Coral Technologies: Consultoria en e-busines, Mercadeo medios Digitales

Diseño web costa rica – páginas – sitios web

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Rojas) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:48:33 PST

Para el diseño web (sitios web o páginas web) se debe definir una estrategia muy clara con 3 elementos fundamentales para lograr los objetivos del mismo:

Mercado meta (público meta al que va dirigida la página)
Elementos que van a formar parte del sitio web (Ejemplo: galería de fotos, blog, noticias entre otros)
Estructura del sitio (mapa del sitio web)

Dentro del proceso de creación del sitio web se recomienda las siguientes etapas:

1.1. Reunión Inicial de definición del proyecto

Se efectuará una reunión entre los responsables de toma de decisión del proyecto para determinar los alcances del proyecto y sus requerimientos. Además se determinará la estructura del sitio web (mapa)

2. 2. Entrega de los contenidos:

Se deberá de entregar toda la información necesaria para la creación del sitio web. Lo recomendado es que la información sea entregada en formatos estándar como son:

§ Textos en Documento Word o compatible

§ Tablas: en word o excel.

§ Imágenes en archivo digital (bmp, jpg, tiff, psd, gif, ai, eps). Resolución 150 DPI.

§ Videos formatos wav, mov o mpeg

3. 3. Estructuración de contenidos

Se efectuará un ordenamiento y análisis de los contenidos entregados, para determinar todo el contenido y la organización del mismo.

4. 4. Diseño

Una vez que se tienen todos los contenidos listos se realiza un análisis determinar los aspectos gráficos del proyecto, como animaciones, logos, colores y estilo que se desea.

5. 5. Prototipo

Se realiza un prototipo (boceto) en pantalla de la forma de navegación, los contenidos, y la estética en formato imagen. Con éste prototipo se realizan cambios acorde a los gustos y preferencias hasta llegar a un diseño que cumpla con los requerimientos.

6. 6. Montaje del Diseño: Se realizará el montaje del diseño aprobado en la tecnología seleccionada. Este diseño estará conformado por el HOME y las páginas internas

7. 7. Revisión y corrección de propuesta en línea: Se revisa el sitio web con el cliente y revisar ajustes finales previos a la aprobación para su puesta en línea.

8. 8. Publicación: se publica el sitio aprobado para que esté disponible en internet.

9. 9. Optimización: es la etapa que una vez publicado, se enfoca en mercadear el sitio web para que tenga visitas.

Pagos en linea en Costa Rica

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Rojas) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:29:08 PST

Los pagos en línea en Costa Rica para un sitio web realizar un cobro por medio de una tarjeta de crédito, se limita a 3 opciones que son las siguientes:

Banco Nacional
Citi Group
Credomatic

Para cada una de las siguientes opciones, les comentamos los requisitos administrativos, técnicos y ventajas o desventajas de cada una.

Banco Nacional

Algunos de sus principales requisitos administrativos:

– Sitio web

– Políticas de cancelación y devoluciones

– Certificado de seguridad (SSL)

– IP pública

• El BNCR cobra $600.00 por el servicio. Aplica una única vez al inicio del proceso

• Las comisiones se cobran de la siguiente manera: 3.50% para tarjetas internacionales, 4.25% para tarjetas del Banco Nacional, y 4.50% para tarjetas de otros emisores locales.

• Tipos de tarjeta: Acepta cualquier tarjeta de crédito o débito, ya sea MasterCard o Visa

• No acepta Amex / American Express

City Group

• Algunos de sus principales requisitos técnicos:

– Certificado de Seguridad SSL

– IP Pública

– Costos del servicio: Citi cobra $350.00 por el servicio una única vez al inicio del proceso

• Las comisiones varían entre el 4% y el 4.5%

• Tipos de tarjeta: Acepta cualquier tarjeta de crédito o débito Visa

No acepta Mastercard, Amex / American Express

Credomatic:

• Algunos de sus principales requisitos técnicos:

– Depósito de Garantía en Fideicomiso

– Sitio seguro (SSL)

– Record crediticio con BAC

• Comisiones alrededor del 4% al 7%

• Tipos de tarjeta: Acepta cualquier tarjeta de crédito o débito (Visa, MasterCard, Amex)

Otros métodos como Paypal o GoogleCheckout?

Requisitos:

• Tener un merchant account en Estados Unidos junto con una cuenta bancaria en ese país

Autor: Alex Rojas escribe artículos relacionados con tecnología, medios sociales y mercadeo. Más información en Coral Tech o su correo electrónico

Sitio web exitoso para ventas

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Rojas) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 21:04:09 PST

Sitio web exitoso para Ventas por Internet

Autor: Alex Rojas escribe artículos relacionados con tecnología, medios sociales y mercadeo. Más información en Coral Tech o su correo electrónico

View more presentations from Coral Technologies

What's a QR Code?

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Rojas) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 21:02:16 PST

Que es un código QR?
Los códigos QR son códigos de barras bi-dimensionales, donde se puede almacenar información alfa-numérica como información de contacto, links a sitios web, videos de youtube, imagenes, tarjetas de presentación, cupones de descuento etc.

Cómo crear un código QR?
En esta página hay una herramienta gratuita para generar códigos QR de los diferentes tipos como: links a sitios web, telefono, sms o un texto: http://qrcode.kaywa.com/

Otra opción para crear QR:

Cómo leer un código QR?
Les recomiendo este APP Gratuito para Iphone http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/qr-code-reader-and-scanner/id388175979?mt=8

Ejemplos o ideas para usar códigos QR?

With the right target audience, QR Codes may have a positive impact on the success of your marketing and educational efforts.
Below are a few examples of how you might be able to utilize QR Codes. To the right of each example you will find an active QR Code. Give it a try! Scan the QR Code and you’ll have access to additional examples.

	Coupons: “Virtual” coupons are a quick way to offer both online and offline discounts or rewards. Include a QR Code on your printed ad and your customers simply “scan and click” to take advantage of the offer.

	Website: Use QR Codes to drive more traffic to your website. Put a QR Code for your URL on all your marketing materials to make it easier for your mobile customer to find you online.

