3SocialSEONowadays the Internet is mainly used for three things: exchanging and sharing information, getting information, and buying online. Indeed, there are tons of ways to comment on products and services, and in the end it‘s not the companies with the most extravagant campaigns but those with satisfied customers that succeed in the long run. The days when you could gain new customers merely through search engine optimization are over as social SEO is paving its way: it means good content delivers many likes and followers and results in good SEO ranking.

Social Media Monitoring

For sure you have heard of Klout already, which measures the digital influence of a person on a scale from 1 to 100. The company encourages everybody who wants to make an impact online to create and share great content.

Taking a look at Klout scores for your business ventures can be pretty useful: especially if someone complains, you should be measuring the person’s Klout score. If it‘s low, there is not so much harm done, but if someone with a Klout score of 80 complains about you, this might just be the beginning of a disaster. If there is really a good reason for the complaint, thousands of his friends will know.

Dialogue replaces monologue

Mere campaigns which inundate their audience with advertisements are definitely out, simply due to the fact that it is technically and economically possible to engage in a dialogue. Not to mention smartphones and Internet flat rates being standard today or LTE transmitting even more data. Responsive design should therefore be on every marketer’s to do list this year, making sites adapt to every screen. Besides that, restaurants and stores should take full advantage of the GPS in smartphones as the most personal communication gadget can be used to show consumers offers and promotions in the vicinity. And last but not least, always keep in mind that campaigns are not really important, as the continuous relationship with customers is what counts today.

Big Data and eCRM

Data is actually flooding us faster than we can monitor and analyze it. That’s the reason why many are afraid and don‘t want to get into it. But no matter what you do as a company, be transparent and explain to users what you are doing. It is a fact that a lot more could be personalized than it is at the moment. There‘s still a lot about customer preferences and interests at your hand just waiting to be analyzed.

Visuals are booming

A lot of B2C companies are using Pinterest to generate leads and to reach new potential customers. Reason for the growing success is “using images”! "Emotional Usability" is the buzzword here, describing a trend which is all about getting closer to the customer and touching people. People react better, faster and more intuitively to images than to text. For instance, just imagine that more than one billion images have been uploaded on Facebook on New Year’s Eve. Or how do you explain the success of Snapchat? Just meant for the moment, it automatically destroys images after a short period of time! In any case, always take care not to violate copyrights.

Graphic banners are doing the job today that AdWords did with text ads, which means advertisements are automatically displayed to the right target group. That works fine: If you look at shoes on Amazon, you’ll get bombarded with shoe ads on every other website you visit. Bid management systems are offering opportunities for companies to place affordable advertisements with good enough CTR. So go for it!

By Daniela La Marca