In my mind it’s clear but the industry buzzword bingo going on is distracting some of us from how to tackle it.

In marketing we need to focus on data that informs our view on customer behaviour, but it doesn’t stop there.

I had a crack at defining the 7 steps to getting the most out of your Data, something like:

1. Clear goals

2. Quality over quantity

3. People powered

4. Technology

5. Filter the noise

6. Align to goals

7. Analyse, decide, act, monitor and repeat

If you check it out I would love to know your thoughts in comments here or on Clickz.

http://www.clickz.asia/10797/7-steps-to-effective-data-marketing

I was particularly interested in the stats on what made up job satisfaction at agencies. The key outtake which is regularly cited in leadership journals is money is the primary driver. Doing great work takes out the top position, followed by culture, work-life balance and strong leadership/dynamic vision, and THEN salary comes into play. (Notice the typo in their chart – Lolz)

I converted that data into a more easily comparable chart

The importance of User Experience was a theme throughout the report from both client and agency sides. In fact it was called out as THE single most important industry issue – 63% of all respondents chose “The need for stronger user experience standards and advocating for user-centric design vs technology as an end in and of itself” as an important industry, followed by the need for digital literacy at 40%.

Here’s the full report, if you’re in digital, creative, media or client side, I highly recommend you have a skim through. Don’t be overwhelmed by it’s 238 page length, just skim the headlines and see what takes your fancy.

Bloody funny and surprising!

Highlights for me are:

1. Online sales make up 5.3% of retail purchases – and local retailers have had the biggest growth in sales up to 72% share
2. 48% of spend was in “online auctions, department stores, fashion, cosmetics, variety stores” and that was before xmas when all department stores were driving lots of traffic online, and DJs launched their new online shop
3. This data is only up to July 2012, and a lot happened in the last 6 months of last year!

Marketing Magazine’s 2012 retail infographic

Things only went down hill from there.

Look here’s the offer, from Malaysian Airlines.

I love travel, so thought I might be able to get me some sweet flights.

Not knowing what would happen, I clicked on the link hoping to get some more info, like what flights, how much and the stuff you’d expect.

Instead (after 1 step I don’t have a screenshot for) I got an email.

This was starting to get confusing, and I was losing interest, also getting a bit peev’d. (It’s a word, don’t look it up)

 What I didn’t know is that Facebook had gracefully told the world I ‘claimed’ this offer. 

Barely, what it should’ve said is “Simon has been confused, slightly frustrated and  bored by this offer”

And now I’m even more annoyed because it’s spammed my friend’s news feeds with a lie.

In the meantime I was aimlessly clicking away to find this mysterious treasure of “The Lost Ark of the Hidden Malaysian Airlines Cheap Flights”.

But instead I got this, and it’s wrong for SO MANY REASONS.

1. It’s not mobile friendly – mobile is massive on Facebook
2. I’ve got to do more stuff that might, at some point the infinite future, present me with a deal that I may or may not care about
3. Grrrrr

Then I stopped. Gave up. Got frustrated. Virtually punched iFly in the face with this blog post.

Then I deleted the spam on my Facebook timeline. And blocked iFly.

What should they have done differently?

1. Told me upfront what the offers were, even briefly
2. Not spammed by Facebook page (this is the standard way Facebook works, so let’s blame Facebook)
3. Had a mobile friendly site
4. At least given me the offers I wanted when I got to the new mobile friendly site
5. Apologised. Personally. In the form of a living unicorn made out of chocolate

</end rant>

I’m hoping to start posting here a bit more but in an attempt to give something immediately, here are a few of the articles I’ve been writing lately.

I was asked to comment on the second screen evolution for AdNews

http://www.adnews.com.au/archive/the-big-picture-second-screens

Facebook’s ASB ruling and it’s impact (or lack of) on brands

http://www.adnews.com.au/news/opinion-dealing-with-the-facebook-ruling-too-easy

When thinking about mobile, Android can be overwhelming, but really Android = Samsung

http://www.clickz.asia/7104/dominant_devices_dramatically_increase_the_roi_of_your_mobile_strategy

A future thought piece on how we’ll need to think about Smart TV as part of our digital strategies very soon

http://www.clickz.asia/7789/does-smart-tv-feature-in-your-digital-strategy

Pinterest – all buzz, maybe bust?

