How Long Can You Keep A Secret?

A digital duplicate of our lives is following us everywhere. If you think that you are living a private life, think again. Wake up! If a stranger asked you to list your top fifty friends, you would say, no way. Except we do this now all the time with Facebook.

Few people realize how much information they share with the world. Phones alone share personal data, every minute, not just to cell providers, but to whoever goes through the trouble of picking up the signals that smart phones emit (Tanner, 2014). NBC News Offsite – A Day in your Life of Your Data – Gives us a small insight as to what is really happening following the day of an average guy.

Imagine you wake up: Your smartphone alarm knows precisely when you wake up, where you are, and which e-mails you open to start your day.

You drive to work: Red light cameras, E-Z pass tolls, and opportunistic Bluetooth listeners go along for the ride. Traffic cameras and license plate readers take photos of every car driving through town.

At work: Your boss knows all your Amazon purchases, and can read all your personal e-mails, no matter what service you use. Use your personal phone for work, and your company can seize your gadget. Use your company phone for personal calls or emails and they have every right to all your information.

At the coffees shop: You sign into the free Wi-Fi which makes your computer free to a hacker, who could easily mimic the shop’s WiFi signal and intercept every bit and byte. Demonstration on systems that intercept cell signals

Out shopping: Stores track the phone in your pocket and know each step you take towards the cash register. They even know if you walk by, outside, and can send you sales or coupons to lure you to into the shop.

At the gym: Wearable gadgets can track your health and your heart rate every second. They can tell an insurance company if you are keeping up with your therapy or if you are eating too many carbs.

Back home: You turn up the thermostat; the Smart Grid knows you’re home. Return after midnight several days in a row? Maybe an employment background company will tell your employer.

Naturally, we’ve only skimmed the surface. But has it got you thinking?? This is not a dream but the reality today.

Let’s look at Google. Google owns everything. Well not really, but it sure seems that they are looking to be a part of everything we do.

Google.com

Google owns...

o    The top-ranked search portal – Just Google it!

o    A wildly popular e-mail service - Gmail

o    A widely-used customizable home page - Chrome

o    A leading feed reader  and management system – Feedburner, Google Keep

o    The top-ranked analytics product – Google Analytics

o    The largest distributed ad network - Google Adwords

o    The most widely-distributed traffic monitoring toolbar

o    Web publishing and Social networks – Blogger, Hangouts, Google+

o    The largest photo and video content hosting site –Picasso, YouTube, Google Play, Panoramio

o    And Google Earth, Google Maps, Google Wallet, Scholar, Cloud and now Nest…. Just to name a few more well-known.

Many of their applications and products are free. By offering free and easy to use products, we become dependent on them. Google thrives on the simplicity of their products. The simpler they can make it for you to use, the more you will use them - all the time and in as many ways and in as many places as possible. Of course the more you use them, the more money they make. Each of their products embed information that enables your personal data to be shared more easily across all of its services. Google’s privacy counsel Peter Fleischer said, "We are committed to providing our users with a seamless experience across Google's services, and to making our privacy commitments to them easy to understand." (Laughlin, 2012)

Like it or not, we live in a world where you cannot keep a secret, the boundaries of our privacy are shrinking. Does it matter? At the end of the day, simplicity drives almost everything.

Look at Google’s latest acquisition, $3.2 billion cash purchase of the Nest. What this means for Googles is a step into the powerful Internet of Things (IoT). If you haven’t heard of the internet of things it is the machine to machine technology that connects everything.

PC Magazine provides this visual of the concept IoT: http://www.pcmag.com/image_popup/0,1740,iid=376697,00.asp

Internet of Things -PC Magazine

Dr. John Barrett explains the Internet of Things in his TED talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaTIt1C5R-M

 

What the Nest does now, is offer smart thermostats that integrate your habits and preferences into a home heating regime that helps reduce energy use. This also allows you to control you heat and lights from miles away. In the future think remote-control door locks and smartphone-enabled security cameras, smart appliances, wearable monitors for children or elderly relatives, and so on. That’s just tapping the potential for the Internet of Things that can link about every device imaginable in our homes. Now add Google’s power in communication data. As devices communicate with each other they are building a picture of our human behavior, this will give Google more information about our daily habits. These kinds of insights multiplied by millions of homes, and that data begins to take on an even greater value as a demographic resource. How great if it were used not to just sell us things. Imagine the use that could greatly reduce waste, loss and cost. We would know when things needed replacing, repairing or recalling and whether they were fresh or past their prime.

