We’re a Finalist in the Prolific North Awards 2014!

by Michael Cropper | Mar 14, 2014 | SEO | 0 comments

We are really pleased to announce that we have got through to the finals in the Prolific North Awards 2014 within the SEO & PPC Agency category. This has come from achieving outstanding results with our clients, driving huge increases in traffic and sales through their websites.

The Prolific North Awards celebrate excellence, recognise leading companies and reward outstanding campaigns and exceptional talent in the creative and media industries across the North of England. The Search Engine Optimisation & Pay per Click Agency category is for companies who demonstrate consistently high standards of work, have identified and exploited new markets, income streams and opportunities for clients along with demonstrating exceptional search results for Search Engine Optimisation campaigns.

SEO & PPC Agency category

Find out more about the awards and see who we are up against. We’re up against some much larger and well established companies with over 250 members of staff, which is a significant achievement and huge recognition for us within our first year of trading. We have also recently been shortlisted in the finals in the prestigious Lancashire Red Rose Awards.

The judging panel for the Prolific North Awards 2014 include Andy Barke the Industry Head at Google UK, Russ Brady the Group Head of Public Relations at The Co-operative, Leanne Buchan the Culture & Sport City Development Directorate at Leeds City Council, Mark Dickinson the Chairman at Prolific North, Dave Edmundson-Bird the Principle Lecturer for Digital Marketing & Enterprise at MMU Business School, Richard Frediani the Programme Editor at ITN, Jim Hancock a Journalist & Presenter, Dee Marshall the Director of Communications at Welcome to Yorkshire, Neil Roscoe the Communications Officer at Jaguar Land Rover, Sally Sykes the Executive Director for External Affairs & Strategy at the Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman plus many more.

What the Launch of New Top Level Domains Means for Businesses

by Michael Cropper | Feb 18, 2014 | SEO | 0 comments

You may have heard recently that the internet is about to change, in a big way, with the launch of new top level domains. While I’m sure this is exciting news for people working in the digital industry, it may not mean much to people who are busy running their businesses. Once you have read over the blog post, you will understand what this change is all about and learn what this means for your business.

What are top level domains?

Firstly, let’s take a step back and ask what a top level domain is. The way the internet works is all powered by top level domains, we’ll leave all the really geeky bits for another post. The best way of understanding this is to look at a few different domains. Below highlights which part of the domain name is the top level bit;

• www.contradodigital.com
• www.google.co.uk
• www.number10.gov.uk
• www.facebook.com
• www.twitter.com

Hopefully it is clear to see above that the top level domain can be classified as ‘the last bit’ in layman terms. Following on from this, there are two basic categories of top level domains which are either Generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs for short) and Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs for short).

A Generic Top Level Domain is one that doesn’t relate to a specific country, whereas a Country Code Top Level Domain is one that does relate to a specific country. If you want to see all of the different top level domains that are available, the best resource for this is to look through the official 362 top level domains within the Root Zone Database from IANA (the people who manage all this).

Ok, so what has all of this got to do with the new top level domains that are being launched? Well, in summary, everything. Currently the way domain names are structured is nice, simple(ish) and internet users are familiar with the setup.

What is changing?

Previously, the top level domains were restricted and new ones rarely got announced which made things easy for users. If a user knew the brand in a certain country but didn’t know the domain, it was likely to be www.brand.co.uk or www.brand.com for example.

The change that is happening now is that companies can apply to own new top level domains of their choosing which means the web could become a little bit like the wild west with domains appearing such as;

• www.contrado.digital
• http://michael-cropper.facebook
• www.google.search
• www.your-brand.shop
• www.bob.plumbers

The possibilities are endless, which creates a lot of confusion for people using the internet. What domain names are trust worthy? Which ones are official sources? As a business, do I need to secure all possibilities to protect my brand? This change raises a lot of questions. Not only this, but the rollout has started to happen with the following  35 new top level domains being announced within the past few months alone. For those of you good at maths, you will notice this is an almost 10% increase for the number of top level domains available….within the space of a few months! Below are the domains that have been announced to date;

New Top Level Domains Announced To Date

Wow!

What is the reasoning behind the new top level domains?

