[lohith1509-blog]

Food Love 2.0 - Feeding Zomato Back

So as part of my usual routine,the first thing I do in the morning after logging on to Facebook is look at some quirky content that will give me just the start I need to kick start the day and guess what caught my attention - The latest campaign that Zomato has started - the images about people's preferences first and then a foodie's take on the movies - Zimply awesome!

Food is something I have always loved and I love visiting cafes too. So when I downloaded the app and started using it, voila I was on cloud number 9.You ask why? Cos the app helps me search & visit the best cafes around town and upload pictures (flaunt it off) and share all the food love to a whole community of Food lovers! Now that's LEGEN .... wait for it DARYYYYYYYYYY....And I get a foodgasm ;) 

Since my wife and I are both foodies we wait to explore some awesome places every weekend so that we can write more reviews and climb up that leader board ;) I was super excited to write feedback about the app that I use the most (Yeah, I use this more than Flipkart and almost close to Facebook).

What made me fall in love again (the first obviously is my wife :) ) with Zomato

- The Collections section

Its an awesome feature which greets a user when you browse the mobile app. The collections helps a user make easy decisions as it offers a wide variety of delectable options.

The images used on the collections as the representation of the particular type is very enticing.Job well done :)

- The search functionality

The search option helps you look for good food places around a particular area along with recommendations,reviews and ratings.

It helps you choose a place easily based on the sort of food you to want to eat (Continental,Chinese, Mexican etc.) along with the budget, ambiance etc.

- The Leader board

This is the part I love the most about this app - the leader board. It is definitely a feel good factor as you see yourself rising through the levels by writing reviews of places you visit and posting pictures. Lovely use of the gamification concept.

What Zomato can consider to spice up our affair (my suggestions)

1) Can there be a filter where we search by sodexo/coupons?

A lot of us use sodexo coupons to have lunch outside office and more often than not we check with the restaurant by asking them if they accept sodexo or not.

What if we could help people with this filter so that they use this to shortlist good food places that accept sodexo and use it at cafes they frequent. Saves times and its super handy!

2) Suggestions can be better on the mobile application.

Now lets say - I am searching for restaurants around "Church Street Bangalore " , then about 20 pop up and then I click on "Coconut grove" and I see its rating along with reviews by people who have visited the place.

If I am not impressed by the place, I need to go back all the way to the page where all the restaurants in Church Street are listed to select a different option. Instead, what it we can see suggestions right there saying "you may also like these restaurants" so that its easy for the user.

3) Can we suggest places to visit for a user while he is searching for a restaurant in a certain area? Probably a place that his friend had visited in the same area? (Your Friend X just tried this place, would you like to try it too?) *Since a user logs in using his Facebook account , we can also get access to his check-ins right?)

We all want to flaunt off the place we dined and ate that yummy dessert right? What if there are pop ups to my friends on Zomato which says something like this " He has been here and has rated it, would you want to try it as well? In this way we socially share a persons restaurant visit to his/her friends so that they would love visiting it too. This would help me, see the places my friends on Facebook have visited and explore more options.

4) There's a new restaurant/cafe around the corner, Wanna check it out?

So while I am searching for a restaurant in let's say "Koramangala", could there be a pop up that prompts me to try the new restaurants which have just been opened around the vicinity? Zomato has all the data of the type of cafes/restaurants a person frequents, so by doing this interest based suggestions, there would be more visibility for a new place and to Zomato.

5 ) Goodies for foodies who visit and review new places.

On Zomato's endeavor of making the foodie community more awesome, can there be like a program where you pick people from the leader board and give them goodies to try out new places? By this program, foodies would feel more happy (sort of like unveiling it only for the privileged club) about trying out a new place and would love to be part of that special list.

6) Get some kick ass badges that we can flaunt socially.

Since people love posting reviews of places they visit and share photos of food, you should consider getting lovely badges which would let us flaunt the level of foodie we are. It can become like a cult tomorrow where people recognize each other with these badges that they can use on their own networks (Like for level 8 Super foodie - you could probably have a foodie in a superman cape ;) )

Phew! Was that list long? Now that's some proof that I spend too much time on Zomato :P. 

Cheers team.You guys rock!

P.S: While I head to Goa for a holiday this weekend, the first thing I do is look for the best places to eat on Zomato, but I don't see Goa on the list of cities.Let lightning strike me if I am seeing it wrong :P

[lohith1509-blog]

What's right for your business - A mobile app or a mobile website?

If you're strategy is to go mobile for your business one of the first things that will come to your mind is whether you want to create a mobile application or a mobile website, or perhaps both. Mobile websites and apps can look very similar at first-glance, while determining which is most suited to your needs will depend on factors like target audiences, available budget, intended purpose and required features to engage with your audience better. Isn’t it?

Before you evaluate the benefits of a mobile website and an app it’s important to understand the key differences between the two.Both apps and mobile websites are accessed on a handheld devices such as smartphones and tablets.

A mobile website is similar to a website as it consists of browser-based HTML pages linked together accessed over the internet and is designed for the smaller display and touch-screen interface.

Apps are downloaded and installed rather than being rendered within a browser. Users log on to device-specific portals such as Apple’s App Store, Google play store or Windows store to find and download apps of their choice.

So its an App or a Mobile Website?

When it comes to deciding whether to build a dedicated app or a mobile website, it depends on what your goals are - If you are developing an interactive game an app the best option and if your goal is to offer mobile-friendly content then a mobile website is probably the best way to go. In some cases you may decide you need both a mobile website and a mobile app, but it’s pretty safe to say that it rarely makes sense to build an app without already having a mobile website in place. A mobile website is considered your first step in developing a mobile web presence, whereas an app is useful for a very specific purpose that cannot be effectively accomplished via a web browser.

Advantages of a Mobile Website

If your business goals are related to marketing or distribution of information, then a mobile website makes sense due to broader accessibility, compatibility and cost-effectiveness.

A mobile website is instantly accessible through a browser while apps require the user to install them before the content can be viewed - a significant barrier between engagement and conversion.

A mobile website helps change the design or content easily while updating an app on the other hand requires the updates to be pushed to users according to each type of device.

Because a mobile website is accessible across platforms and can be easily shared among users, as well as search engines, it has far greater reach capability than an app.

Advantages of an app

Although there are many inherent benefits of a mobile website, dedicated mobile apps are still very popular as there are a many of specific scenarios where an app will be your best choice.

If you need to provide offline access to some awesome content or perform functions without a network/wireless connection then an app would be your best bet.

An app would also be perfect if you want to create some engagement with your consumers via interactive games which helps them compete against one another.

If your users are going to be using your app in a personalized fashion on a regular basis like EverNote or Zomato ,then an app provides a great way to do that.

In case you need some help in crunching data and allow you to manipulate it with complex calculations, charts or reports an app will help you do that very effectively.

The Final Countdown

Since mobile is the first thing people resort to in today’s super paced world, the “app vs web” question will remain a very real consideration for organizations seeking to establish a mobile presence.

If your mobile goals are primarily marketing-driven, or if your aim is to deliver content and establish a broad mobile presence that can be easily shared between users and found on search engines, then the a mobile website is the logical choice.

On the other hand, if your goal is interactive engagement with users, or to provide an application that needs to work more like a computer program than a website, then an app is probably going to be required.

[lohith1509-blog]

28 Inspirational Quotes By Marketers To Rock Your Content Marketing Efforts!

Inspirational quotes are considered powerful as they inspire you to do something or rather accomplish your goal. They stick around in our thoughts and also filter them in a new light. Quotes always teach us new things, remind us of what’s important, motivate us to keep going, and spark new ideas.

Content marketing has been the new buzzword in the digital space since the past few years and all companies are gearing up to it to stay ahead of the game.In principle my definition of content marketing is as simple as this - " Creating content/answers for all the questions that your customers are searching for online about your industry and your product". These answers should be in a way that your customers can easily consume so that it would benefit them and help them make their buying decisions easier by making them more cognizant.

Here's a list of Content marketing quotes from the experts to inspire and motivate you to create amazing content for your audience .

1) " Content is the reason search began in the first place." ~ Lee Odden, TopRank Marketing

2) "Make the prospect a more informed buyer with content."~ Robert Simon, Four Seasons Hotels

3) "Content isn't King, it's the Kingdom."~ Lee Odden, TopRank Marketing

4) "Content is anything that adds value to the reader's life." ~ Avinash Kaushik, Google.

5) "Your goal should be to own quality time in your customer's inbox." ~ Drew Davis, Brandscaping.

6) "Content marketing is all about telling a compelling story." ~ Joe Pulizzi, Content Marketing Institute

7) " Create content that satisfies your uber goals and desires." ~ Tom Webster, Edison Research.

8) "Branded content is created for a company. A content brand is created for a valuable company." ~ Drew Davis, Brandscaping.

9) "Create content that reaches your audience's audience." ~  Ann Handley, MarketingProfs.

10) "Good content is not storytelling. It's telling your story well."  ~ Ann Handley, MarketingProfs.

11) “By creating and publishing remarkable content in the form that educates, informs, inspires and entertains, marketers can begin to build relationships with prospects early on in the buying cycle. This fundamental shift is changing the mantra from ‘Always be Closing’ to ‘Always be Helping.’” ~  Jonathon Lister, LinkedIn.

12) “Do not address your readers as though they were gathered together in a stadium. When people read your copy, they are alone. Pretend you are writing to each of them a letter on behalf of your client.” ~ David Ogilvy, Ogilvy & Mather.