We love the convenience of having all of our applications working in harmony. We love the speed in our already crazy busy lives. Giving up our privacy seems like an elusive concept. We are ok to give in when it benefits us but once it’s gone we wish we did more to protect it. One person’s privacy is another person’s suppression of free speech and another person’s attack on free enterprise and marketing. (Tanner, 2014) I guess we will just have to wait and see how this too will change our lives.

What are your thoughts on Google having a complete picture of your every moment?

References:

Tanner, A. (Feb2014) How Others Snoop Your Cell Phone. Forbes.com. Retrieved from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2014/02/18/heres-how-others-can-easily-snoop-on-your-cell-phone/

(2014) Day in your Life of Your Data – NBC News retrieved from: http://player.theplatform.com/p/2E2eJC/nbcNewsOffsite?guid=p_orig_data_leakage_140116

(2015) Google.com Retrieved from: http://www.google.com/intl/en/about/products/

Laughlin, A. (Mar2012) Google is sneaking away people’s privacy, warns EU. Digital Spy, Tech News. Retrieved from: http://www.digitalspy.com/tech/news/a368947/google-is-sneaking-away-peoples-privacy-warns-eu.html#~p4Y3yWm7GJ4CKS

St John, J. (Jan2014) Google and Nest The Big Picture of Home Automation Competitors. Green Tech Retrieved from: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/google-buys-nest-the-big-picture-for-home-automation-competitors

Rakesh, S. (Jan2014) Google Acquisition of Nest and Your Privacy. Forbes Magazine. Forbes.com. Retrieved from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/rakeshsharma/2014/01/13/googles-acquisition-of-nest-and-your-privacy/

Ted Talk The Internet of Things: Dr John Barrett. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaTIt1C5R-M

Cifuentes, J. (May2013) Infographic: The Internet of Things. PC Magazine.com Retrieved from: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2418471,00.asp

Let’s Take a Closer Look into Google Analytics

Perhaps like me, you find this whole identifying and analyzing web traffic, mind numbing. There are a growing number of analytical websites out there to help with this taunting task.

Google Analytics, although free has a bit of a learning curve just to understand the statistics being presenting to you. My first struggle was adding the script and tag ID to my business website. Google Analytics has easy to follow steps for doing this on Google's Blogger  however my website is hosted by WordPress which has another way to add the tracking info. I did find a nice tutorial on Wpbeginner and you should check it out if you have WordPress. I also found lots of help on the Google support pages.

Once GA is running - One of my favorite features of Google Analytics is the Audience Reports. This section characterizes your audience, their demographics, location and behaviors. I think this is a wonderful place to make strategic decisions about your business.  For instance you can find out the geographic location of your customers which will help you decide where to spend your advertising dollars. There is also information about what devices your customers are using to find and communicate with you. This would be important if you are trying to determine if you should spend money on optimizing for specific platforms. Google Analytics is a great place to get an overview of where your customers are coming from and what they are doing. GA gives you many options for customizing reports, filter data and search information. But there are many other services out there.

I also tried Simply Measured as a free Facebook analysis and Twitter measurer. The Facebook analysis is run then emailed to you and the cost is posting that you are using Simply Measured  on your Facebook page. However, this is a snapshot in time, not a daily progression. This will give you a feel for what they can do for you.

Simply Measured Facebook Megaphone

Simply Measured  boasts "All your data in one place." A nice place to have your collection of tools, but not free. Below is a graph from their website where you an see what the different features will cost you. 

Simply Measured Prices

The Behavior section of your analytic dashboard has a variety of pages selections like; All pages, Site Content and Site Search. The Site content section allows you to see what is happening on your page and what people do once they are there. The Content Report lets you understand the performance of your website.

A slow website will have low conversion rates where fast have higher conversion rates.  Site Search tells you what people are searching for once they are on your site. Site Events allow you to get very granular about each click happening on your site. For example you want to measure how many clicks on a button or link, you can use events and track each visitors actions. Content Experiments can be used to test different landing pages or different versions of an exit page to see which ones make the biggest impact for your company. Using Behavior Reports you can determine what is working or not and make changes that will influence your conversion rate for each visitor.

Simply Measured  reports a range of web analytics-driven insights, from tactical to strategic, all of which can be easily downloaded to Excel or exported to PowerPoint, including:

·         “Social Media Traffic Report – Connect owned and earned social media engagement to website traffic, engagement and conversion.

·         Twitter Traffic Analysis – Track the impact of Twitter activity through the entire marketing funnel with detailed analytics down to the individual Tweet and user.

·         Blog Performance Report – Optimize corporate blogs and the intersection between blogging and other social media campaigns.

·         Traffic Sources Analysis – Attribute and compare traffic sources, including organic, paid, direct, referral and social traffic to develop goals and determine focal points.