Ok, so let’s take a step back again and look at why this change has happened. Again, without going too technical, a domain name is basically a signpost to a web server which runs a website. Imagine it in a similar way to your address is a signpost to a lat-long location as a nice comparison;

One of these above is a little easier to remember for people, while the other isn’t. This is the same as with domain names. Domain names are a user friendly way or referring to an IP address.

The graph below shows the growth for how many domains there are registered under the .uk top level domain which continues to grow around 5-10% per year and is currently almost at the 12 million mark;

UK Top Level Domain Registry Size and Growth Rate

With almost an additional 2 million domain names registered under .co.uk in 2012 alone, this figure is likely to be similar again throughout 2013 and 2014;

Annual New UK Domain Name Registrations

I’m sure that when you look at the graphs above it is clear why something had to be done. It’s because the memorable names are getting harder and harder to find for businesses starting up and looking to expand. If you want to look at buying a memorable domain name from someone, then you better get your cheque book ready as they don’t come cheap;

Cost for Premium Domains

Source: Domain Names Journal

Certainly not cheap for a memorable domain name. Hence one of the reasons for the change.

What does this mean for marketers and businesses?

The way domains were categorised was nice, it gave a bit of order to the web and helped users. New top level domains change everything.

Imagine;

• .email
• .mail
• .app

This change has the potential to re-categorise how domains are used as availability increases throughout 2014 and beyond, especially as digital marketing agencies create innovative campaigns around the new domain names that become available. This is something to keep a close eye on as things develop which will give you a better understanding of any opportunities that come from this change.

If you are a large brand, then maybe this is something you want to think about registering to protect your brand. Looking through the list of almost 2000 applications, there are some large brands who have jumped on this opportunity. Some of the more notable branded top level domains include the following, and I’m guessing you can imagine who they could be owned by if their application goes through;

Brands with Top Level Domains (Click for full image)

One item to note is that just because a brand has applied for the domain name, doesn’t necessarily mean that they will be successful. It is an application process which can be challenged by other brands, so watch this space.

Do you want to register a new top level domain?

Then be prepared to go through a lengthy process and be aware that simply applying, not purchasing, will set you back a staggering $185,000 per application which is classified as a ‘gTLD Evaluation Fee’. If you are looking to go through the process of registering a new generic top level domain then follow all of the guidelines outlined on the website.

How to register a sub-domain from a new generic top level domain?

Ok, so let’s say you aren’t quite ready to splash out on your own generic top level domain, but would still like to use it in a way such as http://higfy.bbc then how would you go about purchasing this domain? At the minute, we will have to wait and see how registrars handle this, so your best bet at the minute it to contact your current registrar and speak with them about this. The availability all comes down to who owns the top level domain and if they are willing to share the love, or not.

For example the BBC aren’t likely to allow me to purchase my own http://michael.bbc, instead they are going to be more interested in using this for their own shows in some way. So keep an eye out for how your registrar is going to be making these available over time. The individual costs for these will depend on how much the owner of the new generic top level domain wants to charge.

Notable Locations

So moving away from brands and towards locations, what are the main location based generic top level domains which have been applied for?

Locations with Top Level Domains (Click for larger image)

This again will be interesting to see how these location based generic top level domains are used. Are they really that different than the abbreviated versions we have and use today though? Could they become trendier to have? Could they simply add more domains to the location in addition to the current setup? Who knows, but what we do know is that it is going to be an exciting time to see how these are used.

What about Google?

Where would we be without Google? And what is Google doing in this space? I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you here as Google has applied for a staggering 101 new generic top level domains which include the following (non-English ones excluded from this list);

Google’s New Top Level Domain Names

Interesting that “.Live” is in the list above. Hmm. I think Microsoft may have a couple of concerns about that one….

Will Google treat new domain names differently with Search Engine Optimisation

In summary, probably not. Google has always stayed away from strict groupings in the traditional sense as different people can own different domain names on different generic top level domains. For example, a .co.uk domain can be owned by a valid UK based business, or a spammer. So it is not a valid signal to simply look at that and come to a conclusion on its own.

That said, does a new branded generic top level domain signify that you are a well-recognised brand? Maybe. Google hasn’t released any official guidelines on this at present as this is still really early days, so subscribe to our newsletter and follow us socially to stay up to date when this does happen as we will be informing you of the changes.

What about your current domain?