	Travel/Maps: Make it easy for your customers and prospects to get to your shop. Include a QR Code that links to an online map and they’ll be at your door in no time.

	Personalized URLs: Personalized URLs are proven to increase response rates; make them even easier to use. Include a QR Code pointing to a personalized URL on your direct mail piece, and your customer or prospect can simply scan and click to get to their personalized website.

	Simplify Online Ordering: Use QR Codes on catalogs, menus, price lists, and other promotional materials and your customers will scan, click, and order online. E-Commerce was never so easy!

	Schedules: Don’t miss an appointment again! QR Codes link schedules – whether transit timetables or event sessions – directly to mobile phone calendars. Scan, click, and view anytime.

	Branded Marketing Materials: QR Codes give your customers and prospects real world hyperlinks that connect your printed materials with online content such as video, audio, special landing pages, and much more.

Autor: Alex Rojas escribe artículos relacionados con tecnología, medios sociales y mercadeo. Más información en Coral Tech o su correo electrónico

Descubre cómo seleccionar a todos tus amigos de Facebook con un sólo click

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Rojas) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:06:13 PST

Seguro que muchas veces has querido compartir con tus amigos de Facebook un grupo o una página en especial y cuando lo has ido a hacer has tenido que ir uno por uno marcando a los amigos que quieres enviárselo y si por ejemplo tienes 500 amigos la verda es que se hace bastante pesado (si tienes más ya ni te cuento).
Pues desde hoy eso se va a acabar, y te voy a enseñar un método muy sencillo con el que con tan sólo un click podrás seleccionar de golpe a todos tus amigos.
Como ejemplo vamos a poner que quieres compartir con tus amigos la página en Facebook de Marketing Surfers, pues tendrías que darle a “Sugerir esta página a mis amigos” y se te abrirá una venta con todos tus amigos donde podrás irlos marcando.

En el momento en el que ya tengas abierta la ventana con tus amigos debes poner en la barra de direcciones del navegador el código integro que te detallo a continuación y luego darle a “Intro”:
javascript:elms=document.getElementById(‘friends’).getElementsByTagName(‘li’);for(var fid in elms){if(typeof elms[fid] === ‘object’){fs.click(elms[fid]);}}

Inmediatamente verás como se han marcado el 100% de tus amigos y ya le puedes dar a enviar.

Fuente: http://www.juanmerodio.com/2010/descubre-como-seleccionar-a-todos-tus-amigos-de-facebook-con-un-solo-click/

Editor: Alex Rojas writes articles related with technology, social media and marketing. Sponsored by Costa Rica Hotels, Motor de reservas en linea and Travel to Costa Rica

Preguntas y respuestas sobre las páginas en Google Plus

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Rojas) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 21:52:49 PST

Desde que ayer se abrió la posibilidad de crear páginas de empresas en Google Plus son muchas las preguntas que los responsables por la comunicación de pequeños negocios, marcas, sitios web y demás compañías están realizando en comentarios, foros y blogs especializados.
Pretendiendo ayudar un poco a eliminar dudas básicas y a crear una estrategia interesante en dicha red social, os dejo con algunas de las preguntas y respuestas que por aquí se han planteado.
Irá ampliando la lista con las cuestiones que seguís planteando desde diversas fuentes.

Ya tengo página en Facebook, ¿necesito otra en Google Plus?

De la misma forma que las empresas suelen tener una página en Facebook y una cuenta en Twitter, es recomendable crear también un perfil profesional en Google Plus. Los públicos muchas veces son diferentes, hay millones de usuarios en Facebook que no acceden, ni accederán, a la red de Google, pero también hay muchos otros que están empezando a usar Google Plus de forma habitual para opinar, informar y entrar en contacto con marcas en todo el mundo.
Seguramente habréis notado que los seguidores de vuestra marca en Twitter tienen un perfil diferente a los de Facebook, os puedo asegurar que en G+ encontraréis otra comunidad diferente, con muchos puntos en común, claro, pero con diferencias que merecen la pena ser analizadas.

¿Cómo uso la página de Google Plus?, ¿igual que la de Facebook?

En Facebook existen muchas aplicaciones que ayudan a aumentar la interacción entre marcas y seguidores, algo que en G+ aún no hay. En Google Plus no podemos hacer encuestas con aplicaciones predefinidas, por ejemplo, pero sí podemos plantear una pregunta, responder varias opciones en los comentarios, y dejar que la comunidad vote por el comentario adecuado (cerrando la pregunta para que nadie más pueda comentar).
Aunque hoy por hoy las posibilidades de interacción y gestión son más limitadas en Google Plus, es importante analizar la comunidad de seguidores que allí se forman, clasificarlos según sus intereses, por ejemplo, creando círculos diferentes para cada tipo de usuario.
Al crear la página vemos cómo ya hay algunos círculos creados (clientes, seguidores, VIPs), círculos que podéis ampliar con listas que clasifiquen a los seguidores según sector profesional, influencia, sexo, edad… cuando realicéis publicaciones podéis enfocarlas así a públicos más adecuados, aumentando la posibilidad de divulgación.
Para ello es necesario, eso sí, analizar el perfil público de cada seguidor y clasificarlo de forma correcta, un trabajo que no es nada sencillo, pero que vale la pena a largo plazo.

¿Puedo tener una url personalizada para la página de mi empresa?

De momento no hay ninguna solución oficial para ello, aunque hay acortadores que ofrecen esa posibilidad, como gplus.to.
Os recomiendo esperar. Existe el riesgo de divulgar la url creada con una solución no oficial y ver como después, por el motivo que sea, desaparece para siempre.

¿Puedo crear una página sin necesidad de tener un perfil personal?

Sí, desde plus.google.com/pages/create es posible hacerlo.

¿Pueden varias personas administrar una misma página de Google Plus?

De momento no, pero es una de las funcionalidades prometidas por Google hoy mismo.

¿Puedo hacer desde una página e empresa lo mismo que hacía desde un perfil personal?

