Microsoft has a new social media website.  Yes, another one to add to your growing list.

Currently, the site is in private beta and you need an invite to get it.  The site combines search and social media designed for students looking for research information.

At first, I didn’t find the site very intuitive.  As I play I’ve started to like it a little more, but not enough to replace my current core social media.  The best innovation, in my opinion, is the ability to select various search results and share them as a group.

When using the search feature you will find these groupings as part of your search results.   In other words, it an opportunity to find the best information already grouped together by others searching for the same information before you.

Another interesting feature is the video party concept.  Currently, I’ve not explored the video system in-depth.  My first impression is that this is a Microsoft variation of Google + hangouts.

What do you think?

Above is an example of a report from Google website optimizer.  The goal of this part of my campaign was to optimize a landing page to encourage people click on a button leading them to second page encouraging visitors to download some information.

Website optimizer allows you to create multiple pages, the system will alternate the pages and report back how each page performed against the other(s).  As you can see from the data above my test page did 37% better than the original page.   That was significant enough for me to replace the original page with my challenging page.

As tempting as it is to make judgements early in the process make sure your pages have at least 100 total visitors before you come to any conclusions or stop the campaign.

The next step in the process is to test another page to see if I can make additional improvements.  First, I will let the winner run a while.  If you immediately challenge the winning page you may lose out on opportunities, especially if your new challenge page does poorly.   Give each campaign time to breath.

Once you have established a winning page, don’t make major changes moving forward.  One adjustment is best.  The reason is if you make multiple adjustments to the challenge page you will not know which of the changes helped or hurt the new page.

Ultimately, the above campaign had three pages in the sales funnel.  A landing page, email/download page and a thank you page.  Both the landing page and download page needed to be optimized to improve conversions.   The landing page ,at the time of this writing, has a 32.1% conversion rate and the email page has a 32% conversion rate.  This means about 10 out of every 100 people who visit the landing page move through the sales funnel by clicking the right button, entering their email and download the information.

If your landing page receives 100 visitors a month minor tweaks once in a while are OK.  If your site receives 10,000 or more a month additional tweaks can represent a lot of money.  Even a .05 percent improvement can make a big income difference on high traffic websites.

Optimizer is not hard to use, but you do need to understand how to insert a little code into your webpages.

When should you use optimizer?  When you are trying to decide on an important page for  your website, optimizer is often helpful.  I recommend you use website optimizer every time you use landing pages for email or internet advertising.  And you should always use landing pages for these campaigns.

Rosh

Synectics Media Facebook

1) Whats new? News, updates and releases related to digital marketing:
A) Instagram for Android
B) Google Ads targeting Zip codes (like Facebook)
C) Who is number 3? in social media.
D) Timeline full swing now for pages.
2) Topics of the week – digital marketing and social media.
A) Book launch process… http://www.onehourphotographer.com  After you download the book email me if you would like the full version.
3) The Driven Business Tips (optional)
4) App of Week:www.clarify-it.com better screen shot software
5) link of the week:http://socialmediatoday.com/pammoore/476234/15-must-know-tips-rock-your-new-facebook-timeline-business-page
6) Action item: Champion someone in social media

Linkedin is more than just a resume holder. It is a great research tool.

1) Whats new. News, updates and releases related to digital marketing:

• A) Apple is worth more than Microsoft and Google combined
• B) Linked in 150 million (and posting a profit)
• C) 50 million views — walk off the earth
• D) Nine mew languages for Google Analytics
• E) Google + still growing
• F) sqrt(cos(x))*cos(300x)+sqrt(abs(x))-0.7)*(4-x*x)^0.01, sqrt(6-x^2), -sqrt(6-x^2) from -4.5 to 4.5

2) Topics of the week – digital marketing and social media.

• A) Linkedin opportunites
• B) Rosh shares a business story about good business “The Film Story”
• C) Email from Joy

3) App of Week: Name check namechk.com
4) Link of the week: 6 reasons you need to charge more
5) Action item: Up date your Linkedin account

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1) Whats new. News, updates and releases related to digital marketing:

• A) iBook
• B) Dropbox offers up to 5GB of free space to anyone willing to go beta
• C) Pinterest is becoming more important
• D) Twitter Advertising 25k

2) Topics of the week – digital marketing and social media.

• A) Death of Blogging: The use of blogging has dropped to 37% of the 2011 Inc. 500, representing a 26% decline from 50% in 2010, and an 18% fall from 45% in 2009, according to a study.

3) The Driven Business Tips (optional)
4) App of Week: hype HTML 5 animation
5) link of the week:http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2143521/Kick-Start-Your-PPC-Campaign-in-6-Easy-Steps
6) Action item: Review AdWords – its free

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1) Whats new. News, updates and releases related to digital marketing:

• A)Forrester: Nearly 50% of businesses now issuing Macs, 27% support the iPad
• B) FBI wants to monitor social networks
• C) Google policy

2) Topics of the week – digital marketing and social media.

• A) Marketing solar system – Are your planets revolving or floating away?

3) The Driven Business Tips (optional)
4) App of Week: Launch List
5) link of the week: Online press releases
6) Action item: Synchronize your marketing efforts

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Rosh Sillars Social media and digital marketing for photographers.

1) Whats new. News, updates and releases related to digital marketing:

• A) New Google Social
• B) Pinterest
• C) 46% of people think tablets will replace laptops

2) Topics of the week – digital marketing and social media.

• A) Are businesses missing out on mobile?

3) App of Week: http://www.evernote.com
4) link of the week: http://mashable.com/2012/01/09/increase-google-rank/
5) Action item: Re – evaluate your mobile plan?

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