Should you be planning to move over to a new generic top level domain? Or should you run two separately? Or more? Well, this all comes down to how you want to be presenting your brand to the world. Careful consideration needs to be taken during any domain migration as it is a significant business decision that needs to be backed up with marketing collateral and campaigns, which have their own costs associated with them.

Our recommendations here would be to see how things play out. If you are a large domain and this is extremely important to you, then you may want to think about applying for your own branded generic top level domain.

Overall

Overall I’m sure you’ll agree that this is an enormous change to the internet and how brands and consumers are going to view and consume content on the web. This is clearly something that is going to take time to settle down and the applications have only allowed through around 30 new generic top level domains to date, so it may take a while to review all 2000 applications that are currently in the queue.

Stay tuned and watch this space! Do you have any thoughts on these changes? How do you think they will impact users and brands? Leave your comments and thoughts below.

What the Launch of New Top Level Domains Means for Businesses

by Michael Cropper | Feb 18, 2014 | SEO | 0 comments

You may have heard recently that the internet is about to change, in a big way, with the launch of new top level domains. While I’m sure this is exciting news for people working in the digital industry, it may not mean much to people who are busy running their businesses. Once you have read over the blog post, you will understand what this change is all about and learn what this means for your business.

What are top level domains?

Firstly, let’s take a step back and ask what a top level domain is. The way the internet works is all powered by top level domains, we’ll leave all the really geeky bits for another post. The best way of understanding this is to look at a few different domains. Below highlights which part of the domain name is the top level bit;

• www.contradodigital.com
• www.google.co.uk
• www.number10.gov.uk
• www.facebook.com
• www.twitter.com

Hopefully it is clear to see above that the top level domain can be classified as ‘the last bit’ in layman terms. Following on from this, there are two basic categories of top level domains which are either Generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs for short) and Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs for short).

A Generic Top Level Domain is one that doesn’t relate to a specific country, whereas a Country Code Top Level Domain is one that does relate to a specific country. If you want to see all of the different top level domains that are available, the best resource for this is to look through the official 362 top level domains within the Root Zone Database from IANA (the people who manage all this).

Ok, so what has all of this got to do with the new top level domains that are being launched? Well, in summary, everything. Currently the way domain names are structured is nice, simple(ish) and internet users are familiar with the setup.

What is changing?

Previously, the top level domains were restricted and new ones rarely got announced which made things easy for users. If a user knew the brand in a certain country but didn’t know the domain, it was likely to be www.brand.co.uk or www.brand.com for example.

The change that is happening now is that companies can apply to own new top level domains of their choosing which means the web could become a little bit like the wild west with domains appearing such as;

• www.contrado.digital
• http://michael-cropper.facebook
• www.google.search
• www.your-brand.shop
• www.bob.plumbers

The possibilities are endless, which creates a lot of confusion for people using the internet. What domain names are trust worthy? Which ones are official sources? As a business, do I need to secure all possibilities to protect my brand? This change raises a lot of questions. Not only this, but the rollout has started to happen with the following  35 new top level domains being announced within the past few months alone. For those of you good at maths, you will notice this is an almost 10% increase for the number of top level domains available….within the space of a few months! Below are the domains that have been announced to date;

New Top Level Domains Announced To Date

Wow!

What is the reasoning behind the new top level domains?

Ok, so let’s take a step back again and look at why this change has happened. Again, without going too technical, a domain name is basically a signpost to a web server which runs a website. Imagine it in a similar way to your address is a signpost to a lat-long location as a nice comparison;

One of these above is a little easier to remember for people, while the other isn’t. This is the same as with domain names. Domain names are a user friendly way or referring to an IP address.

The graph below shows the growth for how many domains there are registered under the .uk top level domain which continues to grow around 5-10% per year and is currently almost at the 12 million mark;

UK Top Level Domain Registry Size and Growth Rate

With almost an additional 2 million domain names registered under .co.uk in 2012 alone, this figure is likely to be similar again throughout 2013 and 2014;

Annual New UK Domain Name Registrations

I’m sure that when you look at the graphs above it is clear why something had to be done. It’s because the memorable names are getting harder and harder to find for businesses starting up and looking to expand. If you want to look at buying a memorable domain name from someone, then you better get your cheque book ready as they don’t come cheap;

Cost for Premium Domains

Source: Domain Names Journal

Certainly not cheap for a memorable domain name. Hence one of the reasons for the change.