No, hay límites en varias funcionalidades. Ayer comentábamos las que divulgó Google desde su sección de soporte:

– Las páginas no pueden añadir a personas a los círculos hasta que la página haya sido añadida primero o mencionada.
– Las páginas pueden ser creadas por todo tipo de entidades, mientras los perfiles siempre son personales.
– La configuración de privacidad de los elementos de nuestra página de perfil por defecto es público
– Las páginas tienen su botón +1 pero no pueden marcar +1 en otras páginas o contenidos de otros sitios web
– Obviamente, las páginas no pueden jugar a los juegos.
– Las páginas no pueden compartir contenidos a círculos ampliados.
– Las páginas no reciben notificaciones por e-mail, textos o la barra superior de Google.
– Las páginas no pueden participar en las quedadas desde móviles.
– Páginas locales tienen campos específicos para su localización geográfica en la búsquedas de los usuarios.

Fuente: http://wwwhatsnew.com/2011/11/08/preguntas-y-respuestas-sobre-las-paginas-en-google-plus/

Editor: Alex Rojas writes articles related with technology, social media and marketing. Sponsored by Costa Rica Hotels, Motor de reservas en linea and Travel to Costa Rica

Google Analytics Real-Time and Google Analytics Premium rolling out now

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Rojas) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 07:26:04 PDT

Yesterday evening Google launched its Google Analytics Real-Time reports that allow you to view your site statistics as they come in. This new product will allow you to see active visitors on the site and measure the real-time response to social media. Google is also today launching the new Google Analytics Premium product, which is targeted at enterprise customers.
With instant statistics you can see the effects of a Tweet on your site traffic and get a real idea of how the click-throughs from your posts on social networks help you to drive traffic to your site. You can also use Real-Time to measure the tracking of campaigns to your site so that you can track them accurately.

The Real-Time product is located in the Dashboard tab but will be moving out to the home tab when the new Google Analytics interface rolls out next week. The ‘New Version’ link in the top right corner of your Analytics panel will activate it if you are the Administrator.
Google has also launched Google Analytics Premium, offering more expansive data, more tools to measure that data and dedicated support. This enterprise-targeted service will give you increased data collection and experts that will guide you through installation. There is also 24/7 support and performance guarantees.
The free version of Google Analytics will continue to exist alongside the Premium version and it will continue to update the free edition with new features.
The Real-Time product is rolling out currently and should already be available for some of you.

Source: http://thenextweb.com/google/2011/09/29/google-analytics-real-time-product-for-instant-stats-is-rolling-out-now/

Editor: Alex Rojas writes articles related with technology, social media and marketing. Sponsored by Costa Rica Hotels, Motor de reservas en linea and Travel to Costa Rica

Cambia tu perfil de Facebook en tres minutos

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Rojas) — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 22:18:14 PDT

¿Listos para probar Timeline de Facebook? El rostro de Facebook es totalmente diferente: se destaca las historias y aplicaciones en la red social. Si quieres cambiar tu perfil no dejes de seguir estos pasos:
1. Ingresa a la página de Aplicaciones de Facebook Developers. Debes hacer clic en Allow o Permitir. También debes ingresar un código captcha.
2. Haz clic en Crear una aplicación y llena los campos con tu nombre. En realidad, puede ser cualquier dato, pero el segundo campo no puede ser igual al de otros usuarios. Luego haz check en I agree… y luego en Continue.

3. Se recargará la página y saldrá la opción Open Graph. Hazle clic:

4. Debes poner un verbo y un sustantivo. Yo elegí “read” (leer) y “newspaper” (periódico). Luego haz clic en “Get Started”

5. Haz clic en Save Changes and Next. Luego te aparecerá otra página y nuevamente haz clic en Next.

6. Finalmente haz clic en Save and Finish.

7. Si recargas la página de Facebook.com podrás ver el botón “Get it now”.

8. Si le haces clic, ¡tu Facebook estará renovado!

Actualización: Algunos han tenido problemas pues les pide un código de verificación de su móvil o tarjeta de crédito. En el Perú y otros países de Latinoamérica este mensaje nunca llegó. En ese caso, se puede probar: 1) Agregar/modificar el número teléfono antes de seguir estos pasos o 2) verificar la tarjeta de crédito. La segunda opción resulta más efectiva, pues el proceso de confirmación no tarda más de dos minutos.
Vía TechCrunch
Fuente: http://www.clasesdeperiodismo.com/2011/09/22/cambia-tu-perfil-de-facebook-en-tres-minutos/

Google, Facebook and TripAdvisor on what’s next for online travel

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Rojas) — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 08:54:39 PDT

Which emerging trends will fizzle, and which will pop? What is the most significant opportunity (or critical threat) that our industry faces? Which disruptive forces will re-shape the online travel landscape as we know it in the next years?

Here are Rob Torres', Head of Travel, Google three predictions for online travel in 2012:

1) Aggressive consumer adoption of the mobile platform as a booking vehicle for travel - The growing adoption of web-enabled mobile devices is revolutionizing how many companies do business. Travel brands have an opportunity to take advantage of this trend.

- The number of mobile users researching travel is expected to grow 51% in 2012.
- 34% of all US smartphone users research from their mobile device
- 23% of all international travelers use mobile check-in for flights
- By 2012 18% of mobile users will also book from their smart device.

2) 2009 all over again....Travel shoppers will continue to search for deals and discounts at record levels. In 2012 consumers will again be willing to invest more time in the research process in order to save money – they will look for the best deals they can find, to get the most bang for their buck. Flash sale sites will continue to flourish....especially in the travel space.

3) Product innovation in the travel space will emerge for the first time since the entrance of OTA's in the late 90's. When you look across the phases of the travel cycle - Dreaming, Researching, Booking, Experiencing and Sharing - the potential for innovation, particularly in the early stages of dreaming and researching is astounding. In 2012 you will see quite a few travel start-ups emerge that attempt to capitalize on this opportunity.

Get the full story at EyeForTravel

Editor: Alex Rojas writes articles related with technology, social media and marketing. Sponsored by Costa Rica Hotels, Motor de reservas en linea and Travel to Costa Rica

How OTA hotel reviews drive bookings

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Rojas) — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 07:24:19 PDT

According to a PhoCusWright study of 27,000 U.S. hotels comprising 65 major brands, two out of every three online traveler reviews were posted to an OTA. Equally important as the majority OTAs now hold in the online review game is their influence therein.

