid digital strategy based on engaging your customers at certain points within their buying process. This is unique to every market and company, I have a series of posts running on this issue:

http://blog.hpgroupseo.co.uk/the-digital-buying-process-an-sme-introduction/4563864
http://blog.hpgroupseo.co.uk/the-digital-buying-process-human-face-of-digital/4563962

This series was based on the VM Pioneers seminar and my experience working within SMEs. It is designed to provide context to the marketplace, so Pioneers can see which are the relevant areas to invest.

The privacy issue is a massive one, and is currently impacting on various areas of digital marketing, such as Google’s ‘safer search’ policy impacting on Analytics data:

http://blog.hpgroupseo.co.uk/google-introduces-safer-search-with-ssl/4562983

However if I were to highlight a hot topic across the board, it would be ROI within digital marketing, and for SMEs it would be building a digital strategy.

Just to jump in here Katherine:

I think it is also massively important to highlight that ROI also refers to the time that you put in. This is often overlooked, time resource is potentially the most valuable resource there is, and is often the most underrated.

I know from face time with Pioneers that many of you are working with microbudgets or nonexistent ones, but don’t forget to measure time as a vital resource, then use this as benchmark to measure ROI.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts, feelings and feedback.

You are touching on an issue which does not currently have an answer, ROI/measurability is a BIG question at the cutting edge of the industry. There are countless tools out there to measure social engagement, if you are not careful you can ‘measure’ yourself into oblivion.

This is where my series on the digital buying process is designed to give context, as your measurement needs to be related to your objectives within a strategy.

If your objective is to grow membership, then a social based referral strategy is a cost-effective way of doing this. If your objective is engagement to existing membership, then volume of activity is your currency.

Ensure that measurability is directly related to your business. So if you are website-centric [I strongly believe "I MUST HAVE A WEBSITE" is one of the most common misconceptions - but don't tell my MD :)] then use web analytics. Google Analytics is free and massively insightful. From here you can track the impact of your social campaign due to new features such as the Flow Visualisation feature which allows you to nail down traffic sources and the behaviour within the website:

http://blog.hpgroupseo.co.uk/google-releases-flow-visualisation-for-google-analytics/4562992

If you do not have a website [don't panic as not all business need one *updates CV*] then you need to set different performance indicators, such as mentions, shares, most importantly, ask your clients/customers. Keep records of the path to sale, keep what works and do it more!

This is a great question Yakes! Off the top of my head I would say that social media would be your best friend here, but your theatre company may be targeting a broader audience. What sort of productions do you typically show at the moment?

Better synopsis:
Deep in the Nigerian rainforest lies the mythical kingdom of Edem. Where locals say, in the beginning two humans once lived but were banished. The Creator seeing how gracious the trees were decided not to destroy the Earth but to make his trees in his own image, They begged for forgiveness but the Creator declined Adam in anger but took pity on Eve. The Creator offered Eve and alternative. Sacrifice her humanity and become one with the world of Edem or follow Adam to eternal exile. Eve chose to re-enter the Kingdom and so became Emem – mother earth. And so the world of Edem was created with Edem being the natural source to life on earth. However this world is in grave danger, as the oils spills are destroying its very infrastructure. The prophecy of the Son of Adam returning to save the kingdom comes to light as Andrew; the son of an oil rig owner get lost in the rainforest and finds his way at Edem’s doorstep. As the oils destruction spreads Andrew accepts his calling and has to return to earth and to stop the drilling.