What does this mean for marketers and businesses?

The way domains were categorised was nice, it gave a bit of order to the web and helped users. New top level domains change everything.

Imagine;

• .email
• .mail
• .app

This change has the potential to re-categorise how domains are used as availability increases throughout 2014 and beyond, especially as digital marketing agencies create innovative campaigns around the new domain names that become available. This is something to keep a close eye on as things develop which will give you a better understanding of any opportunities that come from this change.

If you are a large brand, then maybe this is something you want to think about registering to protect your brand. Looking through the list of almost 2000 applications, there are some large brands who have jumped on this opportunity. Some of the more notable branded top level domains include the following, and I’m guessing you can imagine who they could be owned by if their application goes through;

Brands with Top Level Domains (Click for full image)

One item to note is that just because a brand has applied for the domain name, doesn’t necessarily mean that they will be successful. It is an application process which can be challenged by other brands, so watch this space.

Do you want to register a new top level domain?

Then be prepared to go through a lengthy process and be aware that simply applying, not purchasing, will set you back a staggering $185,000 per application which is classified as a ‘gTLD Evaluation Fee’. If you are looking to go through the process of registering a new generic top level domain then follow all of the guidelines outlined on the website.

How to register a sub-domain from a new generic top level domain?

Ok, so let’s say you aren’t quite ready to splash out on your own generic top level domain, but would still like to use it in a way such as http://higfy.bbc then how would you go about purchasing this domain? At the minute, we will have to wait and see how registrars handle this, so your best bet at the minute it to contact your current registrar and speak with them about this. The availability all comes down to who owns the top level domain and if they are willing to share the love, or not.

For example the BBC aren’t likely to allow me to purchase my own http://michael.bbc, instead they are going to be more interested in using this for their own shows in some way. So keep an eye out for how your registrar is going to be making these available over time. The individual costs for these will depend on how much the owner of the new generic top level domain wants to charge.

Notable Locations

So moving away from brands and towards locations, what are the main location based generic top level domains which have been applied for?

Locations with Top Level Domains (Click for larger image)

This again will be interesting to see how these location based generic top level domains are used. Are they really that different than the abbreviated versions we have and use today though? Could they become trendier to have? Could they simply add more domains to the location in addition to the current setup? Who knows, but what we do know is that it is going to be an exciting time to see how these are used.

What about Google?

Where would we be without Google? And what is Google doing in this space? I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you here as Google has applied for a staggering 101 new generic top level domains which include the following (non-English ones excluded from this list);

Google’s New Top Level Domain Names

Interesting that “.Live” is in the list above. Hmm. I think Microsoft may have a couple of concerns about that one….

Will Google treat new domain names differently with Search Engine Optimisation

In summary, probably not. Google has always stayed away from strict groupings in the traditional sense as different people can own different domain names on different generic top level domains. For example, a .co.uk domain can be owned by a valid UK based business, or a spammer. So it is not a valid signal to simply look at that and come to a conclusion on its own.

That said, does a new branded generic top level domain signify that you are a well-recognised brand? Maybe. Google hasn’t released any official guidelines on this at present as this is still really early days, so subscribe to our newsletter and follow us socially to stay up to date when this does happen as we will be informing you of the changes.

What about your current domain?

Should you be planning to move over to a new generic top level domain? Or should you run two separately? Or more? Well, this all comes down to how you want to be presenting your brand to the world. Careful consideration needs to be taken during any domain migration as it is a significant business decision that needs to be backed up with marketing collateral and campaigns, which have their own costs associated with them.

Our recommendations here would be to see how things play out. If you are a large domain and this is extremely important to you, then you may want to think about applying for your own branded generic top level domain.

Overall

Overall I’m sure you’ll agree that this is an enormous change to the internet and how brands and consumers are going to view and consume content on the web. This is clearly something that is going to take time to settle down and the applications have only allowed through around 30 new generic top level domains to date, so it may take a while to review all 2000 applications that are currently in the queue.

Stay tuned and watch this space! Do you have any thoughts on these changes? How do you think they will impact users and brands? Leave your comments and thoughts below.

We’ve Been Shortlisted in the Finals for the Lancashire Red Rose Awards 2014!

by Michael Cropper | Feb 5, 2014 | SEO | 0 comments

We are really excited to announce that we have got through to the finals in Lancashire’s most prestigious business awards, The Red Rose Awards within the Ecommerce category. This has come from achieving outstanding results with our clients, driving huge increases in traffic and sales through their websites.