“Those visitors that do click through beyond the (OTA) search results to read the review, they are significantly more likely to book travel online within the same month both on an online travel agency but also on a branded hotel website as well,” said Douglas Quinby, senior director of research for PhoCusWright, during a webinar Thursday titled, “Tweet This! Social Travel Grows Up ... or Does it?”

Roughly 7% of unique visitors to any major OTA complete a booking within the same month, he said. Of those who click through to read a full review, that percentage bumps up to 13%.

“It makes a very clear case for why OTAs have invested in building their review content for their hotel shopping platform,” Quinby said.

It also makes a very clear case for why hoteliers should be paying close attention to what guests are saying about them on the likes of Expedia, Priceline and Travelocity.

Get the full story at HotelNewsNow.com

Editor: Alex Rojas writes articles related with technology, social media and marketing. Sponsored by Costa Rica Hotels, Motor de reservas en linea and Travel to Costa Rica

5-star online hotel reviews go for $5

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Rojas) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 22:39:45 PDT

As online retailers increasingly depend on reviews as a sales tool, an industry of fibbers and promoters has sprung up to buy and sell raves for a pittance, writes The New York Times.

“For $5, I will submit two great reviews for your business,” offered one entrepreneur on the help-for-hire site Fiverr, one of a multitude of similar pitches. On another forum, Digital Point, a poster wrote, “I will pay for positive feedback on TripAdvisor.” A Craigslist post proposed this: “If you have an active Yelp account and would like to make very easy money please respond.”

The boundless demand for positive reviews has made the review system an arms race of sorts. As more five-star reviews are handed out, even more five-star reviews are needed. Few want to risk being left behind.

What is your opinion?

Get the full story at The New York Times

Editor: Alex Rojas writes articles related with technology, social media and marketing. Sponsored by Costa Rica Hotels, Motor de reservas en linea and Travel to Costa Rica

Plan de Redes Sociales

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Rojas) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:14:20 PDT

Aunque escasos, estos años de experiencia en redes sociales permiten detectar ya varios patrones y comportamientos que se asemejan entre los distintos proyectos que las empresas elaboran, toda vez que integran estas plataformas entre sus herramientas de fidelización.

Gracias a empresas que ya se arriesgaron –algunas con éxito y otras no- ya es posible realizar una guía que permita indicar el camino correcto a todas aquellas que aún no lo hacen, por no conocer su utilidad o simplemente por temor a fracasar.
Te invitamos entonces a realizar este recorrido, paso por paso, hacia el desarrollo de una estrategia Social Media elaborada por el sitio Isragarcia:
Paso 1Define tus objetivos, tanto cuantitativos como cualitativos, es decir, visualiza dónde quieres ir y cómo llegar allí.
Paso 2Conoce tus límites 2.0, tómalos en cuenta e identifica qué es lo que puede ayudar o perjudicar a tu empresa en la red social. Haz un plan hacia el éxito, con base en toda la información que obtengas del estado de tu negocio a nivel online. Por supuesto, planea el fallo y establece un plan B.
Paso 3Ahora es el momento de la creatividad. Tómate tu tiempo para madurar tus ideas y conceptos, identifica las claves. Cada plataforma, herramienta o acción llevada a cabo debe de tener su propio significado, así como características y objetivos. De lo contrario, estaríamos hablando de algo estándar. Sin embargo, todas las acciones deben ser alineadas bajo una misma línea estratégica. ¿Estás dispuesto a continuar?
Paso 4Una vez hayas definido los elementos clave de tu estrategia, debes realizar el análisis de lo que hace tu competencia en Twitter o Facebook; por ejemplo, cómo factores externos y la tecnología afectan nuestra identidad digital; o cómo es vista nuestra empresa desde las social media.
Paso 5Haz una lluvia de ideas partiendo de nuevas herramientas, el aprovechamiento de las nuevas plataformas y servicios sociales (geo-localización, social commerce, entre otras), aplicaciones, y también tomando en cuenta el equipo humano.
Paso 6Determina la audiencia a la que quieres llegar. Revisa sus gustos, hábitos, necesidades y perfiles. La idea es segmentar lo máximo posible tus redes.
Paso 7Crea tu cuenta en la red social, con perfiles, nombre de usuario (de la empresa, marca o concepto que quieras destacar de ella). No publiques, ni hagas visible nada, haz un borrador sobre el papel de cómo funcionaría todo. Así tus jefes y socios pueden revisarlo y ver qué les parece. Enlaza y conecta las plataformas directamente en Facebook, LinkedIn o Twitter. Creas también algunos blogs satélites.
Paso 8Establece un periodo de prueba para poder comprobar el funcionamiento de todas las plataformas sociales y ver los resultados.
Paso 9Realiza una campaña de lanzamiento, haz lo que sea necesario para comunicar que creaste una identidad digital de tu empresa.
Paso 10Utiliza herramientas de optimización y productividad como:

Posterous
Postling
TweetDeck
Tagthe
bit.ly
Workflowy
Storify
Curated.by
DropBox
MailChimp
GoogleWave
Del.ici.ous
Google Docs
Reader
Evernote
Yahoo Answers
Menéame
Facebook
Tuenti
Linkedin
Viadeo
Xing
Squidoo
Ning
Twitter
Youtube

Editor: Alex Rojas writes articles related with technology, social media and marketing. Sponsored by Costa Rica Hotels, Motor de reservas en linea and Travel to Costa Rica

8 Ways to Find Great Social Media Content

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Rojas) — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 08:42:10 PDT

Do you want to know how to find the most valuable social media content? Are you looking for great articles and videos to share with your friends and fans?
Be sure to watch this edition of Social Media Examiner TV with our host Mari Smith.
In this episode, Mari introduces you to the concept of curating content and how it can help your business. And Mari also reviews 8 content curation tools to help you find the best information for your business.
Share your feedback, see the show notes and discover how you can be part of a future show below!