http://www.clickz.asia/7477/pinterest-not-the-next-big-thing-for-brands

We brought the Cadbury Joyville campaign to life online

http://www.visualjazz.com.au/en/news/2012/7/25/cadbury-joyville-train/

Wearable technology, the next device trend

http://www.visualjazz.com.au/en/news/2012/5/25/wearable-technology/

How Google Glass could (if people adopt it) cause a seismic shift in media (AdNews)

http://www.visualjazz.com.au/en/news/2012/5/21/project-glass-1/

http://www.adnews.com.au/adnews/opinion-google-glasses-the-only-advertising-space-of-the-future

Is going viral more trouble that it’s worth? (Marketing Mag)

http://www.visualjazz.com.au/en/news/2012/4/16/viral_marketing/

If you want to see more of my articles on Clickz, go here

http://www.clickz.asia/author/simonsmall 

And more articles on the Visual Jazz blog go here

http://www.visualjazz.com.au/en/news/

Just to be clear the size of the word represents the number of times it occurs – nothing greatly insightful, but I thought it looked pretty.

NB: I removed a few words like Melbourne, Sydney and Recruitment.

Hi, yea, so it’s been a while since my last post, apologies. Things have just been a little mental at work (in a great way) with some travel thrown in for extra measure, and even this post is pretty lazy.

It’s lazy because I wrote it for Marketing Mag, and all I’m doing is pointing you back to the original article – HOW LAME-ZY!

But I do hope you like it, seems to have struck a chord with some people.

Marketing Magazine asked me to give my analysis of the question ‘Is going viral more trouble than it’s worth?’ and here it is.

The challenge facing brands that want to ‘go viral’ is that without skills and experience in creating compelling content, it’s a high-risk strategy that most likely won’t deliver a return on investment.

What consitutes ‘viral’ will be different for every brand. Typically, we define it as content that generates ongoing reach without any paid media support.

From an idealistic standpoint, making content that goes viral means you’re truly connected to your audience and know what they’ll share. Realistically, you’ve got to balance business objectives with reaching the right audience.

Successful brands have a long term content strategy that engages their community and influencers. The famous Old Spice campaign was an amazing piece of content engineering that delivered real business results. It’s one of the few viral campaigns that has been accountable.

Read the full article here

I’m not aiming to explain it to you today, there’s plenty of stuff out there on it already… (See below)

Instead, I’ve had a thought, that this one piece of technology could single-handedly enhance OR wipe out all forms of advertising that could possibly exist ever – think TV, print, outdoor, iphone, search, display and all the new media that might be coming our way.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin sports augmented reality glasses at a charity event yesterday. (Credit: Thomas Hawk)

Why? Because it’s between your eyeball and every piece of known visual advertising that currently exists.

Enhance all forms of media

Imagine you’re wearing your Google Eye glasses (rumored name of product if/when they become reality) while you’re on your way to work, looking at a roadside billboard you see an ad for cheap flights to Hawaii with Qantas.

Using already existing image recognition technology Google Eye could identify the advert, serve up a message on-screen about the deal, you then ask for information on available flights, it provides options that fit open weekends in your calendar with prices and you make the booking with your audio pin.

Challenge all forms of media

But then take it one step further, couldn’t America Airlines buy that space and serve up a better deal for your consideration, or even better replace the billboard with an American Airlines ad.

Technically this is all possible, conceptually atleast, and could have an impact on every piece of media you engage with, or might even place every other piece of media.

Wipe out all forms of media

Why read a newspaper when you can checkout the current headlines, videos & in-depth analysis in your glasses.

Obviously there are loads of technical impossibilities (read: challenges) in making this happen, but as John Biggs (avid Google cynic) says “Google, on the other hand, can probably pull it off“. And more importantly, it gives insight into Google’s future vision (pun d’oh) and their intent to leapfrog the device & media industry completely.

Maybe? Who knows. Maybe Sergey.

Unless… Someone makes something that injects vision straight into your brain. Maybe they’re working on that too.