To see the full list of finalists, head over to the Red Rose Awards website.

We are now a HootSuite Solution Partner!

by Michael Cropper | Jan 28, 2014 | SEO | 0 comments

We are really pleased to announce that we are now an official HootSuite Solution Partner!

We believe social media is an integral part of any digital marketing strategy which is why we have become a HootSuite Solution Partner. This enables us to offer a best in class service for our clients with social media strategy and management to help your business grow online.

HootSuite is a social media management system for businesses and organizations to collaboratively execute campaigns across multiple social networks from one secure, web-based dashboard. Key social network integrations include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+, plus a suite of social content apps for YouTube, Flickr, Instagram, Yammer, Tumblr and more.

In 2013 HootSuite surpassed 8 million users, including 750 of the Fortune 1000 companies. HootSuite is quite simply an extremely powerful tool that allows you to manage your social media channels effectively, leaving you more time to spend on creating some awesome content for your business.

Sign up for a 30-day free trial of HootSuite Pro now and see how valuable this tool can be within your business.

In addition to Contrado Digital becoming an official HootSuite Solution Partner, I have also passed all exams and become a Certified HootSuite Professional, so we are well placed to help with all your social media strategy needs. Get in touch if you would like to find out more about how we can help your business utilise HootSuite and the many social media platforms available.

Michael Cropper, HootSuite Certified Professional

We are now officially launching our social media strategy service to help grow business take advantage of one of the fastest growing channels in digital marketing. Finally, to celebrate we are already tucking into the delicious cake you can see below;

Contrado Digital HootSuite Solutions Partner

Om nom nom!

Interesting Insights from SAScon’s January Conference

by Michael Cropper | Jan 27, 2014 | SEO | 0 comments

We recently attended a digital marketing conference in Manchester called SAScon where we heard some exciting statistics from some leading UK brands including ASDA and MoneySupermarket.com. So we thought we would share some of the insights from the event so you can see how this can apply to your business.

Session 1 – The State of the Digital PR Nation

The first session of the day kicked off with a discussion around the state of the digital PR world with Drew Benvie, the Managing Director of a London based communications agency who talked through his experiences. The key message from the session was that social media has disrupted the PR industry with brands being able to connect with their audience easier and faster than ever before. So much so that the San Francisco Chronicle are putting all of their journalists through a two month social media boot camp.

Drew highlighted how businesses are increasingly moving away from the traditional social media manager and towards a more social business as we have illustrated below;

Socialise your Business

This involves everyone throughout an organisation to be utilising social media, from marketing teams, customer service teams, human resources teams, sales staff and C-level people. Businesses need to move from simply being digitally adapt, but also being socially adapt and with people checking their phones an average of 110 times per day this is a huge opportunity to get in front of your audience.

Turning traditional PR on its head was further highlighted with statistics that 90% of media is consumed on a screen of some sort which is a phenomenal amount.

90% of all Media Interactions are Screen Based

The future was clearly looking towards a world of image sharing, wearable technology such as FitBit, messaging and data. With large brands looking beyond followers, fans, engagement & CTR and instead are using social media to drive footfall into their stores since the offline and online worlds are intrinsically linked. Brands are struggling to keep up with the warp speed changes within the industry though.

Session 2 – Where Next for Metrics

The next session was a panel to discuss where we are heading next for metrics and measuring success in the digital world. Some of the interesting points raised throughout the session was that while Universal Analytics has been available for a while now, it hasn’t really been picked up by many to utilise the full features available. It will be interesting as this gains more traction to see how brands begin to join data together in exciting ways. One example given was how one brand utilised custom dimensions within Universal Analytics to include weather conditions and geo-location to understand what impact website visitor numbers and revenue figures were impacted by these. One of the key features with Universal Analytics is the amazing ability to understand customers, not just visits. This is something to cover in a future post, but in summary Universal Analytics allows you to see when a customer visits from multiple devices which can provide some really cool data;

Universal Analytics

With data being so easy to capture, it is essential to capture as much data as possible to understand your customers better. Once the data has been captured, it can be analysed for a deeper understanding of trends and insights. On the topic of data, businesses are moving away from last click attribution models to track results, but looking at a more holistic approach and including data from first click attribution models. This helps to provide a true insight into how your business is performing which allows you to make smarter decisions about where to invest in the future.