Here are the content curation tools Mari reviews on this video:

#1: Google Alerts

Use Google Alerts to get notifications of your important keywords. Mari also explains how to use Google Alerts for reputation management with vanity searches.

Set up Google Alerts for keywords relevant to your business.

#2: Google Reader

Subscribe to blogs in your Google Reader for better social media management.

#3: Facebook Friend Lists for Better Facebook News Feeds

Get more control over your Facebook news feed with Facebook Friend Lists. Mari shares a great tip on how to make a Facebook Friend List with your favorite fan pages for better content curation thanks to a filtered view of your news feed.

Create Friend Lists of your favorite fan pages on Facebook to filter your news feed for quick content curation.

#4: Twitter Lists

Mari shares how you can create Twitter Lists to curate information from people who consistently share great content on Twitter.

Create lists of your favorite news sources on Twitter.

#5: HootSuite

You can use HootSuite with multiple social media profiles to make it easier to share the valuable content you find online. Mari gives you some great tips to get the most out of this social media tool.

HootSuite helps you curate content and share it across your social network.

#6: Paper.li

With Paper.li, you can publish your own virtual newspaper which pulls in information from various social media platforms.

Paper.li is an easy way to pull in links from your favorite sources.

#7: Alltop

Alltop curates the content for you by allowing you to create a MyAlltop page to subscribe to your favorite blogs.

Alltop is a great resource to help you find the best content from your favorite blogs.

#8: Mobile

Flipboard and Pulse are two mobile apps Mari mentions in this video. And she explains why using mobile apps makes it easy for you to curate content on social media.

Content curation apps like Pulse are valuable tools to stay up to date.

Watch the video to learn more about these content curation tools! And be sure to listen for Mari’s hot marketing tips on how to craft a tweet to get more retweets.
If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Social Media Examiner TV, make sure to tweet about it (use hashtag #SMEtv), share it on Facebook or even embed this episode on your blog.

Source: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/8-ways-to-find-great-social-media-content/

Editor: Alex Rojas writes articles related with technology, social media and marketing. Sponsored by Costa Rica Hotels, Motor de reservas en linea and Travel to Costa Rica

Skype Lets Users Find WiFi Hotspots

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Rojas) — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 21:51:16 PDT

Skype just launched a new iOS application for iPhones, iPads and the iPod Touch that allows users to find WiFi hotspots—and only pay for the minutes used, which is nice when traveling.

Source: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/linkedin-enhances-mobile-experience-this-week-in-social-media/

Editor: Alex Rojas writes articles related with technology, social media and marketing. Sponsored by Costa Rica Hotels, Motor de reservas en linea and Travel to Costa Rica

LinkedIn Enhances Mobile Experience: This Week in Social Media

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Rojas) — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 21:51:42 PDT

Their latest mobile app is available on iPhones and Androids and helps professionals be even more productive on the go.

Editor: Alex Rojas writes articles related with technology, social media and marketing. Sponsored by Costa Rica Hotels, Motor de reservas en linea and Travel to Costa Rica

Ya puedes publicar imágenes directamente en Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Rojas) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 12:02:06 PDT

Twitter ha lanzado un nuevo servicio con el que ahora puedes publicar imágenes o fotos directamente desde la computadora, las imágenes serán alojadas en Photobucket y el peso máximo es de 3MB.
Hoy, al entrar a mi cuenta de Twitter encontré el mensaje que me avisaba sobre la novedad.

No estoy seguro si ya está disponible en todo el mundo, pero en la página oficial de la red de microblogging comentan que están en ello.
Una vez que se ha activado la nueva función y quieras compartir una imagen desde el ordenador, debes hacer clic dentro de cuadro (caja) de Tweets o el botón nuevo Tweet, verás dos iconos en la esquina inferior izquierda, uno para añadir la ubicación y el otro para añadir la imagen.

Al hacer clic en el icono de la “camarita”, te dará la opción de elegir la foto o imagen.

(Si quieres cambiar la imagen o foto antes de publicarla, la puedes borrra haciendo clic en la “x” y elegir otra).
Escribes el texto y lo publicas como cualquier tweet. Tus seguidores podrán ver la imagen redimencionada (más pequeña) en la barra derecha.

Para ver la imagen o foto más grande, deben hacer clic en el enlace, el cual mostrará el tweet y la imágen.

Para borrar la imagen después de haberla publicado tienes que borrar el Tweet que la contiene.
Si quieres seguir utilizando servicios de terceros como Twitpic o yFrog, puedes seguir haciéndolo sin problema.
Para más información puedes visitar el centro de ayuda de Twitter.

Editor: Alex Rojas writes articles related with technology, social media and marketing. Sponsored by Costa Rica Hotels, Motor de reservas en linea and Travel to Costa Rica

Mostrar quién es el administrador o propietario de una página de Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Rojas) — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 15:23:03 PDT

Si alguna vez te has preguntado (como yo y algunos cuantos miles más) ¿cómo mostrar quién es el administrador, propietario o creador de una página de fans (o comercial) de Facebook?, esto te puede interesar.
Una de las nuevas funciones en los recientes cambios en las páginas de fans de Don Facebook permite hacer público quién es el administrador de la página de manera que se muestre en el margen izquierdo. Es opcional, así que no se preocupen aquellos administradores o creadores que prefieren mantener su anonimato.
Veamos cómo activar y desactivar la opción:
1.- Ve a “Editar la página” (arriba a la derecha):

2.- En la página de edición, haz click en “Páginas destacadas”:

3.- En páginas destacadas encontrarás 2 opciones, la primera “Me gustan” (esta es otra nueva función que te permite elegir hasta 5 páginas que “le gustan a tu página” para que aparezcan en lado izquierdo de manera rotatoria. Por ejemplo, si te gustan (bueno, si le gustan a tu página) 50 páginas, con esta opción se mostrarán las páginas que has elegido).
Pero sigamos con nuestro tema, ve a la segunda opción “Propietarios de Páginas” y haz click en “Editar los propietarios de páginas destacados”:

4.- En la siguiente ventana selecciona los administradores que quieras que se hagan públicos:

5.- Haz click en “Guardar” y te aparecerá algo así:

5.- Y ya está, ve a tu página y comprueba que aparece el administrador o propietario en la parte izquierda:

Para que veas como se ve en vivo y a todo color ve a la página del directorio de Tuxpan, Veracruz en Facebook.