·         Landing Page Comparison – Compare website content by referring traffic category, entrance segments, bounce rates, keyword analysis and engagement.

·         Website Influencers Report – Identify influencers who drive social engagement for your brand, as well as website traffic and conversion. Correlate Klout scores, Twitter reach and demographics with each individual’s downstream impact on your website” (Simply Measured,2015)

There are many more Analytic tools out there.  Shane MeLaugh posted a nice comparison blog (in 2011) about the top alternatives to Google Analytics. He suggests, ”for many businesses, it pays off to get acquainted with the intricacies of the tool (GA) and wrestle it into some semblance of usefulness. It is a time consuming and often frustrating task, but it can be worth it” (MeLaugh, 2014). His favorite and that of many others is Clicky. Here are the major features pulled from the Shane’s blog.

ImPact Shane MeLaugh Blog

As you can see, Clicky is free to a point, up to 3000 page views per day. If you are a small time blog like myself, Clicky could be perfect for you. What I like the most about Clicky is the Heat maps. Heat maps are views in real-time of individual visitor sessions. The other thing of Clicky was a very user friendly support feature. You can type in a question into their knowledge base and get the answers in seconds. For more information about Clicky check out this comparison: http://clicky.com/compare/

I hope you find the right tool for you and your business. Come back and share your favorite with me!

Reference:

Google Analytics. Retrieved from: www.google.com/analytics

WordPress Retrieved from: http://wordpress.com

MeLaugh, S. (2014) Web Stats: Alternatives to Google Analytics. Impact Retrieved from: <http://imimpact.com/web-stats-alternatives-to-google-analytics/>

Simply Measured Retrieved from: http://simplymeasured.com/

Clicky Retrieved from: http://Clicky.com

How will your customers find you?

When starting a business finding customers and having your customers find you, is your top priority.

Concept Signs.org

To Be Seen-

Signage is the least expensive but most effective form of advertising.

Signage can be responsible for half of your customers.

Signage is so important that without it you may not get a loan for your business.

Signage is an investment that will pay a return many times over.

A well-designed, well-placed sign can generate huge profits, especially when part of an overall marketing strategy.

To Be Found-

When advertising you will  consider one or more of the following: TV, radio, newspapers, Internet, direct mail, etc. 

Here's an image from Duck House Events that gives you a nice visual of the many options.

DuckHouse Events

If your target market is, say, people aged 55 or older, you may want to consider community papers as older consumers still rely on them for information. Even the older are heading to the web. 

80% of buyers are searching online first versus using the Yellow Pages (Pruitt,2014) Heck even the Yellow Pages is online!

To tap into this medium, your first step is to establish a Web presence if you don't have one already. Then, depending on your target customer-consumers at large or other businesses - pick your Web channel. LinkedIn, for instance, is a mainstay among businesses, CEOs and other owners and entrepreneurs, while Facebook remains wildly popular among consumers (Sugars,2014).

The most basic way to evaluate the cost effectiveness of these or any marketing method is the cost per 1,000 exposures.

Here's how business signs measure up to other media.

The price and life expectancy of signage varies widely depending upon the type, but let's assume you invested in signage costing $16,500 that should last seven years. If your business is located on a street with 60,000 people passing each day, the cost per 1,000 exposures would be only 11 cents.

Once you've established your business' presence both  physically and online, make sure you are measuring you ROI and re-evaluate when needed.

Reference:

Sugars, B. (2014) Starting a Business. Entrepreneur.com Retrieved  from <http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/219582

Pruitt, C. (2014) Can Customers Find you Online? Retrieved from: http://www.amazon.com/Can-Your-Customers-Find-Online/dp/1456319086

SMM – Social Media Marketing

SMM – Social Media Marketing. The process of gaining website traffic or attention through social media sites. This is the electronic “word of mouth” that sells products, promotes brands and drives company recognition. This form of marketing usually centers on creating content that attracts attention and encourages those readers to share, share and share more. When that underlying message spreads like wild fire it is trusted to come from others rather than from the company of brand itself. This is earned, organic and not paid media marketing.  In fact, 92% of consumers say they trust earned media, such as social media, word of mouth, recommendation from friends and family, above all other forms of advertising (Petersen, 2013).

Most marketers understand the importance of social media. The question is which ones are best for your company or brand?

 source: Jamie Turner the 60Sec Marketer

 The graph above is from Jamie Turner the 60Sec Marketer. His blog outlines the top 50 platforms for promoting and sharing online. Here are just a few of my favorites-

Facebook –    Connect with friends around the world. Post, Like and share what’s on your mind.

Strengths: Widely adopted by large segments of population. This is great platform for brand recognition and for promoting a new products or sales. Excellent psychographics techniques. You have control who views posts.