If you’re new to Project Glass by Google

Here’s a video from Google…

If you haven’t read about it yet, here’s some industry analysis on it…

http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/05/google-eye/

http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/05/the-meh-too-crowd/

Here are some interest facts about Facebook when considering it’s value. One VERY misleading stat is where they compare Google and Facebook ad revenue at the bottom, Facebook is bigger than Google’s but it’s not taking into account the very important Paid Search advertising which makes up nearly all of Google’s revenue.

(As a side note, this infographic was put together by accountingdegreeonline.com in what seems to be a very smart SEO link baiting strategy)

Over the last two years the world has gone casual gaming mad, with 5 million hours of Angry Birds being played every day and 200M people playing Facebook games for over 40mins each per month. Facebook is set to make a huge $1B from gaming in an industry set to make an incredible $70B in 2015.

This broad adoption of gaming has driven the rise of branded gaming & gamification as a marketing strategy. At this event we dive into the opportunities, examples & challenges for brands entering the gaming world.

We have an esteemed panel that will cover:

• Media opportunities in social gaming on Farmville (Zynga) & Pop Cap
• The process & thinking around game creation & gamification
• How to integrate gaming into marketing strategies

This event is a limited ticket release due to the venue size.

RSVP’s are essential click here http://socialgaming.eventbrite.com/

The Panel

Event location

The Order of Melbourne

2/401 Swanston Street, Melbourne

http://www.theorder.com.au/

Follow Social Media Club Melbourne

Website: http://socialmediaclubmelbourne.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/smcmelb

Twitter: http://twitter.com/smcmelb

Hashtag for event #SMCMELB The Social Media Club Melbourne is a volunteer not for profit and events are organised by @nikski, @inBloome, @gutta, @simontsmall and @timbeveridge.

Tonight I discovered Facebook ‘lists’ which directly combats the Google+-Circle-mania that’s been going on. But it’s a whole bunch better because FB knows so much about YOU that it can recommend lists (i.e. your work place, or your suburb) and who’s on them. (Seems to have been rolling out over the last 6 days)

This is FB’s second attempt at grouping contacts, their first was back in 2007 and didn’t really get traction.

From what I can see there are a few standard ‘friend lists’

• Close friends
• Family
• Work
• High-school/University/College
• Who live near you

Here are some examples that came up for me…

It’s also integrated into your friend’s profile pages, suggesting which list they fit into if you haven’t assigned them already.

And it’s very helpful when creating lists

Hmmm… Google+ destroy’s Facebook? Anyone?

I also read an article tonight from ReadWriteWeb with “5 Things Google Plus Can Do To Outbox Facebook“ which provides some interesting observations. However, the FIVE things will really only bring G+ up to speed with FB, not outbox them.

I hope these points bring some kind of sanity to the current public debate about how G+ is going to solve global warming and dramatic demise of Facebook.

And if I’m being a completely hypocritical ass tell/punch me.

** I’m not saying G+ isn’t great and plays a role, but anybody predicting anything about what’s going to happen is lying.

It’s really easy to do, just like Facebook’s Like button, simply add two lines of code to your HTML. (Here’s the low down on how to do that: http://www.google.com/webmasters/+1/button/index.html)

What it does for you as a business isn’t 100% clear, yet.

Google does say (in the video below) that it’ll tell your friends if you like something (not sure how) and seems to infer that it’ll be effecting search results too. Either way it’ll be as big or bigger than the the Facebook like, so get on board.

And here’s how Google are explaining it to consumers.

Answer: A kid plus a switch and a security gate.

It’s being investigated but it seems like a little kid switched off a security scanner letting 16 people get through without being scanned.

End result: Traffic jam, frustration and sad faces

It just seems a little weird/simple for a switch and a kid to be able to cause such havoc.

At least it gave me an excuse plus the time to write a blog post, even if it’s got nothing to do with digital or marketing or anything, although I have been traveling weekly for the last few months, so it’s kinda an insight into my life (of exciting airports :[ )

What I find interesting about this study of how marketers are using social media is that over 80% are using Facebook & Twitter, followed very closely by LinkedIn at 78%. Why I’m surprised is that from my experience LinkedIn is a very difficult channel to achieve the objectives they listed in the diagram above (right). LinkedIn is mostly a place to improve your personal career, not your employers brand.