Leading on from this additional data and understanding allows you to tailor content towards your audience. A prime example of this is for customers accessing your website from an iPhone while browsing for new laptops. It is extremely unlikely that those visitors are going to be interested in budget end PCs, instead show those customers products they are most likely interested in such as Apple laptops. Not only will this improve the customer experience, but this will also lead to an increase in conversions and sales.

On the content side, it was stressed about not simply creating content to generate links, but to fully understand where this content fits into the customer buying cycle. Only then will this content truly add value and deliver long term results. Content should be adding PR value, gaining mentions on other websites, being shared on social channels and the on-page data metrics should indicate how much customers enjoyed viewing the content.

With the recent change in (not provided), several companies in the digital space have attempted data modelling to retrieve this data by looking at Click Through Rate data on the search engine results pages along with keyword rankings. Although this hasn’t produced any models that are accurate enough to rely on. Following on from this, it was emphasised that a #1 ranking for a specific keyword isn’t the metric that businesses should be focusing on. In situations where a strong brand is ranking in position two or three, then this will still generate more clicks as customers prefer to view content from them than others. Metrics that businesses need to focus on in 2014 need to be focused around the right metrics for their business that are going to give a deep understanding of customers and not simply vanity metrics. Ultimately, revenue is the end point for most businesses to focus on, so other metrics need to work towards supporting this main KPI.

Session 3 – Why Content and Context are the Key to Making Meaningful Social Connections

The third session of the day was from Dominic Burch, Head of Social at ASDA who gave a fast paced talk with insights into how ASDA utilise social media. Firstly what might surprise you is that an organisation the size of ASDA only has two people within their social media team, yet they manage hugely successful platforms that connect with their audience.

Dom started out with five simple thoughts;

1)      The old rules don’t apply anymore

2)      ASDA are a media owner and they’ll increasingly act like one

3)      ASDA are a connector, not a collector

4)      ASDA will only succeed if they win the trust of shoppers

5)      Listen first, engage second, influence third

One clear theme throughout the day is that brands are increasingly stepping up to connect more with their audience and customers. To do this you need a good understanding of your customers, and it is clear that ASDA do know who their customers are. The image below clearly shows that ASDA know who their customers are and where they are online;

ASDA Customers on Social Media Channels

For ASDA, with Facebook being by far the most popular channel, this helps them to direct the strategy towards targeting those customers. Following on from this, ASDA also know that the typical Facebook follower has 232 friends and follow a total of 92 brands on Facebook, so ASDA need to keep their attention and stand out from the crowd.

One clear benefit of social media for ASDA is the ability to reach a huge audience and influence those people. On a monthly basis, ASDA’s Facebook page reaches 8.7 million people, generates 279,000 interactions and earns 157,000 clicks back through to their website. These are enormous numbers when remembering this is the work of only two people at ASDA. When comparing this to their traditional PR approach, where they were spending £150,000 per press release in a national newspaper (and they were running three of these per week!), it is clear that social media is a far greater opportunity to connect with their audience in a meaningful way. With the reach from social media, this tips the balance of power and enables ASDA to control their messages to their audience instead of going through traditional national newspapers.

While the above figures showcase the reach ASDA’s Facebook page has, Dom did stress that it is important not just to chase the numbers. Having a large following is utterly pointless if those people aren’t your target audience, a smaller number of more engaged followers are far more beneficial so connect to the right people with your messages.

In a similar theme, social media was compared with traditional TV advertising. ASDA has an 18% market share in the UK, meaning that running an advert on Coronation Street means that you are advertising to people who simply aren’t interested in the brand and wasting budget on this. Comparing this with social media, this allows a really targeted approach towards your audience to make your budget more effective at connecting with your audience.

Interestingly enough ASDA don’t have a huge budget for social media, so they have to focus on using relevant and low budget content that they can share socially. An example was given that with a £100 investment (yes, that low from a brand the size of ASDA!) resulted in content being shown in 100,000 newsfeeds of their audience. When comparing this to traditional PR, this is quite a difference. Another example of this was when a customer posted a question wondering if their dad was one of their oldest home shoppers. ASDA then went to visit the gentleman, took a photo and asked their Facebook fans to wish him a happy birthday which resulted in 25,000 likes for such a simply and cheap PR opportunity.