13) “You don’t have to reinvent the wheel; you just need to share your unique perspective on why the wheel is important.” ~ Jon Ball, Page One Power.

14) “Here’s everything you need to know about creating killer content in 3 simple words: Clear. Concise. Compelling.” ~ Demian Farnworth, Copyblogger.

15) “Traditional marketing talks at people. Content marketing talks with them.” ~ Doug Kessler, Velocity Partners.

16) “A great headline mixed with a lame opening is like inviting someone into your house, only to slam the door in their face as they approach.” ~  Brian Clark.

17) “Stop Writing about Everything. So many brands create content and try to cover everything, instead of focusing on the core niche that they can position themselves as an expert around. No one cares about your special recipe… Find your niche, and then go even more niche” ~ Joe Pulizzi.

18) "These days, people want to learn before they buy, be educated instead of pitched” ~ Brian Clark, Copyblogger.

19)“Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue” ~ Andrew Davis.

20) “The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing ” – Tom Fishburne.

21) "Traditional marketing and advertising is telling the world you’re a rock star. Content Marketing is showing the world that you are one ” ~  Robert Rose.

22) "Content marketing is a commitment, not a campaign." ~ John Buscall.

23) "Great content is the best sales tool in the world." ~ Marcus Sheridan.

24) “The bottom line is that there is only one true branding mechanism online and that’s content marketing.”~ Gilad de Vries.

25) “You have to empathize with your target audience in three ways: how they discover information, their preferences for consumption which drills down to channels, devices and content — and what motivates them to take action.” ~ Lee Odden, TopRank Marketing.

26) "Content marketing is more than a buzzword. It is the hottest trend in marketing because it is the biggest gap between what buyers want and brands produce.” ~ Micheal Brenner, SAP.

27) “Modern day marketers should focus on understanding their customers, what topics are relevant to guide sales and leverage keyword research into an editorial plan and social media engagement program." ~ Lee Odden, TopRank Marketing.

28)“Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue.” ~ Andrew Davis.

Do you have more inspiring quotes to share? lease share them and I would love to add them to this list.

[lohith1509-blog]

How To Create A Mobile Content Marketing Strategy To Stay Ahead Of The Game!

People today have been spending more time on their mobiles Mobile internet usage is projected to overtake desktop internet usage by 2014. Successful mobile marketing is all about context.  A study by Nielsen and Google found that “in the moment” searches are by far the most popular with 85% of smartphone users looking for local information and 81% following up to take action.

But what kind of content makes sense on a mobile device vs. the content marketing being published online? What effect does mobile content have on creating compelling customer experiences and how does mobile fit with other online marketing efforts like SEO, social and ads?

Indeed, the 93 percent of B2B marketers who create content (as indicated by CMI’s most recent research) should mobile-optimize their content marketing strategy in order to extend the time visitors spend engaging with their content, and convert more of those mobile visitors into customers.

Here’s 5 steps to Create a mobile content marketing strategy

1. Focus on localized content

Most mobile consumers search on the go. A Nielsen study suggests that 40 percent of all mobile searches were performed with a local intent — and this number is still on the rise.

So how do you discover what your consumers are searching for locally?

One easy method is to use Google Trends .Google Trends lets you research local search trends by geographical area. Simply enter the search terms you are looking to target in your content efforts and choose a geographical location to get some valuable competitive performance insight.

For example, let’s research two possible keyword terms — ”mobile marketing” and “online marketing” — and choose United States as our region of interest. The above trends results show that if you are targeting customers in New Jersey, it may be more impactful for you to use the term “mobile marketing” in your content, while if your company is planning to cater to customers from Utah, then creating content about “online marketing” might bring you more success. Insight like this can be highly advantageous, as localized keywords are less competitive than the global ones.You can even configure Google Alerts to send you regular updates on regionally trending topics that might serve as inspiration for new content topics.Visiting online groups on LinkedIn and following Twitter accounts of local organizations are also excellent ways of getting local information to inform your mobile content marketing strategy.

2) Understand mobile search intent

Mobile search intent is entirely different compared to desktop search. Mobile content should be based on a deeper understanding of the mobile context of the user and his or her behavior while on those devices.Google Analytics can help you find the exact keywords your mobile visitors use to find your site.

On your Google Analytics account ,Go to Audience > Mobile > Overview and add a filter to include mobile keywords (including tablets).

This will give you a list of keywords used by both mobile and tablet users while searching for your website. Using these keywords can make your mobile content more relevant to your target audience.

 3. Leverage video marketing

According to another Nielsen study, 28 percent of online consumers watch video on their mobile devices at least once a day, making videos the most used content format on this channel.

Content marketers have more options than ever for creating video content — including producing short videos on Vine and Instagram — to make sure their messages are catering to the short attention span of mobile consumers.

On a side note, make sure you are choosing relevant hashtags for your videos on Vine, as these tags will help viewers find your content and join conversations on Twitter. Vine also helps drive social signals that will result in better search rankings on Google.

4. Define mobile conversion points

Signing up for a newsletter or downloading a white paper are both desirable conversions for content marketers. But mobile devices aren’t naturally suited to these tasks, as they generally involve web forms that may be difficult to view or fill out on smaller screens.

For this reason (and others), it’s best to carefully define your conversion goals as part of your mobile content marketing strategy, and design your brand touch points accordingly.

5. Be touch friendly

In the absence of a cursor, clicking on an exact element on a smartphone screen can often become difficult. Users can become frustrated if links are too close together to accurately select the link they intend — and this frustration means they are more likely to stop reading your content.

Designing best practices for mobile content requires increased space between different touch targets within your content. This makes it easier for your users to tap on your calls to action and links to your additional content, to your social media outlets, or to your website.When designing your content and landing pages, follow guidelines provided by different mobile platforms to decide on the size of the touch targets you should use. 

Since smartphones have changed the way we read and search for content,a mobile content marketing strategy ensures that we stay ahead of the game.

[lohith1509-blog]

Comparing The New Facebook App Paper To Flipboard

As we all remember since our childhood days a few decades ago it was the battle of who was going to deliver the fastest news so that they could capture all the eye balls around the internet looking for news and updates around latest happenings .Then it became of a battle of how news can be made easily available through technology enabled apps to stay updated with real time information leading to adding RSS feeds to alert people on information posted.                                

As times changed, then came the mobile outburst where people wanted to stay updated on the latest news in a manner where consumption of information became easier giving rise to news aggregator sites like Google reader which eventually shut down and Pulse which was sold to LinkedIn.

                            Finally we have applications that we use today like Flipboard, Zite, Google news etc to read our day to day important news making consumption easier at our finger tips.

If we look at this pattern closely, we can clearly understand that today everybody doesn’t want to read everything around the web and people don’t want to read something which is outside their sphere of interest and waste time.

Agree with me?

Today the world is moving towards a more personalized and interest centric approach which mobile applications are enabling efficiently and what makes these apps different than any specific newspaper’s specific app is that they present stories from a range of sources giving you the best from all the sources.

A few weeks ago, Facebook unveiled its own reader app – Paper to broaden its mobile offerings and make information curation easier and consumption simpler. The app mixes curated news feeds with an individual’s Facebook timeline to create a platform that integrates news discovery and sharing into your timeline.

Paper is more than a simple news reader, noting that the first thing a user sees when they load the app is the News Feed while they can share, “Like,” and comment on stories. The app is aiming at connecting people through common interests and telling people about what stories they need to pay attention to by increasing interaction among them. Simply put Paper is an application which works with a content curation approach.

                                  Flipboard on the other hand pulls out photos from various sources to display a highly visual reading experience and with channels arranged by topics like “News” and “Technology.” Flipboard goes further into making the experience very personal by allowing you to create your own channels on topics, or from news sources or even from your friends on Facebook or Twitter.

The app shows up headlines and photos tempered by what your friends are sharing on social networks, and the sources of news you’ve previously favored and interacted in the past. Unlike Paper, Flipboard works on a content aggregation approach and with its customized RSS, topic-based feeds and themed magazines, places importance on personalization first, discovery second.

Comparing Flipboard and Paper

Paper puts news discovery first and personalization second while telling users what stories they should pay attention to while Flipboard puts personalization first and discovery second .

Paper limits your news feeds section to 10 when compared to unlimited news feeds section offered by Flipboard which are well categorized.

Flipboard ultimately gives users most of the control by allowing them pick and choose the sources and topics they see while Paper controls the sources and automatically chooses which sections are of interest giving the user no control over which stories or sources they see.

Flipboard, users can pull in updates from a range of social media, including Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and LinkedIn, and share the news they find on any connected social network while Paper only integrates with Facebook and sharing is limited to your Facebook friends.

Flipboard is great as an aggregator to collect all the news you want to read from the sources you like and Paper is more of a Facebook app than a “news” app which is best suited for those looking to share and discover content with friends.

As the battle continues to make information more consumable and tailor made for the interests of each and every individual, we can easily conclude that today personalization is the buzzword everybody in the industry is striving hard to achieve for great success.

This article was first written for socialsamosa.com and was published here > http://www.socialsamosa.com/2014/02/comparing-facebook-paper-flipboard/

[lohith1509-blog]

2014 - The year Content marketing will rule the roost

                           So here we are, a new year, a new start and as marketers all of us want to do something more awesome to change our consumer’s behaviour. As a marketer, I have always believed we should make a change in the consumers’ consumption/usage of any product or service for the better. Agree with me on that? For me marketing is about how we can make the consumer get to the next stage of experience by making him feel the ride is worthwhile.

