Linkedin’s Snow E. Mann, Gets Into the Holiday Spirit

Yes, its been awhile since the last post.  Wanted to share a quick thing I noticed.  Google is known for stealing the spotlight around different holidays, the latest being it’s Let It Snow trick.  Those that know me, know I have an affinity for Linkedin.  It has been good to me and has contributed to my business.  As I often do, I was doing my daily check of who was viewing my profile, when I saw what seemed like a mysterious profile, Snow E. Mann?

And as I usually do, I investigated who it this was that was viewing my profile and this popped up.

Kudos to Linkedin for sneakily putting a smile on my face.  Linkedin can get cute too,

I’ve been referencing the below graphics at a few conferences I’ve spoken at, and realized that its worth a post.   Being involved in the space intimately, I obviously hear about the challenges related to ROI, the social web’s impact on direct business, actionable data, etc.  And  although I speak, teach, work with social campaigns, I realize that the social web is one of several digital elements that come into play.  Applying a holistic digital marketing campaign helps in addressing direct leads, branding, prospect follow up, etc.  The graphic, which I have already modified twice, is how I view search and social currently, but would imagine this can change in the near future.  Although I could include other media like display, ad networks, affiliate, for simplicity, Im sticking to the elements below.  And yes, the social elements on the left of the marketing funnel in the last 3 labeled graphics are worthy of being considered media or marketing.

In the graphic below (search impact), I would include all search engine optimization efforts, as well as PPC marketing in these engines.  When we research key words for our PPC campaigns and SEO efforts, we evaluate them by keyword intent.  The highly desirable terms are words that will most likely lead to a conversion.  Although key terms can impact any phase of the marketing funnel, I think they primarily impact “consideration” and “intent to purchase”.

Search Impact

Up until a few years ago, the social web has primarily impacted brand awareness.  Although I have worked on campaigns that actually impacted prospects deeper into the marketing funnel, on a whole, most of the social web is not addressing those with the intent to purchase, but rather are impacting conversations and creating brand awareness.

Social Web Impact

When I wrote my first post, and even second post on Groupon, I had no idea that Google would actually offer billions to acquire it earlier this year.   Of course, as we now know, they have gone with plan B, with Google Offers.

Deal sites (Deal Sites below) like Groupon, Tippr, Living social, etc.  have made their mark.  It may not be as impactful as search in the marketing funnel when it comes to a purchasing decision, but with smart email marketing and evaluation of past purchase history, it is obvious why Groupon is making money quicker than any social site in a such a short amount of time.

Just a note, facebook places, facebook’s version of deals is available in five cities and will play a bigger role when it rolls out nationwide.

Deal Sites

Last, but not least, location based services are becoming a formidable competitor to traditional search when it comes to its impact in the marketing funnel.  When you can potentially target someone by their checkin history, or provide a special to someone who has checked in near by, you have a potential to really drive purchases.  Its still early on, but its no surprise that facebook, google, yelp, etc. have all scrambled to provide some checkin feature to their overall offering.

Location Based Services

In conclusion, we are starting to see a shift in some elements of the social web and they are impacting all phases of the marketing funnel.  And although social media is a fraction of overall media spending, it deserves its own piece of the pie, and that slice looks to grow bigger over time.  Still waiting on the updated version on this spend chart that Forrester put out in 2009, it shows the increase up until 2015.

Ryan Lynch asked a question on Linkedin about tips and strategies that he can share in an upcoming presentation.  There were some great answers in the thread already, I contributed mine in this video.

Linkedin Answer for Ryan Lynch from ruben quinones on Vimeo.

You can check out Ryan’s profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlynch47

You can also check out some video tips I put together in the past for Linkedin here

Dasha Bushmakin submitted a question via Linkedin asking ….

Is there a way to link the personal and company Facebook pages?  I have a client who wants their Fan Page to be updated simultaneously as they update their personal page. Any tips?
I answer the question in my video.

Transcript:

Duration of Video:  5 min 10 sec.

 Ruben Quinones: Hey there! Ruben Quinones here wanted to answer the LinkedIn question. This was still out for me because it reminds me the —- that I have with face book. You know the love hate relationship that I have same thing with Google. But the fan page doesn’t give you much flexibility as an Administrator.