It was reiterated about the well-known fact that the best way to increase engagement on social media is to ask a question. This is clear when you compare ASDA’s engagement levels with their competitors;

ASDA Social Media Engagement Levels

In-fact, ALDI do actually beat ASDA in terms of engagement levels, but this is a clear indication that ASDA are leading the way. One point made was that customers love it when ‘Del Boy Offers’ appear with the likes of 50p for 1 or 2 for £1. When customer see offers like this, straight away they are posted on social media channels which adds an extra dimension to the social media channels since it is essential these type of things don’t happen too often as it doesn’t show ASDA in a good light. Following on from this, in more extreme examples when there is a potential PR issue on social media, it is essential to take this offline to avoid it turning into a PR disaster. Never try and solve issues in a public space.

On the topic of follower growth, it was outlined that they have found promoting content and posts to friends of friends to be an effective method. The thought being that people who shop at ASDA are likely to be friends with other people who shop at ASDA. This can be seen in the graph below which contains the number of mentions over the past two years for ASDA;

ASDA Social Media Mentions

Following on from this, ASDA had 268 million organic page impressions on their Facebook page. They were expecting to reach around the 300 million mark, although the Facebook update which tweaked their algorithm deciding what content to display in users newsfeeds really impacted ASDA’s organic visibility.

Taking a look in-store, some interesting statistics included that ASDA FM has a staggering 18 million listeners per week. Then looking at online and offline, the ASDA shop website gets 6 million visits per week, where 1 million of these use the store locator to find one of the 560 shops that are in the UK.  Traditionally businesses have looked at online and offline as completely separate, although ASDA realise that people who shop online also shop in-store. So it is important to remember this when sending someone an email that they haven’t shopped online in a while, as they have likely been visiting in-store instead. They aren’t two completely separate groups of customers.

ASDA have started to link social media back to their website with their #ChosenByMe range which brings in social mentions together into a single place.  A few other interesting ways ASDA is using social media can be seen on their editorial calendar below;

ASDA Social Media Editorial Calendar

From asking customers to help choose packaging on products, which resulted in 25,000 customers giving feedback within 1 hour, which is a huge opportunity for market research. To the good old debate about what sauce is best on a bacon butty, and ASDA found that it is quite evenly split. One key message was that content needs to start at the strategic level of your organisation. What key messages do you want to be talking about and who do you want to be talking to. Knowing this will help guide your social media activity.

Some final thoughts came around how we are going to be seeing much more of a ‘pay to play’ model on social media with changes in their algorithms leading to decreased visibility for brands. Long term we are going to see the death of the social media manager as we move towards social organisations at every level. Customers expect instant responses on social media channels and we are starting to see a much stronger interplay between social media and TV which was a similar theme mentioned at a recent event we attended, #SocialMediaWhatsTrending

Session 4 – Joining the Dots between PR, Social & Search

The next session was a panel discussion around the importance of joining the dots with digital marketing instead of treating each channel separately. The key message from the session was about how departments need to work together to achieve success. PR people need to be talking to SEO people, and vice versa. People working purely in SEO need to look towards telling stories to their audience. Then a common theme was around how everyone needs to be responsible for reputation management online. It is extremely easy for things to turn bad online, so everyone needs to be thinking about this with everything they are doing.

Session 5 – The top 5 Brands that ‘Get It and Deliver It’

The fifth session of the day was another panel discussion that was focusing on brands that clearly understand the value of digital marketing.

Burberry

Interesting statistics including that 30% of all traffic to their website came from Facebook in 2013, with official sources stating that Facebook is a larger traffic source than Google for Burberry. This may not come as any surprise when you realise that 60% of Burberry’s marketing budget goes towards social media.

One of the most exciting thing about Burberry is how they have bridged the gap between digital and the real world within their Regent Street, London flagship store. If you haven’t seen this before, then just watch the video below and be mesmerised;

Red Bull

It is difficult to tell if Red Bull is a drinks company or a content marketing company now with what they produce. Just a few examples of how Red Bull have revolutionised content marketing by creating impactful and unusual content for their audience.