Let me cite an example, Apple changed the way mobile phones looked with great emphasis on user interface which made everybody change the way phones are to be designed. The other players in the market too followed the trend and today everybody wants to use smart phones which guarantees a great user experience. A game changer wasn’t it? Another example is of Starbucks coffee, they made Starbucks feel like a luxury from being just coffee which changed perception of them and today they are considered a status symbol. Get the drift?

               Now cutting the story short (damn I can keep on rambling), from the last year everybody’s been talking about content being king, queen and all that jazz that they can associate it with right? Content marketing was being done in silos and companies who adopted it have seen some amazing numbers in their marketing initiatives and saved a lot of costs. Some staggering statistics on content marketing that I have come across are;

-  78% of consumers believe that organizations providing custom content are interested in building good relationships.

-  61% of consumers say they feel better about a company that delivers custom content, they are also more likely to buy from that company.

- 79% of B2B marketers use content marketing to achieve brand awareness goals.

- The average cost to generate a lead through inbound marketing ($143) is about half the average for outbound marketing ($373).

- 91% of B2B marketers use content marketing while 86% of B2C marketers use content marketing.

-  Interesting content is one of the top 3 reasons people connect with brands on social media.

-  90% of consumers find custom content useful.

- 55% of B2C marketers plan to increase content marketing spend next year.

These sure are big numbers and by easily drawing a pattern from these statistics,you know that the future for every company is going to be content marketing. Agree with me?

What does 2014 hold in store for marketers?

Since content marketing is the future, we need to see how it ties into every activity on the digital space that marketers do to get those customers eye balls rolling and build an association with them. So this year content is going to be the centre of all the activities you would plan to do; from email marketing, to social media marketing to search marketing to branding – everything in the digital sphere is going to be around that magic word – “CONTENT”.

Content marketing is going to spearhead all the conversions as consumers of today & tomorrow would associate themselves with brands which help them make more informed, smarter decisions through valuable and trustworthy content.Consumers would only and only trust a brand if they have something useful to offer them to make their life easy and convenient. So the key as a brand is to identify what all types of content would you want to generate so that your consumers would want to use them.

How to create a rocking content marketing strategy

                Since 2013 emphasized that content marketing would lead to amazing results, everybody started creating different types of content which may or may not be useful for their consumers and then started using all types of tactics to get leads. Some of it worked and when some didn't, they started blaming the content team and the marketing team for not producing results. Isn't this true? (tell me if I am wrong here J ). Without understanding whom do you want to make the content for and what is the purpose of the content how can you generate results?

Here’s a list of elements you must first think about before making your content strategy and trust me this will make your content strategy rock.

1)      What is the purpose of the content you are writing?

Let’s say you are writing a blog post on a certain topic understand what is its primary goal – Is it for brand awareness or is it about thought leadership or is it about a product feature you want them to understand.

2)      Which stage of the buying cycle are you generating content?

If it’s for the research phase of the consumer which is after the awareness or the need recognition phase, they would be looking for more information on your product of service. Generate articles around giving the consumer all the information online that he would be looking for to make his decision.

3)      Who is the audience you would want to address?

Every brand has the target audience who they would want to address right among primary, secondary and tertiary right? Map the content you are generating to each of these audiences to make your content outcomes more sharp. This is when you build personas of the type of audiences you target which would contain their interests, occupations, likes, age group and their patterns of consuming information(for instance people in the age group of 25 – 40 read news on their mobiles on twitter, news sites) etc which would give you ways of distributing your content better.

4)      What are the different content themes which you can create content?

                             Content themes would be various themes using which you can create content around which would be around your brand and its associated elements. For instance if you have planned that one of your content themes would be around new technology updates – then you can have a plethora of topics ranging from mobile updates, new devices, software in the market etc which you can then map into what you want to do with them.

5) What type of content would you want to generate from the themes you created and which mediums would you publish it on?

                  As we took the example of new technology updates as a theme for content generation, now we see what all would we want to do with it – create blog articles, or create e books for lead generation, or create check lists or a few DIY kits, or create videos which we can send out as part of our email marketing , or create slides so that we could use slideshare for distributing information or you may even want to create like an infographic and use it for your social channels.

            Content marketing if done right can do wonders for any brand and help in generating wonderful leads and gaining good loyal trustworthy customers who would associate your brand to serve all their needs and would build amazing relationships.

[lohith1509-blog]

How Can Your Brand Leverage From an Influencer Marketing Program to Build Socially Engaging Brands?

The science behind social media marketing is the most misunderstood by a few businesses as it being considered as another sales tool for brands to gain higher leads and customers. I agree that the main motive of a business is to gain more customers and expand profits, but then let’s not make consumers claustrophobic with ads and messages which would have SELLING written all over it ,Right? Wouldn't we call it being pushy?

The word social means socializing with people and media is plural form of mediums. Simply put, social media would mean socializing with people with various mediums where they are already present. Let’s take a classic example, today when you meet a new bunch of people and are talking to them, you would make sure you touch upon topics about which everybody is interested in conversing and not keep jabbering just about you ,correct? If you keep only talking about yourself people would get bored and would term you as somebody who just keeps blowing their trumpet. No interaction, No fun, No engagement. Plain boring one way conversation (and they might be thinking this guy should have just sat at home). That’s not how we socialize correct?

The essence of socializing with people is you talk to people in a fun loving, entertaining way by giving them information they like to hear and make sure they talk to each other and you while making it an engaging experience. Correct? Take away number one – Don’t keep posting content because you have to – Understand what your audience wants, talk to them and them make your content strategy – that’s social media.

Let’s assume now that we understood what our audience’s likes and dislikes are, we create content they love and achieve a healthy engagement among them on our social properties, what’s next? We don’t want to keep doing the same things day in day out right – so we look at newer ways to engage with them by running contests, campaigns , events , meet ups , outreach programs etc.One such activity which brands should do is run an influencer marketing program.

As the name suggests you identify and develop relationships with key members of your brand, who would assist you in creating visibility and help you spread the word in their circles as well. Today on the social web, the major ways an influencer can have a big impact on your business are by either by writing an article or blog post about your brand or share your information on their personal social media accounts or they can allow you to write a guest post or article on their site.

Doing all these activities brands achieve phenomenal results. But why do they do it? Let’s say you have 500 followers on your Twitter account that shared some content resulting in about 4000 people seeing what they shared. This may also result in a few additional shares. Right? Now let’s consider the same audience being reached out through an influencer. Those 4000 people would be more responsive to the shared content because of the trust they have in the opinions of the influencer resulting in a lot more additional shares on your content and increasing reach. Agree with me? Now that’s the power of influencer marketing – they help in magnifying your reach across various networks through the power of social media.

Now that we understand the power of Influencers, How do run an influencer marketing campaign?

If you are thinking that planning your influencer marketing campaign is going to be a daunting task, don’t worry it actually isn’t that difficult. Simply get your answers for all these questions below and there you would be done with your first successful influencer marketing plan.

1) What do I want to achieve out of this program?

Identifying why and what do you want to achieve from this program is the penultimate question you would need to answer. Primarily influencer engagement programs are focused on increasing sales or gathering more market share, while secondary objectives may include improving brand reputation, driving thought leadership or raising brand awareness.

2) What is the purpose of identifying these Key Influencers or also called Key Opinion leaders (KOL’s) 

First thing you need to understand is that you are not trying to sell anything to your key influencers but rather engaging with them to tell them what your brand stands for using which their endorsement will in turn influence your key decision makers.

3) How do you plan on engaging your influencers? Chart an engagement strategy 

Once you have identified your key influencers, you need to tell them what we want them to do and for what duration. By providing them with this plan they would know what to do, how to do and for how long. These could be a gamut of activities like sharing content or sending them your product and asking them to write reviews or engaging in conversations with the audience either online of offline or simply host events in their vicinity.

4) How do we determine effectiveness? We measure using defined metrics 

Identify metrics which you would want to measure if the program was a success or a failure. You could use metrics like increase in reach, increase in website traffic, higher engagement rate or higher shares on content etc to determine effectiveness.(just eg’s). Using these steps you can chart out your own successful influencer marketing program for your brand creating amazing brand experiences for your audience and build a loyal list of customers for your brand.

Since the Key to influencer marketing is building relationships, start interacting with your audience to build a long lasting relationship with them by focusing on providing value to them. Share other people’s content also on your social pages and make them feel special. If you discover great content somebody new, the influencer you are trying to build your relationship with will be more interested than ever!

Build a relationship in such a way that they consciously know that your brand is there to help through anything they need. Earn that trust – once you have earned come what they may wouldn't leave you.

This article is written for the 4th article writing contest which is organized by http://marketingbloggers.in/ and was among the top entries for the contest posted under http://marketingbloggers.in/2013/12/15/8/.

[lohith1509-blog]

Everything you needed to know to run your first successful Blogger Outreach program

How can we increase our website traffic and engage with our audience via online channels apart from posting on social networking sites? Can we get user generated content easily and become more visible in the internet space by creating awareness among the audience and become part of their decision set? These are a few things online marketers would be thinking of day in day out on how to create more visibility for their brands in the internet space and appear in their customer’s mind while they look for any information regarding the industry they operate in. Agree with me?

Many organizations today use blogs to communicate with their audience by sharing their recent achievements, announcements about new products/services forthcoming's, industry news or build their brand reputation gradually to interact with customers effortlessly on an online portal.