Dasha Bushmakin hopefully I am pronouncing correctly asked a question couple of days ago in LinkedIn and the question goes like this is there a way to link the personal and company face book pages which ——– business whatever you can call it. She —-card after she got few responses saying that she has a client who wants to update the fan page simultaneously the personal page. As those of few who are managing fan page will know that there is lack of flexibility and it has issues which hopefully solved out. You cannot refer to yourself, merge yourself, and tag yourself and static update when you representing the company it’s nice to do something like that. But I am going out of the topic to answer your question no there is no way to simultaneously update both at the same time because it is a fan page.

If you use two personal accounts if you had —- of another profile personal profile you clicked in you can tweet that or retweet. But it is a fan page and again things change very rapidly so this video came out and then changed in. You can’t update simultaneously however, you can if you have a blog and you are syndicating that blog and you can post the blog on both personal page and fan page simultaneously and not going to face book. That requires you getting the feed from that one using an application the notes application on the face book or using an application like Social RSS or RSS feedy which is one of my favorites and you can basically take the feed and paste it on to the RSS feedy configuration on the personal profile as well as the fan page and allow to post the blog sorry about the fire engine you hear I am in the city so I am trying to be authentic as possible and don’t want to additional takes so you have to bear with me.

So you can configure the personal profile as well as the fan page and you will be good to go. Other than that if it is normal statistic update the only work around is actually you know go on to another admin and post it and there same as the process. So there is no tool out there that I know that will do the fan page and the personal profile. Multiple personal profiles yes but not a fan page directly and a personal profile. So I hopefully this was good now if you want how RSS feed and other applications let me know and I may just do video on my laptop showing you go head and set that out and may be do one more episode or blog post on the website.

Hope you liked the fact I respond through a video and you can find that more Dasha who post her link and also she is a Social Media concern and also she has a LinkedIn I post in my blog you can check her profile and if you want to connect I am not sure you can join and connect. You can connect with me if you have seen this video and will be happy to answer any questions that’s around this. Until next time thanks for tuning in have a great day, great evening whenever you are watching this I will see you next time.         

Linkedin Answer for Dasha Bushmakin from ruben quinones on Vimeo.

You can check out Dasha’s profile here,

http://www.linkedin.com/in/daryabushmakin

This was a really good question by Bruce Serven, an entrepreneur from the Detroit area.  His question goes…

“With as prolific as blogging is, what are some niche areas that you wish you could find more bloggers covering?  Even in a saturated market, there are bound to be some niche areas that are underrepresented. What are some of those underrepresented topics that you wish you could find more bloggers addressing?”

I give my answer in this video.

Transcript:

Duration of Video:  2 min 32 sec.

 Ruben Quinones: Hello there! Ruben Quinones here this is an answer to a LinkedIn question by Bruce Serven I believe hopefully that’s the way you spell your last name. This is also —- cast number 7. So as I said before for clients LinkedIn questions as I haven’t done that a while and I saw Bruce’s illiterate me it’s actually a very good question Bruce you have asked. With as prolific as blogging is, what are some niche areas that you wish you could find more bloggers covering? 

It’s pretty good there is a lot of information out there and obviously I am in online marketing in Social Media so obviously I am really dealing with that and I happen to write about it. One thing that I noticed that some of the — have come into here is Jeffery Wilson actually —-has better ways to get your — departments heads and before even he took the —– that was actually was running through my head was because where we are right now because I am hearing so much from the people want to know how to get a job now. What happens to career build there in monster.com and those are not usually the best ways to handle a pack and get noticed. So I have seen some blogs of people gain the job in market, their struggles and their experiences but I want to see it from other perspective. I guess why no one will do it so that is the HR would venture in doing it because you know they are probably considered about their remedies but perhaps they should be anonymous when they want I think that will be a great one specially in the times we are living now we are very attractive to lot of people because let’s say every couple of times a week I encounter someone is struggling in that situation and has the same questions you brought up in this LinkedIn questions. So I hope you like this and I hope you find this a value answer and I wish you well. I am also getting include a link to pursue his profile and go check him out until next time thanks for tuning in have a good day or night whenever you are watching this I will see you next time take care

Linkedin Answer for Bruce Serven from ruben quinones on Vimeo.

You can check out Bruce’s profile here, http://www.linkedin.com/in/bruceserven
Episode 8