Weakness: An older generation adopting is scaring younger away. Not the best for B2B

Google+ –      The second-largest social media site  with a monthly active user base of 235 million. Google products built into the platform, such as Hangouts and Communities.

Strengths: Easy to use, uncluttered environment. Interconnected with other Google products.

Weakness: Competition from other well-established platforms. Beginning to add level of personalization but falls behind the demographics of Facebook

LinkedIn –      A Social site for professionals to network and gain knowledge.

Strengths: Most people have already adapted. Great spotlight for businesses to attract individuals. Excellent content location opportunity.

Weakness: Once profile is uploaded return visitation is infrequent.

Twitter –         A social networking that enables users to send and read 140-character messages called "tweets"

Strengths: Widely adopted. Great for launching events. Moment-to moment updates as things unfold in real-time. Limited to 140 characters forces message to be memorable to audience with short attention span.

Weakness: Limited to 140 characters. Need to compress your messaging to ensure it is memorable. Lack of control over channels. No decision as to who sees your tweet. Large follower dropoff rate.

YouTube –     A video sharing website.

Strengths: Video based marketing. Perfect launching ground for new tools, techniques or how to’s. A visually appealing way to share information. Great opportunity to get your content in front of millions.

Weakness: A cluttered environment that can confuse some visitors. Keep videos short and sweet. Lack of control over channels. No decision as to who sees your video.

Pinterest –     An image sharing website.

Strengths: Photos show off products. Content spreads quickly

Weakness: Important to keep brand image “look and feel” consistent. Followers are mostly women.

There are so many platforms to choose from and more being added every day. If you have the money and the budget you can begin integrating all of them and even hire a social media expert to stay on top of it for you. However many of us don’t have that kind of budget. We need to focus our efforts on what will make the most impact. Concentrate on implementing strategies that deliver high ROI.

Ultimately the end goal for a business is to make the sale. Choosing which platform to use may have more to do with your product or service and your level of comfort, than a right or wrong option. Retail companies can use Facebook to sell items and try to engage with customers. Unlike Google, Facebook’s platform includes psychographic information including personality, lifestyles, interests, thus allowing you to target specific populations. Google+ is great for businesses to be found because of its integration with other Google products. LinkedIn and YouTube are often considered superior social platforms when it comes to B2B business. 

"It takes only minutes to install an ecommerce app on your Facebook page, but it takes much longer to build your channel to a point where people are engaging with you. Companies that make sure their consumers or audiences are engaged tend to have more success” (Beal, 2013). 

What’s important is building a relationship. Understanding your customer and where they are will help you to narrow down which platforms to spend your time and money. A website is not enough.  “Dan Golden, chief search artist and president of Chicago-based digital marketing firm Be Found Online, believes it’s important for all businesses to have a presence on both Facebook and Google” (Guauer,2014).

Using multiple platforms and adding a digital strategy to your traditional marketing plan will strengthen communication with your customers and add additional contact points. Online platforms can add value, enhance your brand and position your business against your competition. Communicate frequently, not just when there is a sale. Holding special events or offering customer rewards can give you more opportunity to communicate and reason for your customers to listen. Frequency isn’t enough, content matters. Each piece of content you share on social media should be worth sharing. Encourage interaction and feedback. This will build trust and make your customers feel they have been “heard.”

Don’t forget to pay attention to the effectiveness of your online efforts. Carefully review your performance over time. All this will effort will create a greater opportunity for success and give you a competitive edge. Be consistent and continue to craft content and posts specifically designed with your target market in mind.

Adding a social media relationship into your marketing mix will not replace your traditional marketing strategy but instead amplify it. If you are thinking that a few blog posts, random status updates, and a healthy number of "followers" and "likes" are going to magically grow your business, don't count on it. Keep building relationships and hunker down for the long-haul.

References:

Beal, Vangie. (Dec2013). How to Sell on Facebook: Promote, Personalize and Engage. CIO. Retrieved from: http://www.cio.com/article/2380262/online-marketing/how-to-sell-on-facebook--promote--personalize-and-engage.html.

Grauer, Y. (March2014). Get the most bang for your buck. Retrieved from: http://www.verticalresponse.com/blog/get-the-most-bang-for-your-buck-google-adwords-vs-facebook-ads

Petersen, R. (Sept 2013) 38 Surprising Facts about Trust in Social Media. BarnRaiser. Retrieved from: http://barnraisersllc.com/2013/09/surprising-facts-trust-social-media/

Turner, J. (2010) 60 Sec Marketer. Retrieved from: http://60secondmarketer.com/blog/2010/04/09/top-52-social-media-platforms/