Companies today also drive a lot of traffic using blogs to their web properties by using it as a powerful medium for distributing online information that their customers are looking for and would want to read, hence attending to their needs easily.What if we could run this as a program with blogging enthusiasts around the internet so that they would write about your product or service or a value proposition your company stands for and increase your reach to their clout as well. Sounds intriguing?

Now what’s a blogger outreach program?

 The objective of this program is to look for bloggers with similar interests (or blogs) and get them to engage with a particular brand and its products or services. Engagement with these bloggers could be activities like using your products and services and write a review to post on their site in exchange for goodies or invite all of them to a specific place to acquire significant feedback about your product.

Since these bloggers possess a highly passionate and loyal following who value the opinion of the person writing the blog, this could be amazing word of mouth marketing for your brand. Combining a social media element along with a contest or a campaign theme can also work wonders for a successful blogger outreach program.

Why should you have blogger outreach program?

                       Bloggers in today’s online world are very powerful influencers and are a very strong and well knit community. Hence, blogger outreach programs can benefit brands at increasing their visibility tremendously and increase awareness for a brand easily.

The main reasons we could cite for having a Blogger outreach program is that it is a great way to increase your website traffic, get legitimate reviews on your products or services, help in generating an online buzz around the brand and most importantly it helps build awareness to your brand.

Isn't it convincing enough? You are a tough nut to crack. Damn! Okay if you are still not convinced here are a few more reasons I have listed down.

1) Blogs are more trustworthy than advertising 

                  Consumers rank blogs as one of the five “most trustworthy” sources for information on the internet—above Twitter, Google+, and brand sites but just below news sites, Facebook, retail sites, and YouTube. When making purchase decisions, consumers rank blogs as the third most influential online source for information, just behind retail and brand sites.

81% of U.S. online consumers trust information and advice from blogs

  and 61% of U.S. online consumers have made a purchase based on recommendations from a blog.

2) Blogging increases site traffic 

                              When you will have a significantly large number of bloggers writing about your brand and referring people to your site your site traffic increases right? Businesses that blog  ≥ 20 times/month get  5 times more traffic than those who blog ≤ 4 times/month while 81% of companies consider their blogs “useful,” “important,” or “critical”.

3) Consumers lean towards blogs for opinions 

              Since bloggers tend to be really honest and sincere in their reviews of products and service consumers trust them more. They talk about both negative and positive aspects of a brand and in doing so become a trusted source of information.

By building a relationship between your brand and bloggers, you increase the probability that they will promote and speak favorably about your brand. For instance in the consumer electronics space, a majority (77%) of consumer electronics shoppers pay more attention to opinions from other consumers than those from professional critics.

4) Display ads and banner ads don’t work well anymore 

                The number of people online who click display ads has dropped 50% in less than two years, and only 8% of internet user’s account for 85% of all clicks.

Shocking right? People don’t trust online ads anymore and only trust real people, user experiences /recommendations and then they spread the word around. Your consumers today will believe opinion leaders/influencers much more than your banner ad.

5) You get a lot of content which is user generated(UGC) 

                        Content generation for brands has become a herculean task and they spend lots of time writing things which are similar to the way they already do and see that they don’t have any engagement on them. Nothing’s fresh, same old boring way of writing! This could be super boring for a user and he would get online looking for better type of content which would be interesting and non monotonous.

The advantage of running this program is that you are not only getting more website visits, but you have a variety of people writing and providing fresh content for you! New perspectives, variety of content - Awesome right?

How do we implement a blogger outreach program?

Identifying and connecting with the people who have the same interests as your brands could be cumbersome. You can manually search for bloggers and invite them to participate in the blogging contest that you have planned in accordance with your brand.

If you are running a contest for let’s say technology bloggers; you can search on blogger directories like http://www.indiblogger.in/directory.php  and http://www.blogadda.com/search/ for bloggers in the respective category.

You could also use Twitter directories such as http://www.twellow.com/  or http://wefollow.com/ for identifying people on Twitter who have similar interests.

If you have the marketing budgets I would suggest take help of the blogging communities owners like Indiblogger.in and blogadda.com who offer to run blogger campaigns for brands for a certain fee, working alongside the brand, devising a blogger campaign, and spreading the word of the campaign through their big database.

                     Bloggers are great mediums to reach your target audience and a blogger outreach program helps an organization connect better and build more credible relationships. Using a blogger's influential audience and their trustworthy clout, we can influence our audience’s decisions through blogger campaigns by reaching out to them.

[lohith1509-blog]

10 insightful and challenging Content Marketing metrics you must be measuring on Facebook to create amazing brand experiences.

                                  In today’s world of changing consumer interests and needs, marketers feel it really is a challenge to chart out a successful, engaging content strategy for Facebook and other social channels. But then, there is no fun when we know the perfect formula for engagement with our audience as the meaning of social only would be lost, Agree? 

After having used many tools like Sprout social, Hoot suite, Quintly (formerly AllFacebookstats), Simplymeasured and a whole array of tools available online, I figured that there are so many more useful metrics which we can actually get through manual analysis of Facebook pages which would be time consuming I agree but I promise you it would be worth the effort. 

Below are a few metrics using which you can to determine the success of your content marketing activities on Facebook by using human analysis and tools to chart out wonderful socially engaging strategies for your brands and making the social ride worthwhile for your customers.

1) Content engagement ratio – Weekly/ monthly

Engagement ratio for a brand page is defined by a summation of likes , comments and shares divided by the total number of followers gained for a certain time period *100 as it is expressed as a percentage. This value gives you the engagement of the followers on the content being posted by brands.

What does this metric help you with?

You can tweak your content strategy on posts which don’t result in good audience engagement – In short you can post content that your audience actually likes to read.

2) Content themes engagement  & Most engaged posts and most /least engaging themes

This is an interesting metric which I would reckon is the heart of your brands content strategy. When we post content we identify themes right – like let’s say sports or business updates for a certain week. You gauge if these themes have worked for you or no, so at the end of a month you understand what themes drive engagement.

What does this metric help you with?

You can arrive at a list of themes your audience likes and you can generate content based on them which helps you become more engaging and social.

3) Messaging tones – Authoritative, Neutral, Questions, Informal, and Informative.

We post content on Facebook on an everyday basis – but have we tried using different tones of messaging in the content we post? We may have the most amazing piece of content but if the tone we use in the messaging isn’t right then we may not get optimal results right?

An authoritative messaging tone would be on the lines of We are the leaders get this from us (Eg),A neutral tone would be on the lines on providing a view point, Informal can be fun oriented or Witty or anything on these lines and Informative would be to say something beneficial.

                        What does this metric help you with?

This metric helps you to identify the type of tones in the messages you post which your audience would love and creates highest engagement. 

4) Content Net value – Purpose of the content being posted(brand building, CTA driven, event related, contests, campaigns, offers, engagement driven, Drive website traffic)

This is a very important metric while you would want to measure content strategy effectiveness for your brand on Facebook. Anything you do has to have a reason right? Similarly any content you post on Facebook should have a purpose like a few posts are for driving traffic to an interesting blog post or a new PR article you just released and another few would be either to drive your audience to a landing page for campaign / contest you are running.

         What does this metric help you with?

Monitoring this metric helps you gauge if the content you are drafting and posting on Facebook is actually driving the value you need or is it conveying something else. You can use custom URL’s like bit.ly to see the clicks on a certain URL and measure using Google analytics if your purpose is being served (Referral traffic).

5) Type of content driving engagement – What works the best for my brand?

Photos, Polls, Questions, Links, Videos, Status messages, Infographics, Images or graphics, Comics etc.Facebook is a visual medium and it is seen that brand which use images and videos for engagement with their audience have increased their engagement rate by 600%.

 That is awesome right? Using a mix of all these would tell you most optimum type of content your audience would love to see on their brands pages.

          What does this metric help you with?

Assessing and understanding the type of content your audience would want to associate and engage with is the essence of your content strategy. Your content strategy gets more focused when you know what your audience wants and how.

6) Best performing keywords on content being posted

This is a slightly tricky and very useful Facebook marketing metric that marketers need to track as it helps in optimizing the chosen words for your business on social channels. Generating a tag cloud of keywords which you would want to focus on for a campaign or for your brand could be the differentiator for your success on social media.

                     What does this metric help you with?

Using this list of best performing keywords we can add these wit the posts we make on Facebook delivers highest engagement along with optimized search results.

7) Bench mark engagement against competitors and industry average

Today almost every brand is on Facebook right? It’s always wise to see what your competitors are doing and benchmark your performance against theirs. Ideally 2 -3 leaders of your industry can be used for bench marking your Facebook marketing efforts and this could also be checked against the industry you operate on(FMCG, IT , Telecommunications etc)

                      What does this metric help you with?

Benchmarking always helps you strive to do better and better and become the leader in your industry. It also helps you see a lot of things which could trigger your thought process to get more creative.

8) Length of the content posted creating highest engagement v/s low engagement

Have you ever determined the length (number of characters) of your most engaging brand posts?  Ideally some best practices I read across the web suggests that post which have close to 150 characters have engagement compared to long ones. Like they say – Keep it short and precise.

What does this metric help you with?

You don’t have to write a BIG sentence for a post you want to put up on Facebook, identify the most optimum length and maintain it across posts so that your audience know that you are a brand who can tell them what they need in a little less than 160 characters.

9) Classify influencers based on category

Influencer marketing today is an industry buzzword and every brand wants to identify people who are its influencers so that they can talk good about the brand and bring in more followers and advocates. What if we can identify our influencers based on the themes of content we post? Does it sound intriguing?