Social Bookmarking a priority over MySpace

It’s also funny how we’re all still interested in social bookmarking site but so bored of MySpace, when the ability to use Social Bookmarking sites to achieve marketing outcomes at any scale is extremely hit and miss and you can build a MySpace page, buy some media and have an effective reach of 100,000-1,000,000 in Australia. Maybe it’s because it was once so mighty and now that it’s not number one we’ve all moved on.

The full report is available here in video and PDF formats, thanks to Social Media Examiner.

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-marketing-industry-report-2010

Thanks to Flowtown for turning data into pictures, again.

digital ninja from moon stuff on Vimeo.

Johann explained how important computer accessibility is for people with vision impairments and how there are some amazing technologies being researched to help overcome these problems.

Touch screens are inherently flawed.

Touch screens and other input devices are taking over our lives, we’re ditching the keyboard, tap, steering wheel and other fundamental input devices for the sleek and simple.

While this is improving the way we interact with devices and technology in many ways, there’s a fundamental issue. Simple put current Touch Screens are inefficient.

For the touchscreen mobile phone users out there you’ll know what I’m talking about, when you’re typing a message to a friend, doing a search or playing a game you have to actually look to find the keys, taking your eyes away from whatever else you could be looking at.

Remember back in the good old Nokia 5110 days you could talk to your friends, send an SMS in class walk and see where you were going because you knew where all the keys were, you could feel them.

We’ve actually lost touch.

This means we’re using Sight, a very important sense, to do the simple function of finding the keys. And as a result it’s causing lots of errors, it takes much more focus/concentration and the accessibility issues are obvious.

Lots of people are trying to work around this issue.

Aden found this interesting new approach to touch screen keyboards called 8pen, although I’m not sure if it’s the best solution. (Hat tip @gavinheron)

And there are plenty of techniques being developed like…

Thankfully there’s a solution to the original problem.

The concept used is called Piezoelectricity which can send tiny highly targeted vibrations that actually emulate a raised surface. It doesn’t tickle, hurt or zap you, it just feels like the surface is actually raised.

In theory (and it’s being tested by research master minds in a few universities around the world) as you touch the emulated raised areas it actually feels exactly like a button and you can feel your way around the keyboard.

The Piezoelectic technology can raise an area quickly then just as quickly remove the raised area. This means software designers will be able to change the surface of the screen in whatever way they want to give you the best user experience.

Awesome. I reckon.

Practicality issues that come to mind.

• Can it made at a viable price point?
• What will it do to your battery life?
• Can it break?
• How accurate/sensitive will it be?
• Does it need extra processing power?
• How much bigger will it make my slim touch screen device?

I don’t know, it just seems like it’d make using touch devices a whole lot better.

I wonder if I’m just losing my mind or if it would actually help.

Disclaimer: I’m not a scientist, UX expert or design guru, all the opinions are based on some brief research and chats with my colleague Johann. If somethings wrong, comment to correct me just don’t judge me. Please.

Qwiki at TechCrunch Disrupt from Qwiki on Vimeo.

More on Qwiki

Follow Qwiki on Twitter or their blog

See their company activity

Meet the people behind it

The Next Web on why Qwiki will succeed

And the award the controversially won

The most important concept to understand is that Google see’s it your website very differently to you. Google loves text & links, images & videos are OK and flash (as a general rule) is BAD. Without getting into the details of how to develop content, links and a site structure that helps your ranking in Google (there are many people who talk at length about this) I’ll show how you can quickly see your site how Google sees it, and the results may not be pretty.

Once you’ve done the quick audit below the best way to resolve any issues is to talk to an SEO consultant or your digital agency or web developer, they will help you understand what keywords should be in there, how to structure it and write the content for you.

Approach 1 – Quick and dirty

1. Go to Google.com

2. Search for a term your know you already rank on

3. Click ‘cached’ just below your listing in Google

4. Click ‘text only’ in the top right hand corner

5. Now you’re looking at the text & link component of how Google see’s your site. If there’s not much there, or it’s not accurate then you’ve got some work to do.

Approach 2 – More detailed analysis

1. Go to http://www.seotoolset.com/tools/free_tools.html

2. Add your website URL to the Keyword Density Analyser

3. It will provide a comprehensive analysis and provide some direction for you

Approach 3 – Employ a SEO specialist

You can spend days, months and years analysing and optimising your website, if you want to be at the top of your category you may need a team of them.