Para quitarlo sigue los mismos pasos, ve a “Editar los propietarios de páginas destacados”, quita la selección y guardas.

Puedes elegir más de un administrador o propietario, todos los que selecciones aparecerán en la parte izquierda de la página.

De las funciones nuevas de las páginas de fans de Facebook, ésta me parece muy interesante ya que permite a las páginas comerciales o de negocios hacer público a la persona (o una de las personas) que administra la página lo cual da un aspecto más personal en este canal de comunicación, es decir, las personas con las que se interactúa (fans) podrán ver que hay una alguien de carne y hueso detrás del logotipo, sobre todo para microempresas y Pymes, creo que puede ayudar en la estrategia de comunicación de su plan de marketing online.

Por otro lado, habrá administradores o propietarios de páginas que prefieran no hacerse públicos y es normal, imagínate, el administrador de la página de Coca Cola que tiene más de 23 millones de fans, si se hace público podría recibir tantas solicitudes en su perfil personal que en unos minutos podría llegar al límite de 5000 amigos :) (es un ejemplo extremo claro, y además Coca Cola tiene más de un administrador, pero no sé, podría ser interesante ver que pasa ¿no crees?), y por el contrario podría ser bueno para quienes quieren hacerse promoción y darse a conocer. También hay quienes prefieren separar su vida personal de la profesional, y con esta nueva opción no lo podrían hacer.

¿Qué te parece esta nueva función en las páginas de Facebook?, ¿Qué utilidad, ventajas o desventajas le encuentras?

Editor: Alex Rojas writes articles related with technology, social media and marketing. Sponsored by Costa Rica Hotels, Motor de reservas en linea and Travel to Costa Rica

Rules of High rankings changed: Surviving Google PANDA update

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Rojas) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 19:25:39 PDT

Google recently changed the rules of high rankings by introducing a new update that targets ‘low quality’ websites. And its time for you to change your SEO and marketing strategy accordingly.
Millions of webmasters and SEO geeks are loosing traffic (and sleep) due to what Google calls ‘PANDA’ or ‘Farmer’ update which targets ‘content farms’ and de-ranks them. ‘Captain Google Panda’ is sailing against the Pirates of Content and punishing those who have been creating huge waves of content in their ‘content mills’ or writing only to capture a sea of keywords on Search Engines.
Impacting more than 11.8% search results worldwide, too much of noise, speculation, opinion and coverage over this update has ultimately caused too much of confusion in SEO community.
Here is a complete guide on what you are up against, how to shape your high ranking strategy for future and a detailed survival guide against the wrath of Google Panda update.

What is Google PANDA update?

The experimental Panda Algorithmic change was updated in US on 24th February, 2011 (Panda 1.2). It was rolled forward globally to English Google users on 11th April, 2011 (Panda 2.2).
By means of this update, Google expressed its wrath against low-quality websites (those with duplicate, irrelevant or worthless material). All the same, it expressed appreciation for high-quality websites (those with original, relevant and useful material).

“This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.”

- Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts
Google’s Search Quality Engineers

So what does Google mean by “low-quality” website?

As per Google, it means content:
- that visitors don’t want to bookmark
- that is mass-produced or spread to multiple sources
- that lacks original research, reporting and analysis
- that has factual, stylistic or grammatical errors
- that is hollow / irrelevant for end-users
- that is contrived / keyword-stuffed just to drive traffic
“In addition, this change also goes deeper into the “long tail”
– Google representatives

Out of all the websites hit by Panda, a good number have experienced a dip in their long-tail keyword rankings. Websites that relied excessively on long-tail pages to attract link-backs have been adversely affected by this update.
So, it goes into saying that via Panda update, Google has reinforced the importance of long-tail keywords as well.

Learning from the mistakes of Big Publishers

‘Captain Google Panda’ is sailing against the Pirates of Content and punishing those who have been creating huge waves of content in their ‘content mills’ or writing only to capture a sea of keywords on Search Engines.
Here is a list of big publishers who were hit by the recent update. Closely observe and learn from what they did WRONG or what they did RIGHT and where they stand after PANDA update.

Ezinearticles.com -

The magnitude of poor-quality content (most of which was clearly spun) on this website was too much to cheat search-engines. Long-tail keywords were not targeted properly and there were too many anchor text links directing to other sites…primarily because writing and editorial guidelines were too lenient to check ‘shallow’ content. Clearly, the website’s traffic was affected by both Panda 1.2 and Panda 2.2.

eHow.com -

eHow was hit just by the global roll-out of Panda update. eHow has a history of being openly criticized by search engine companies like Duck Duck Go and Wired magazine, labeling it as a ‘content mill’. eHow trains an army of writers (poorly paid) to write low quality content designed to rank high on search engines.
Apparently, it was the poor internal linking strategy, irrelevance of topics and the inability to target long-tail keywords properly that pushed eHow down in search engines. The website, otherwise, has stricter content guidelines (as compared to ezinearticles.com and hubpages.com) and has recently (post PANDA) shut down new author signup.

About.com -

In contrast to eHow, this company is known to recruit one of the best writers that actually have domain knowledge of what they write about. The compensation of the writers is tied to the performance of the content (in terms of traffic and advertisement revenues). At one point of time, search engines like Google, Yahoo, Ask and AOL were interested to acquire About.com but The New York Times won the bidding battle.
Inspite of so much concentration on content quality, the how-to giant lost on page views, although it gained on long-tail keywords. This is why it has remained stable throughout. Guess Google likes whoever plays by the rule: ‘Don’t be evil’

Blogspot.com -

Blogspot.com got a positive hit from the Panda attack. The website (both Google’s own blogs and other user created blogs) have experienced an approximately 22.80% visibility increase post the update and why not? It targets long-tail keywords effectively and provides fresh, relevant and valuable information to the end-users. Google loves such websites!