Let’s now assume we post about 15 posts on healthy life and we have a set of people who constantly engage with you on these and you now post 15 posts on how you can travel or suggesting places to travel and these are a new set of people who engage with you. Identifying these two separate sets of people to talk about your brand and running an influencer program with them would bring in new followers right?

                      What does this metric help you with?

This metric would help you when you are running targeted campaigns for your brand and each of them can be engaged differently.

10) Highest engagement on content – Day of week , time of day , time of the month (either first week, first 15 days, last week etc)

Facebook gives you a few of these metrics and a few of them you would understand by manually running through your Facebook insights page or using a plethora of tools.

                    What does this metric help you with?

This metric would help in posting content on appropriate days and time intervals and if we would want to run any campaigns using this data we could determine if the first half of the month is better or the second half. For instance, brands run most sales during the first week of a month or mid of second week as they know people’s spending is highest during first 15 days of a month.

Using these manual metrics along with the many metrics which social media tools provide us we would be able to chart out a world class social engaging strategy.

Published in :

http://www.socialsamosa.com/2013/12/10-insightful-content-marketing-metrics-measuring-on-facebook/

http://blog.circussocial.com/content-marketing-metrics-to-measure/

[lohith1509-blog]

E commerce companies should don a new face for tomorrow’s consumers – It’s called We commerce

“My dream is to fly, over the rainbow so high, my dream is to fly over the rainbow sooo high “ This could just be the song ringing in every marketer’s mind and what every e-commerce company aspires today – Rise to new highs by making everything available to its consumers at the click of a button.  The e-commerce business which generated $231 billion in sales for U.S. retailers last year, is expected to increase 13% to $262 billion this year, according to forecasts by market research firm Forrester. The growth of e-commerce, which already accounts for about 8% of total retail sales in the U.S., is expected to outpace sales growth at bricks-and-mortar stores over the next five years, reaching $370 billion in sales by 2017. By that time, e-commerce is expected to account for a full tenth of all retail sales in the U.S. Wow isn't this amazing! Think of the potential this market has.

And what's driving the growth? The first is increasing usage of smart phones and tablets, which are boosting the amount of time consumers, spend online. More than half of U.S. online consumers now have smart phones, and they're using them to research purchases, find stores and to find the best prices available and more often than not completing a transaction directly on the device. Tablet owners also spend their leisure moments (weekends, evening prime-time hours) shopping online.

The second factor contributing to growth is traditional retailers' increased investments in their online sales divisions. Specifically, large retailers are building out omnichannel retail experiences, allowing store associates to "save a sale" by ordering out-of-stock merchandise through online back ends, and letting online shoppers pick up goods in-store.

Typically, early shoppers begin with "low-consideration" goods like MP3's and movies, moving up the ladder to "high-touch, high-consideration" items like furniture and appliances over time. Meanwhile, e-commerce sales in western Europe are expected to grow at an even faster rate than the U.S. in the next five years, from €112 billion in 2012 to €191 billion by 2017, representing a compound annual growth rate of 11% (versus 9% in the U.S.). In the UK, online retail already accounts for 13% of the total economy, and is expected to increase its share to 15% in 2017.

 Even though the e-commerce market potential is so high, the functionality or the approach of all these sites don’t vary much right (Not referring to business models here like deals, subscription based etc)?

Do you agree? Shopping websites today don’t give you a personal touch (not literally ;) - as in give every customer a personalized feeling and they throw up suggestions to you based on your browsing history or based on a few categories you have actually made purchases in the past right? This approach doesn't give me the feeling of exclusivity but all it does is makes my life easier as I have an online store that caters to all my needs. A feeling of convenience - That’s about it.

      What about personalization? What about suggesting a customer on the site that we know you need these X, Y, Z things by knowing his interests? Wouldn't it help him make purchase decisions easier through our understanding of his needs? Thought provoking it is right?

 Behold the power of interest based e-commerce marketing.

                       When your customers are on your site help them make purchase decisions by providing them all they need to make it easier to walk them through their buying cycle. Provide them with products which they would exactly need based on their interests and build a relationship with them gaining their trust. Your customers would come back to you for more as you give them products they like and you help them make their decisions by the knowledge you possess about  them .Interest based marketing - the future which would pave way for We-commerce which is shopping together with your customers.

 Using interest based marketing you can create a space in the mind of your customers which is a more personalized and contextually relevant experience which would ensure they come back to you for more.

  Let’s take an example of what news syndication sites like getprismatic.com does. It allows you create news feeds based on what your interests are and the next time you get to their site it shows you all the news based on the categories you have defined based on your interests .So the approach it follows becomes more like a personalized newspaper based on your interest’s right?

Another example would be of Facebook after it changed its famous edge ranker algorithm to the algorithm with its new features Story bumping and last actor which again is about providing a user a personalized newspaper feeling. Using Story Bumping, the content that appears more relevant due to engagement is going to be pushed up to the top of users’ News Feeds. And in terms of Last Actor, the more people engage with your content, the more they will see that engagement in their News Feeds. You get the drift now right? Facebook also is moving towards how it can make the newsfeed which appears on a user’s wall more personalized and making it contextually relevant.

This is the new face of e-commerce,where companies should don the customers hat and help them make their purchase decisions by making their shopping experience more personalized by knowing each of their buyer’s persona – In Hubspot’s words.

Now that we know what we – commerce is, how do we implement it?

Understanding what the likes and dislikes of your audience may be the hardest of things for any marketer right? Our likes and dislikes keep varying every single minute making it really hard for somebody to actually assess what exactly are your interests, nevertheless if we at least get a tag clod of interests for each of our consumers then I am sure we have won half our battle. Agree?

1)      One of the approaches you could try would be using the Google analytics reports, under which I discovered a tab called Interest under the audience tab with options overview, affinity categories and other categories.(I haven’t tried this out as yet )

These reports let you see not only how many of your users visit over a date range, but also who those users are, and how their behavior varies by attribute (e.g., male vs. female).

              This data is also available in custom reports, and you can use it as the basis for segmentation, which lets you evaluate how your users' behavior varies by demographics and interests; for example, do males interested in automobiles convert more frequently or read specific types of content more than females who are interested in athletic apparel.

More information - http://online-behavior.com/analytics/demographics

2) Another approach would be synchronizing with the user’s likes from his social sphere. Since Facebook dominates the social login mode with 79% source (http://www.insidefacebook.com/2013/07/18/study-facebook-dominates-social-login-ecosystem-for-now/) , a user’s likes can be mapped from it to the user’s profile which would give us an insight into his behavior.

I definitely agree that most of the pages we all like on Facebook are on an impulse or a few brands may be running a discount so you might just like it for the sake of it, but mapping your likes would give a marketer at least a few pointers based on the user right.

3) The other approach would be to have a small form which would have a options which the user could just click, highlighting his likes and his hobbies and a few more probing questions which would give us an insight into the consumers mindset.

                  A small questionnaire or something like the above could also do the trick for you at the time of the checkout when the user has made his purchase and he could fill out about 5 questions which could be on the lines of – What decor products have you been wanting to buy since a long time for your living room? What is the fashion you predict would hit the stores 3 months from now? If you find the best of products you prefer from us would budget be a constraint for you? (These are just random examples, which would just give you thought pointers).

By doing these you are building a relationship with your consumers , profiling his/her likes and then walking them through the buying cycle based on each of their needs and wants which would ensure the consumer trusts you on knowing his choices and would be loyal to your company. 

Published in :

http://90dayentrepreneur.com/e-commerce-consumers-gp-lr/

[lohith1509-blog]

Want a higher conversion rate on your sales leads ? Prioritize your brand's MOFU engagement strategy.

Many organizations today, spend a lot of money on marketing to ensure they get great leads which would later be qualified and closed by as sales by the sales team. Marketers are planning their budgets today to do a gamut of activities which would include a mix of SEO, SEM, newsletters, webinars, social media ,campaigns etc etc to get those qualified leads for their organizations to ensure effectiveness of marketing. Right? What we all fail to understand is to see what activities are to be done at which stage of the sales funnel which would ensure that we generate the right type of content to address our audience perfectly.

While we create a content strategy, we need an understanding of the marketing funnel and so it stays on top of our priority list – fundamentals first. If you’re not familiar with the marketing funnel (sometimes called as the sales funnel) there’s a high probability that you’re losing many of your potential buyers. Before we take a look at where most marketers lose the maximum of their qualified leads, let’s understand the anatomy of a marketing funnel and the marketing activities we can do for each of these phases.

Anatomy of the Marketing Funnel

Where the marketing funnel breaks down

Many content marketers provide top-of-the-funnel and bottom-of-the-funnel content without realizing that’s what they’re doing. It’s easy to create a content calendar that will appeal to the masses and then give a few discounts and demonstrations to grab interested audience right away and when a lead converts to a sale, business bloggers feel they’ve done their job. But are we doing the right thing?

Only 3 percent of first-time visitors to websites are ready to make a purchase. As connected Americans increasingly turn to Google and social media channels for product research, your company has an opportunity to increase value and sales by creating TOFU, MOFU and BOFU content and giving away free information to potential customers, a concept known to marketers as content marketing.

What if you could do so much more with your content marketing?