Then we have the Felix Baumgartner jumping from the stratosphere which was only available to watch on YouTube and the shortened version has had a staggering 35 million views;

British Cycling

Another example given was with British Cycling whereby at an event, they understood that social media was key to the event. So far as they had a social media hashtag on the cycling track and a van outside the venue with skills video editors in so they could take the footage, quickly edit and publish to social media channels. This resulted in content being available on YouTube after crashes within as little as 10 minutes from the event happening.

We are going to see much more of this event based marketing especially with the use of collaborative web tools which allow you to easily share content and data with your colleagues around the world within minutes.

Small Town Somewhere

A strange and slightly odd one was how one small town somewhere (Sorry, I can’t remember the name of it, but never the less, it highlights the point), actively used social media to publicise the town. What they did was to print & post a photo of everyone who liked their Facebook page onto a physical notice board within the town. Within a matter of hours, they had already filled up the board and continued to receive further mentions online.

NSA & GCHQ

The final one was rather tongue in cheek, with the NSA and GCHQ knowing everything about everyone. Who said government departments don’t ‘get’ social media.

Some other interesting points that came from the discussion was that everything works on an evidence based approach with digital unlike traditional marketing methods which can be notoriously difficult to measure accurately. It is important to use digital platforms to streamline communication and process, and if necessary completely remodel your business around what is possible. You have to ask yourself, is your organisation structured in a way that will help you succeed? You only have to look at the likes of HMV and Waterstones to see what can happen if you are too slow to adapt to changes in the market. This is specifically true of traditional media businesses, as they are needing to completely re-think their business to compete digitally.

One prime example given was how British Airways only monitor their social channels between 9-5 UK time, yet their customers are active around the clock as they travel to/from their destinations. This is a prime example of how businesses can adapt to the changing needs of customers to provide a superior service. Co-op have been an early adopter of Snapchat for marketing activities by running a campaign targeting students.

The key message throughout the session was that businesses need to get over the fear of failure, make changes fast and fail quickly. Some businesses are doing to need to fundamentally evolve throughout the organisation to keep ahead.

Session 6 – How to Break the Cycle of Bad Marketing

The final session of the day was from Phil MacKechnie, Head of Organic Performance at MoneySupremarket.com. Starting off with some exciting statistics, the three websites within the group TravelSupermarket.com, MoneySavingExpert.com and MoneySupermarket.com generate a huge 8 million visits per week.

Starting again with a key theme from throughout the day, the message was clear that businesses need to stop ignoring their customers and start to engage with them. Listen to them, help and support their needs with all marketing activities. There is no need to go chasing new big and shiny things, instead get back to the basics and start with your product, place, sales service and promotion. All of which need to be 100% focused on your customers.

Content is key for them as they communicate with their customers, so businesses need to get some good ideas and work together with key stake holders throughout the organisation. Working in silos has to stop and collaborative working is the only way to succeed long term. Purely from an efficiencies point, working together means more effective marketing spend and data can be shared between teams easily. Don’t get stuck in a content rut, understand what is working and what isn’t then adapt as necessary. This may result in having to look at team structures to understand how teams can work more effectively together.

A phenomenal 50% of all traffic is from mobile and tablet devices on TravelSupermarket.com, which really does highlight that a responsive website needs to be the number 1 priority in 2014. Customers are accessing your brand, content and website throughout the day on multiple devices, so your business needs to seriously consider what this means and what needs to be done to improve all these areas.

On the Search Engine Optimisation front, one only has to look at the messages Google is putting out about what not to do. These are clear indicators about what Google doesn’t like. Instead, start to look at campaigns and events as this will help with your Search Engine Optimisation efforts as well as building your brand. One message following on from this was that businesses that don’t have a strong brand online are going to find it ever more difficult to compete as customers look towards recognisable brands when purchasing online.

Finally the focus turned to KPIs within your business and the importance of getting these aligned. If different departments have competing KPIs then this simply isn’t going to work. Instead, work to align your business so all departments are working towards a clear strategy to target your customers.

Summary

Overall the SAScon event was extremely insightful as I’m sure you can see from the masses of information above. Hopefully this will give your business some food for thought about what you need to be working on in 2014 to succeed. Some of the key messages throughout is that you need to ensure your entire organisations is working towards a clear strategy to target your customers and forget about working in silos. There are some exciting examples above about how you can increase your organic reach across all channels.