Google has nothing against articles, but against low-quality articles and their repetition

Google has waged a war against low-quality / duplicate content AND NOT against articles particularly! Since, a lot of such ‘low-quality’ content was previously available on many article directories, it’s these directories that were hit THE MOST!
“Google’s recent search algorithm update did have an impact on our traffic, It was to the tune of about a 10-35% decrease.” – Christopher M Knight, CEO Ezinearticles.com
And for that matter, such content copying may also exist within the website, what we call internal duplication. Would you stop writing for your own website also?
Google urges webmasters to invest in high-quality content – it may be an article on your own website, a blog, an article submitted to top-notch article directories, a Google knol…whatever…

What NOW? Time to consider other facets of article writing

In a way, article writing is similar to the realty sector. Its all about the most profitable LOCATION! So, where do you put your articles now on?
Matt Cutts, Google’s anti-spam mastermind, recently pointed a clue by saying that when there are better alternatives available, why stick to the fuddy-duddy ones?
“I am not a huge fan of article marketing. I will lean towards great content that naturally has links… do social media marketing so that people are linking to it organically for the reason that they actually love it.”
So, what is he exactly talking about? Good blogging and social media marketing, eh?
Of course, yes! Blogging is just another facet of article writing, a better one you can say…! The online world seems to be abuzz with this new form of writing…

Start a blog (meaty, juicy and UNIQUE )

Include a blog in your website and optimize it for both short-tail and long-tail keywords. Keep it alive and kicking by adding fresh, catchy and relevant posts. You may even link it with other high-quality relative websites, if you wish. But if your posts are actually rich and juicy, they’ll be worthy of being linked and bookmarked naturally.

Guest post on niche-related blogs

Guest blogging on other blogs can get you authority linkbacks (and followers) to your website or blog. Every blog has its own guest posting guidelines. If you send a niche related blogger your post and it meets their posting guidelines, whoa! You’ll cyber-meet many new people and get a chance to improve your website’s visibility. Even better would be to cross-link all your guest posts together.

Invite guest posts from niche-related bloggers

Inviting someone to guest post on your blog is like inviting a star on your talk-show. Say for example you have a health related website…Wouldn’t it be great if you can loop in a professional diet expert to write a guest post for you, on your blog obviously? Remember, you must invite guest posts from only those bloggers whose interests are related to yours…

Submit your blogs in premium blog directories

If you submit your pulpy blog to a premium niche related directory, it will work! But ONLY if its your own, and not a stolen one! And that reminds me of BlogCatalog and Google knol…No, its not a blog directory but it lets you share your thoughts on just any topic under the sun! And since these are reputable content-sharing platforms, it’s a worthwhile consideration…

Use Social Media Channels for promotion

You need to inform your followers about your new story, isn’t it? And what better medium of promotion than social media! Nearly half of the world in active on social media sites and hence….if you know how to bell the cat right, your blog is right there where you want it to be! And with Lord Cutts making it clear that Google considers social media reputation while according rankings, you should be doing it even more rigorously!!

I am already PANDA hit. How can I improve my condition?

Concentrate on content:

You need to concentrate on better content from now on and post more frequently. Write genuine content, without copying from other sources. Structure your content properly by using more headlines and optimizing it for keywords organically.
Deleting overly used sources of content (like an RSS feed) may help (but it is entirely upto you). The duplicate content penalty exists on page level and makes your website more prone to it if you are copying content in masses. However, there is no indication that the penalty exists at domain level.

Build more backlinks

Since PANDA is about improving user experience, concentrate on the only feedback from users that search engines dwell upon – the backlinks. Get genuine backlinks to your content. Engage in deep-linking whenever possible. Structure your website so that every page is approachable within 3 clicks and easily crawlable.

Socialize your content

Make your content easily shareable, use Facebook comments, engage with people on Twitter or just entice people to digg or bookmark your content. Ofcourse, your content should be worthy enough for a bookmark, digg, ‘Like’ or ‘Share’ on social networks.
Google can now read & understand shortened URLs & accounts them as backlinks (Dont get started with spamming twitter now). Google even launched its own URL shortening service to read the pulse of users. Google is about to launch +1, which works like Facebook’s LIKE button. All these are indications of how closely Google is following its users. Socializing with these users is a nice strategy.

Panda (emic) Attack : A battle against stale content; not against article directories

It ultimately boils down to the fact that search engines LOVE unique, relevant, informative and grammatically correct text. Call it an article, blog, knol…or whatever you will! And it’s not just about the quality of your content but also about the quality of the location where you intend to post it!
Google is clear in its message: Websites that do not pay importance to uniqueness of content and user engagement will be filtered out of search results.
Mr Panda that is big and fat, has NOT had article directories fallen flat!
It’s all about quality and location, and your site’s social media reputation!

Editor: Alex Rojas writes articles related with technology, social media and marketing. Sponsored by Costa Rica Hotels, Motor de reservas en linea and Travel to Costa Rica

Google Panda: Forcing Businesses to Create Better Content

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Rojas) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 19:03:42 PDT

If you haven’t paid any attention to the news around Google Panda but use content to market your business, here’s what you need to know. Google recently changed the way it ranks websites with content in search engine results. So all the dozens of article directories (also known as content farms) are no longer ranking at the top of search results. If you’ve been using article directories to increase your ranking, you’re now wasting your time.
Essentially, Google now looks at the quality of every site that links to yours and determines its value. Of course, Google’s secret formula will never be known, but what we can glean is that it doesn’t like:

Sites with a lot of unrelated content
Sites with lots of ads
Sites that don’t appear to be moderated
Sites that are overstuffed with keywords
Sites that link to many others without reason

You know those sites when you visit them. And while many companies bemoaned these new rules, they’re actually really good rules, if you know how to play the game.