What if someone told you the middle of the funnel is the most neglected area of content marketing and the most important area? To understand why the middle of the funnel affects your potential sales, we should understand the sales cycle for various buyer types. For small and medium businesses, the buying cycle is usually 6 months to a year before deciding to buy. Your middle-of-the-funnel content (which is mainly towards lead nurturing and engagement driven) is what will keep them coming back for more information as they make the decision. What happens if you neglect the middle? Those leads go to your competitors and them BAM you have to start hunting for leads again.

Prioritize and strengthen the Middle of Your Marketing Funnel

One reason this section of the marketing funnel is so neglected is simply because bloggers and a few marketers aren't sure what makes for good content. Speaking on general topics is easy enough, and offering free demonstrations or discounts just seems like a smart way to pull in potential buyers. It’s the leads that are still deciding that you’ll lose without good content.

You need to think about what you might say to your prospects if you were to meet them during this stage in the sales cycle. If they’re looking for more information, will a discount make up their mind? Probably not. You should take this time to give as much information about your product or service as possible.

This might include how-to videos, detailed white papers on how the product has served to help others, or fun facts about your company. If you’re not sure where to start, here’s a simple list of some of the most useful middle-of-the-funnel content ideas.

Videos

eBooks

Case studies

White papers

Reviews

Testimonials

Frequently asked questions

Buyer’s guide and comparison guides

Success kits

Newsletters

Now that you understand what’s missing, it’s time to create that content to fill the gaps. The problem is, you've been neglecting that section of the marketing funnel for so long, and you may be a bit rusty with the content creation. Before you panic, start small. Testimonials are a great way to start pumping up your middle of the funnel because others write that for you. Include some reviews you may have found elsewhere to add to those testimonials.

Next, move to frequently asked questions. People want to know your product before they buy. Save them the time of contacting your company by providing a page of questions and answers. Even if no one has thought to ask, create the questions yourself. Include any information you want potential buyers to know. You might even do a series of FAQs involving various topics. This will give you even more content to add to your website.

Case studies, white papers, and eBooks do take more time to create, but after answering everything you can in the FAQ section, you’ll know the products and services well enough to put together informative documents.

Measure if it’s working for you - analytics

                 All this content won’t matter if you don’t track your results. For each stop within the marketing funnel, you should have a checkpoint that tells you if that piece of content inspired a lead to move further down the funnel. When someone downloads your white paper or eBook, use that contact information to keep track of his or her buying process. When you find a piece of content that works, don’t be afraid to use it again and again. Make changes to update the information, but then put that eBook or how-to video right back out there for new prospects to see.

You may not even realize right now that the middle of your marketing funnel is suffering. Once you put these tips to use, you’ll begin to see a marked change in your sales numbers. Still not convinced? You won’t know until you try.

Published in :

http://marketingexecutives.biz/want-higher-conversion-rate-your-sales-leads-prioritize-your-brand%E2%80%99s-mofu-engagement-strategy

[lohith1509-blog]

How can you influence the consumer's buying process using social media?

Are you interested in why and how people buy products? Have you ever wondered how social media messages influence a shopper's buying choices? Wouldn't you want to know your consumer’s buying behavior so that you can effectively use your marketing mix to reach out to them? We all go through a decision making cycle when we need to buy something which is the buying process we all follow while shopping knowing or unknowingly.

So the five stages of the consumer buying process start with 

1) A need for a certain product or identification of why we need to buy it

2) Once we identify a need to buy something we next go online and look at all the choices and alternatives available

3) After looking at all the information online we run it through more filters like price, functionality, features etc by which we evaluate which one best fits our parameters which we have set for us

4) Post evaluation we decide to purchase the product which we have considered to buy after running through a rigorous process

5) So now we have the product we needed based on our want and then we evaluate it post our purchase and experience the product .If the product is amazing we recommend a lot of our friends and family to buy it as it has given you an amazing user experience and if it is not good you would refrain from telling anybody that you used it right? 

In the meanwhile you try providing feedback about the product online and to the company and wait for some magic to happen or you just move on to buy some other product after changing your decision making criteria. Isn't this what all of us do on a regular basis?

While consumers are taking this buying process to evaluate a purchase, don’t you think brands need to leverage social media and make sure they walk the consumer through this journey effortlessly?

Today’s consumers are smart and tech savvy and combine search and use social media to fuel purchase decisions.75 percent of Facebook purchasers said that they asked for their friends’ advice before buying a product.

81 percent of shoppers say that posts from their friends on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook directly impact their shopping decisions.

A social share of an online product will drive an average of $2.04 in direct revenue to an online retailer.

A high product rating will increase the likelihood of completing a purchase for 55% of consumers.

Consumer reviews are significantly more trusted nearly 12 times more than descriptions that come from a product manufacturer.

4 out of 10 social media users have purchased an item online or in store after sharing or favoriting it on Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest.

Amazing right? Wouldn’t brands want to leverage this now?

Source - http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-media-shopping_b50440

How can the power of social media influence the consumer’s buying process?

                          Since social media is so powerful and promises great results, lets now map each of the consumer buying processes to social media brand activities to leverage its power and walking beside the consumer through his decision making journey.

1)      Identification of the need/requirement or problem recognition process

Social media activities must include brand exposure and awareness through creative, innovative and engagement building activities which should be done with a non sales approach. You could run a campaign using Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest which would entice your audience to engage with you and would create that need for them.

2)      Information search and consideration phase

This is the stage when a consumer is looking for what are his choices and if any of his circle of friends have any recommendations based on his need which is followed by the advantages of each of his options, which is when we push information or provide more information to influence his opinions which is in line with his need. Using social media you could drive feedback from over all the channels and drive positive feedback into the loop which would entail publishing blog posts on owned properties & guest blogs, reviews of sites, participating in forums and engaging on other social properties.

3)      Evaluation of the choices

This is an important phase where a consumer needs to be reassured that he is making the right choice and wants to make sure he has considered all the parameters before purchasing the product. Social media can work wonders here when influencers and advocates can publish testimonials about the products and write recommendations about the product.  A blogger outreach program along with a influencer engagement program would be the best activity making the consumer sure of his choice and giving him a positive sentiment.

4)      Purchasing decision

After being reassured about the product and looking/ reading (experiencing) about the positive sentiment through the outreach programs in the online world, the consumer thus buys the product after being convinced about his choice based on his parameters.

5)      Post purchase behavior which evaluates did the product actually work for the consumer

Once the product is sold doesn't mean it’s off your head right? The customer would be thinking does the product actually live up to my expectations and the type of customer service he would expect from the brand. Brands can use twitter or Facebook for real time after service support along with respective teams contacting the consumers on a periodic basis for any trouble with the product.

Another innovative way to do this is would be to set up a microsite which would house all the FAQ’s about the product, features, functionality etc and should all the consumers who purchased the product could interact/help each other (brand moderated) on the microsite enabling the growth of a community – which is the essence of social media.

Published in :

http://90dayentrepreneur.com/influencing-using-social-media-gp-lr/

http://www.socialsamosa.com/2013/10/influencing-consumers-buying-process-using-social-media/

[lohith1509-blog]

How you can use Facebook check in’s for location based mobile advertising?

So you and your friends are catching up after a really long time at a fancy restaurant or a cafe and you are all excited about all the fun you are going to have today and would want to share it Facebook and the first thing you do is “check in” to that place. Or today is like a red letter day in your life, so you and your better half decide to go out and celebrate it in grand style, so the first thing you do is again “check in” to the place and say your are having a good time. Don’t you think all of us relate to this? Facebook today has become such a strong, integral part of our lives that we share part of our lives with our friends on it which is helping us share our emotions, thoughts, places we visit on it.

                              While we all share our check in details of the places we visit with Facebook, what if we got to know that they were running offers and you could see it the minute you just check in – real time, very specific targeting. Wouldn't that be awesome? Visualize this – Let’s say we are walking around a popular place around town – like in Bangalore – Brigade road and you check in to Facebook. Facebook asks you permission if it could show you deals based on categories ranging from food joints to clothing showrooms to malls etc etc etc. That would be amazing right? You could chose from a plethora of deals, discounts, happenings around a place just with one check in and you can even receive suggestions based on what your circle of friends have shopped from these places or visited these places as a notification.

“The holy grail of advertising is finding people when they are at their closest point to making a purchase,” said Colin Sebastian, an analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co. in San Francisco.

Considering that 74% of smart phone owners use location-based services, having some location-based element to advertising can be very powerful, and if you combine that with all the personal data Facebook has, the potential is enormous.

                      As Facebook is expected to see its share of global mobile internet ad revenues reach 15.8% this year, up from just 5.35% in 2012 according to eMarketer report.

Location-targeted campaigns will account for $5.8B in mobile ad spending by 2016, up from $664M in 2012, this would be the future market for Facebook – location based targeting which can be made personal to an individual looking at his pattern of likes and interests as smart phones have become a necessity in the market than a luxury.

                             According to a Nielsen report  as 70% of smart phone shoppers use a store locator to plan their shopping trips when making purchases at physical stores.

Facebook can also help the consumers plan their shopping well in advance on their commute as close to 56% use store locator where a shopper can see the deals, discounts and happenings available at a certain store even before they reach the premises which would make shopping more convenient for any consumer.

Published in :

http://www.marketingexecutives.biz/how-you-can-use-facebook-check-in%E2%80%99s-location-based-mobile-advertising#!

[lohith1509-blog]

Can Facebook’s Story Bumping and Last actor impact my marketing?

Are you devising a strategy on how to respond to the Facebook news feed changes?

Have you figured out how Story Bump can help your content get noticed with Facebook fans without them missing it out?

If you want to understand how these Facebook changes will impact your marketing, this is for you.

Facebook's news feed service has been a favorite with social networking addicts, ever since its roll out nearly seven years ago. Now, everyone’s favourite social network has resorted to tweaking the service by introducing a few changes. Facebook is changing the way it ranks organic posts that are eligible to show up in its users’ News Feeds trying to make it like a “personalized newspaper”. The main idea was to prioritize graphical content over text. News Feeds were revamped and various new options such as All Friends, Photos, Music, and Following were built-in.

Facebook announced the introduction of an entirely new algorithm known as “Story Bump “and has almost done away with the Edge Rank algorithm which was based heavily on the timing of a post – and is now embracing the method of ‘story bump’ which is about bumping stories that you don’t see in your newsfeed during a browsing session to the top of your newsfeed so that you can see those first during your next browsing session. Facebook’s concept of ‘story bump‘is very similar to the process of ‘bumping’ a post on a forum or message board.  A post on a message board gets ‘bumped’ each time a person interacts with said post.  Each interaction makes the post rise back up to the top of the message board.  You can imagine that very compelling, popular and controversial posts are often commented on the most, therefore they are constantly being ‘bumped’ and remain at the top of the message board.

Facebook’s user base continues to grow, those users are making more connections, more brands are creating Facebook Pages and pushing content, etc. making the News Feed something of a complicated balancing act. Consider that the average Facebook user has about 1,500 stories on every visit that are eligible to show up in the News Feed and some have many more in the tens of thousands.

After testing this among a small group of users, the result was a 5% increase in the number of likes, comments and shares on the organic stories people saw from friends and an 8% increase in likes, comments and shares on the organic stories they saw from Pages.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the two new factors.

Story Bumping

When deciding what to show in the News Feed, Facebook is now considering not only new stories since the user’s last visit, but may show older stories that are new to that specific user.

With Story Bumping, a post you missed from a friend at is eligible to be bumped back up toward the top of your News Feed when you check again an hour or two later. “Story bumping,” is a system that takes stories that you missed on your News Feed from earlier in the day and bumps them up closer to the top for you to see. The change is supposed to make it easier for infrequent users of Facebook (and people who leave some parts of their news feed unread) to keep up with older things that are still relevant to them. This gives a second chance for posts from users and pages who didn't have their content shown shortly after posting. In other words, if you miss stories on one visit because you ran out of time, or didn't scroll far down your News Feed, they may be eligible to show on next visit if others are still interacting with the story/content. Story bumping also increased the number of posts Facebook users read: Previously, users read 57% of the posts in their News Feeds but when unread stories were resurfaced, that number increased to 70%.

Staggering right?

Last Actor

Facebook is adding more real-time signalling to help decide what should show in the News Feed with this change.

Facebook tracks the last 50 interactions you do on Facebook on a rolling basis and uses those as signals to rank your feed. The ranking bump from this factor is temporary because Facebook tracks those last 50 interactions on a rolling basis. It also tracks the last 50 people you've interacted with on Facebook, and takes that into account when figuring out what stories to show you. If you have interacted with a person’s profile recently, their stories are more likely to show up in your feed than not.

What does it mean For Brands & Marketers?

The changes Facebook announced today are user-based, but have obvious impacts on brands and marketers using Facebook.

First, it’s important to know that all of the above applies only to organic Facebook content. The ad system is separate, and Facebook uses different algorithms once content is being promoted via its advertising products.

Second, the Story Bumping change could open the door for some brand/Page content to get extended visibility even in front of the users that may have missed it when the content was first posted. And the Last Actor change could create added visibility over shorter time frames.

Ultimately, today’s news should lead to any changes in how brands and Page owners do business on Facebook. The goal should still be to create interesting, relevant content that produces interaction in the form of shares, comments, like and clicks which has always been the base – increasing engagement.

In terms of Story Bumping, content that appears more relevant due to engagement is going to be pushed up to the top of users’ News Feeds. And in terms of Last Actor, the more people engage with your content, the more they will see that engagement in their News Feeds.

Published in:

http://www.socialsamosa.com/2013/10/facebooks-story-bumping-last-actor-feature-changes-impact-marketing/#!

[lohith1509-blog]

Master the art of creating the most engaging Facebook strategy for your brand by decoding Facebook’s EdgeRank

                       There has been quite a lot of discontent among Facebook marketers of late due to the apparent decline in news feed visibility. The more cynical among us believe that this is Facebook's way of coercing page admins to pay to promote their posts in order to get the same exposure they once enjoyed for free. Whether this is true or not, the Facebook news feed is becoming an increasingly competitive marketing space – meaning you need to battle it out to be seen.

According to Comscore 40% of the time spent on Facebook is in the News Feed -- and only 12% is spent on profile and brand pages. So exactly what factors does the social network take into consideration when deciding which of your content gets surfaced in a user's News Feed?

You've probably heard of Edge Rank before but may not fully understand exactly what it is. You're not alone! Basically, Edge Rank is the formula that Facebook uses to decide which posts will show up in a user's news feed. The EdgeRank algorithm is Facebook's key to determining who is going to see your post, and if you can understand how it works, you can try and optimize your posts to suit it.

What is EdgeRank?

Let’s start off with the name. Why is the News Feed algorithm known as EdgeRank? This is because every piece of content or interaction of Facebook is known as an “edge”. So, a status update is an edge; liking a status update, that’s an edge; uploading a photo, that’s an edge; or a change in relationship status? That’s also an edge. Fascinating eh?

Basically, every interaction you have with Facebook that creates a piece of content is known as an Edge. Even listening to a song or reading an article have become Edges. So, the news feed isn't really a feed of news. Instead, it’s a chart of the most ‘important’ Edges as determined by the EdgeRank Algorithm. What are the elements that make this algorithm? A combination of three factors: Affinity, Edge Weight and Decay time. 

Affinity

Affinity is a score based on the proximity to or how “friendly” you are with someone. You've probably seen this that you spy on somebody’s profile and suddenly they’re in your news feed all the time. Comment on someone’s photos and you’ll find them appearing in your feed more often. This is affinity in action. You've sent a signal that you have an affinity or closeness to that individual or organization. The algorithm acknowledges this and begins to order the results in your news feed accordingly.

One of the most important things you need to realize about affinity as a marketer is that affinity is one-way. This means you visiting a forgotten friend's profile doesn't increase the likelihood of you appearing in their news feed. For example, if you visit a profile of someone following you, it will have no impact on your Edges appearing in their feed. However, you commenting on a photo of theirs which then triggers them to comment back would lead to them having a greater affinity to you. As an individual, if you’d like an indication of whom you have the highest affinity to; look in your chat bar. The people who appear (even if they are offline) are often those you have the most proximity to on Facebook.

  Edge Weight

Edge Weight is a basic formula which decides that certain pieces of content are more likely to appear in news feeds than others. Photos are more important than someone “liking” a business profile, etc.There’s no definitive sequence of Edge Weight, but there are certain objects which acquire more EdgeRank than others. This can imply that they tend to have a higher Edge Weight than other types of content. The three types of content which are widely understood to have the highest Edge Weight are Videos, Photos, and Links. So incorporating objects with high weight scores into any announcements would reach as many of your followers as possible.

It’s not possible to understand the types of objects each of your followers would love, but this should at least deter you from the temptation of adding photos to every status update. On one hand, adding one type of ‘Edge’ will seem like a sensible strategy as it will have a high Edge Weight. On the other hand, for the people who don’t often click on photos you might have more success with a link, a video or an old fashioned text status update. Another aspect of this is that weight can accumulate, i.e. lots of likes or comments will increase the weight of the original Edge. This is why anything which encourages debate or comment quickly will more likely appear in news feeds. The techniques you choose to increase the accumulation of weight can have a huge impact on the reach of your content.

  Decay

The final element of the EdgeRank is known as time decay which is related to recency. Put simply, recency is that something newer is more likely to appear than something older. For example, regardless of how much the EdgeRank is based on affinity and weight, if it’s old news it becomes less likely to appear. This is different to Twitter which relies only on chronological order.

The implication of this being that you should create objects and edges at the points in time when your audiences are most likely to be using Facebook. This decreases the time decay and therefore increases the chance of your content reaching their news feed. There is also another potential consequence of understanding the time decay factor. When appearing in the news feed you have exceeded the EdgeRank of other items. You might then increase the exposure by creating content when other people are less likely to be creating content, therefore reducing the competition for spots in the news feed.

Things you can do to increase your EdgeRank

                 Now if you’re a regular user of Facebook, many of these ideas behind EdgeRank are obvious, but with a good understanding of how EdgeRank works you will begin to make more intelligent decisions in your Facebook marketing campaign.

The creativity of big campaigns is important. However, from experience of Facebook Marketing, while it’s these huge efforts that always draw the attention and become the focus of case studies, it’s actually those lower profile campaigns which are built on constant interaction with their fans that really deliver the most value. 

For example if you have an important launch coming up and you really want that content to appear in as many of your fans’ news feeds as possible, what can you do to increase the likelihood of it appearing? First of all, you want to do all you can to increase the affinity between your followers and you ahead of the announcement. Perhaps you could start a debate on one of your status updates which lots of your followers contribute to. Not only will the number of comments increase the likelihood of that particular item appearing in the newsfeed, but also anyone who has made a contribution will have increased their affinity to you. 

Buddy Media has found that using questioning words like Where, When, Why and Would have a dramatic influence on likes and comments, and as these likes and comments increase affinity, this has a positive influence on the reach of any future messages.

So, in the run up to your important announcement, plan a series of updates which have the purpose of trying to increase the affinity between your profile and your followers.  Since we also know that in general, photos tend to appear in news feeds more frequently than normal status updates, perhaps you ought to accompany the release with a series of photographs. Videos and Links also have a higher than average weighting so should also be part of your posting plans.

This can be comprehensive or flexible but thinking about what you can do to create updates with higher weight will enable you to interact with a bigger audience. Also, the fact that this type of content is also far more likely to be shared is an added bonus.

If you also know that the more recent your update is, the more likely it is to appear in news feeds, it should have an impact on when your announcement is made to ensure it coincides with your followers logging into their accounts. Explore when you get the most interaction on your posts and try and coincide future updates.

EdgeRank educates us that just because someone ‘Likes’ an account doesn't mean it will appear in the followers’ news feeds. This means if you want your messages and conversations to reach your potential customers, you will find a smaller but more engaged audience may lead to more appearances in the feed than a larger but less engaged audience.

Published in:

http://www.marketingexecutives.biz/master-art-creating-most-engaging-facebook-strategy-your-brand-decoding-facebooks-edgerank#!

[lohith1509-blog]

Content marketing ideas for Facebook - 6 new content types you can use to engage your audience more effectively.

             In today’s digital marketing world, all of us hear and know that social media is the way to engage customers better and most brands on Facebook are reaping amazing benefits. Then you think why not you also try this and let’s see how social media can help your brand as well.  So you go ahead and set up your brand’s Facebook page with some amazing creative cover photo and then you define your content strategy and you have an editorial calendar in place while you continue posting according to it.

So you and your management are all happy now that you have your own Facebook page, then start posting content everyday and you realize that none of your posts gain any engagement nor do people even notice your updates. So the management and you are both disheartened and thinking on how you can create some engagement on the page? 

As usual when all of us are stuck with something, what do we do? Ask “BIG DADDY- Google”. So Google shows a few tricks on how we can get more engagement and you try it. It kind of works sometimes but not too well - like the way you want. Isn't’ this the type of social media challenge each and every one of us face on an everyday basis.

Let’s go back to some basics first. Social media engagement can only be achieved if you first understand the type of content your audience likes and their behaviors on your page. The content strategy that you craft cannot be like a yearlong plan where you decide what you would want to post immaterial of your audience liking it or not. For god’s sake this is not like our TV advertisements where we would just watch it even if it’s horrible (believe me there are so many such ads which I would want to add into this).

One of the reasons why social media is preferred by brands today is because they can communicate with their customers and vice versa which builds a relationship right there and fosters community building. So rule of the thumb is craft your content strategies based on the type of content your audience responds to and make sure it’s in line with your overall social media strategy.

Among the various different content types marketers are trying to post on Facebook from polls to quizzes to links to videos etc, it’s a proven fact that photos generate the highest amount of engagement.

Since its visual content which grabs the highest engagement why not add a little bit of creative touch to it .Here are 6 new content types you can use to engage your audience more effectively.

1. Pictionary as an efficient type of content to build engagement 

                         2. You can actually have a different version of pictionary which can be based on a theme - lets say movies, books, technology, latest industry happenings, music, occasions(Easter, Christmas etc).

  3.Give them a set of words which are scrambled and let them unscramble it for you.This also could be on multiple themes like the above which your brand would stand and identify with.

4.  Logo puzzles -  You can use elements your brand is associated with or various famous logos to start off with and can be followed by your product specific elements.

5. The famous " DID YOU KNOW " facts - All of us love to stay abreast on the facts from lets say history or general knowledge.Similarly post these which some amazing imagery.

6. Use clip arts or comics along with the links you post on Facebook and build curiosity - For instance if its an article about cloud computing , you can use this type of image which would instigate the user to see it.

                    Audience engagement on Facebook has no tried and tested formula,so the best way to gauge it is by trying out various types of content and posting content the way you would love to see on a brand's Facebook page.

I would be really happy to know if any of these worked for your brand.

Published in :

http://www.marketingexecutives.biz/content-marketing-ideas-facebook-6-new-content-types-you-can-use-engage-your-audience-more

http://www.limelightmarcom.com/blog/2013/6-new-content-types-you-can-use-to-engage-your-audience-more-effectively/

[lohith1509-blog]

Google introduces new “Hummingbird” Algorithm. Would if affect your search results or your SEO efforts ?

 Have you been noticing a lot of changes on Google off late and been wondering that they have been up to something right ? Finally the cat is out of the bag and we know all these changes are part of the new algorithm - Humming bird " which affects 90% of all searches, and has been in place for about a month.

The new algorithm is meant to keep up with longer, more advanced search queries that come through Google. Instead of simple keyword queries, Google is working to accommodate questions on par with what users might ask their friends off the Internet. It’s focusing on how the new algorithms can parse complex questions in their entirety, as opposed to the older style of analysis, which would examine each individual word separately.

Hummingbird, meanwhile, seems to be the logical next step for Knowledge Graph, allowing for multi-factor queries to be understood. The end result may be most visible for mobile users, with Google’s new tablet and smartphone UI leaning more heavily on the cards-style interface the company has previewed on Glass and in Google Now..Here are a few list of things i put together from various articles online.

What’s “Hummingbird?”

It’s the name of the new search algorithm that Google is using, one that Google says should return better results.Hummingbird is about relevance - which is context more than content.

Is the PageRank algorithm is dead?

No. it is one of over 200 important parts that go into the Hummingbird engine.Hummingbird looks at PageRank — how important links to a page are deemed to be — along with other factors like whether Google believes a page is of good quality, the words used on it and many other things.

When’s the last time Google replaced its algorithm this way?

Google struggled to recall when any type of major change like this last happened. In 2010, the “Caffeine Update” was a huge change. But that was also a change mostly meant to help Google better gather information (indexing) rather than sorting through the information. 

What about all these Penguin, Panda and other “updates” — haven’t those been changes to the algorithm?

Panda, Penguin and other updates were changes to parts of the old algorithm, but not an entire replacement of the whole. Think of it again like an engine. Those things were as if the engine received a new oil filter or had an improved pump put in. Hummingbird is a brand new engine, though it continues to use some of the same parts of the old, like Penguin and Panda.

The new engine is using old parts?

Yes. And no. Some of the parts are perfectly good, so there was no reason to toss them out. Other parts are constantly being replaced. In general, Hummingbird is a new engine built on both existing and new parts, organized in a way to especially serve the search demands of today, rather than one created for the needs of ten years ago, with the technologies back then.

What type of “new” search activity does Hummingbird help?

“Conversational search” is one of the biggest examples Google gave. People, when speaking searches, may find it more useful to have a conversation.

“What’s the closest place to buy the iPhone 5s to my home?” A traditional search engine might focus on finding matches for words — finding a page that says “buy” and “iPhone 5s,” for example.

Hummingbird should better focus on the meaning behind the words. It may better understand the actual location of your home, if you’ve shared that with Google. It might understand that “place” means you want a brick-and-mortar store. It might get that “iPhone 5s” is a particular type of electronic device carried by certain stores. Knowing all these meanings may help Google go beyond just finding pages with matching words.

In particular, Hummingbird is paying more attention to each word in a query, ensuring that the whole query — the whole sentence or conversation or meaning — is taken into account, rather than particular words.The goal is that pages matching the meaning do better, rather than pages matching just a few words.

Didn't Google do this conversational search stuff already!

It does (see Google’s Impressive “Conversational Search” Goes Live On Chrome), but it had only been doing it really within its Knowledge Graph answers. Hummingbird is designed to apply the meaning technology to billions of pages from across the web, in addition to Knowledge Graph facts, which may bring back better results.

Does it really work? 

We don’t know. Pretty much, we only have Google’s word that Hummingbird is improving things.A search for “acid reflux prescription” used to list a lot of drugs which might not be necessarily be the best way to treat the disease. Now, Google says results have information about treatment in general, including whether you even need drugs, 

A search for “pay your bills through citizens bank and trust bank” used to bring up the homepage for Citizens Bank but now should return the specific page about paying bills

A search for “pizza hut calories per slice” used to list an answer like this, Google said, but not one from Pizza Hut. Now, it lists this answer directly from Pizza Hut itself, Google says.

Could it be making Google worse?

Almost certainly not. While we can’t say that Google’s gotten better, we do know that Hummingbird — if it has indeed been used for the past month — hasn’t sparked any wave of consumers complaining that Google’s results suddenly got bad. People complain when things get worse; they generally don’t notice when things improve.

Does this mean SEO is dead?

No, SEO is not yet again dead. In fact, Google’s saying there’s nothing new or different SEOs or publishers need to worry about. Guidance remains the same, it says: have original, high-quality content. Signals that have been important in the past remain important; Hummingbird just allows Google to process them in new and hopefully better ways.

Does this mean I’m going to lose traffic from Google?

If you haven’t in the past month, well, you came through Hummingbird unscathed. After all, it went live about a month ago. If you were going to have problems with it, you would have known by now.

By and large, there’s been no major outcry among publishers that they've lost rankings. This seems to support Google saying this is very much a query-by-query effect, one that may improve particular searches — particularly complex ones — rather than something that hits “head” terms that can, in turn, cause major traffic shifts.

References:

http://searchengineland.com/google-hummingbird-172816

http://news.yahoo.com/google-hummingbird-secretly-supercharged-search-month-ago-202036392.html

http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/26/google-recently-made-a-silent-shift-to-a-new-search-algorithm-hummingbird/