Rule 1: Deliver Good Content
This should be the only rule, honestly. If you’ve been mindlessly churning out articles with little value and lots of keywords, you need to change your strategy. Instead, focus on what your customers want to know. This could be how-tos on your products, frequently asked questions, industry commentary, company news or op-ed pieces. Find out what pains your customers have, then ease them by providing useful content.
For example, you came to Small Business Trends because you were looking for information related to small businesses. You (we hope) find the content useful, and might even come back to see what other good stuff we’ve got going on. You can do the same thing we do on this blog on your own website. Be the expert in your industry and drive traffic to your site through content.
Rule 2: Keep It Fresh
Google loves new content, so don’t write one article and think you’re done. Create a strategy for putting out several articles a week and determine what you’ll write about. You might ask different people in your company to write on their areas of specialty to keep it diverse, but still relevant.
Rule 3: Invest in a Good Writer
Most CEOs don’t have the time or ability to write awesome content week after week. So don’t skimp. Hire a freelance writer or agency specializing in blogs and articles to help if you don’t have someone on your staff who can do it. Look for someone with experience in writing blog posts. You want a pro to drive traffic to your site.
Rule 4: Share Your Content
Your content’s only as good as the people who read it, and if that includes just your mother, it’s not doing its job. Set up an RSS feed from your blog; publish links to your posts on social media; share links in your company emails. Eventually people will find your content on their own, but you need to help them get there.
Look at Google Panda as a positive change that will help you rise above competitors who were doing a bad job of content marketing. If you follow the new rules, you’ll be able to effectively use content to get new customers.

Editor: Alex Rojas writes articles related with technology, social media and marketing. Sponsored by Costa Rica Hotels, Motor de reservas en linea and Travel to Costa Rica

The Perfect Landing Page. 12 Landing page Tips and Examples

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Rojas) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 20:41:29 PDT

Landing page best practice advice

Most discussion of web design in companies still naturally tends to focus on the home page. But, for companies who are running a lot of online marketing campaigns, the effectiveness of the different pages deeper within the site is vital to getting returns from these campaigns.
So this prompts the question, which factors make for the most effective landing page? Is a ‘Perfect Landing Page’ possible? This post gives a summary of my top 12 and places to look to find more.
If you’re into landing pages I recommend this excellent post written since I wrote this, decomposing 10 landing page examples.

Salesforce.com – an example of the Perfect Landing Page?

To illustrate these tips, I’m going to use an example I’ve used in training for a couple of years – it’s the Salesforce.com lead generation page for its CRM service (click to enlarge). I think it illustrates many good practices such as removing the main nav which can be a distraction. I’ve marked up what I see as good about this format. It’s maybe not perfect, but much better than most! Let me know what you don’t like about it! Or how things differ for consumer sites!

If you want to read more on techniques to increase web site conversion I recommend my Web design best practice guide. This has many other tips and examples on landing page best practice.

Defining landing pages

First, of all, what is a landing page or microsite? Not everyone knows this jargon and actually, there’s no simple answer.
My definition is that landing page or microsites are: “Specific page(s) on a web site created for visitors referred from marketing campaigns which are designed to achieve a marketing outcome.”
Anything referred to as a landing page is intended to maximise conversion of visitors to this page or series of pages to a particular marketing outcome – sale, lead or change in brand metrics.
Most typically, the outcome is conversion to action, typically data capture where a site visitor fills in an online form to generate a marketing lead.

Landing page goals

Effective landing pages are those that meet their objectives, so let’s start with typical objectives. Often it is thought that response is everything – so objectives are not though through, but that this can lead to data capture pages that are too simple.
Typical communications objectives in order of importance are:

Achieve registration typically to generate a lead (such as a quote for insurance in our example) which leads ultimately to sale
Profile and qualify the site visitor in order to deliver more relevant follow-up marketing communications
Explain the value proposition offered by the company to differentiate from other sites the visitor may visit during the buying process i.e. Answer the visitors questions.
Communicate the brand values of the organisation running the campaign
If the visitor doesn’t want to disclose their details right now, provide contact details for traditional sales channels such as a phone number, or give the visitor reasons to return to the site or engage them through other relevant content or offers

It is important to run through these objectives since sometimes it is just the two primary objectives related to data capture that mainly determine landing page design and not the secondary objectives which are equally important. The majority of the visitors to the landing page won’t actually convert, so it is important to give them a favourable experience also.

Different types of landing page

We have to bear in mind that there are different types of landing pages that work best depending on the campaign objectives and whether it is a short-term or long-term campaign. There are two basic choices. The first is a landing page integrated into the sites stucture and consistent with standard page templates and navigation for the site. The second is a landing page specifically created for the campaign with a different look and feel. Here are some of the pros and cons.

A. Landing page(s) integrated into site architecture and style

It is most efficient in terms of effort in content creation to make landing pages part of the main site information architecture. The downside is that they may not work so well in terms of converting both direct referrers and browsers navigating from elsewhere on the site. They also need to be search optimised, which may add to costs of the campaign. This is an example of integrated pages for annual travel insurance (http://www.norwichunion.com/ travel-insurance/ annual-travel-insurance).
Such landing pages in particular category or product pages use what is known as deep linking.

B. Bespoke landing pages that are not part of the main site structure or style

These are used where a more “stripped down” page than standard content is required which focuses on converting visitors from an online ad campaign. Alternatively, if it is a short-term branding campaign then it may be more straightforward to create a microsite separate from the main site with a different look and feel. This often happens where resource cannot be found to create a microsite within the main site, or it is felt that the existing site look and feel cannot deliver the brand impact required.
So this approach is used since it can potentially produce higher conversion rates or produce a microsite more consistent with the campaign goals and style. The disadvantages are that this approach requires more effort and maintenance and often result in a poorer user experience since the page will look and work differently to elsewhere in the site. If it is a completely separate site with a separate domain, a big disadvantage of this approach is that due to the Google sandbox effect, it is not likely to be included in the search results for several months. Given this it is really essential that the site is incorporated within the same domain – for example www.quotemehappy.com redirects to the main Norwich Union site.
So, companies need to work out whether the cost of producing this type of page is offset by the potentially higher conversion rates and better campaign results. Although this approach is surpisingly quite common, I think the approach is often taken for convenience eventhough it is more expensive in the longer term. I know of one E-commerce manager for a multi-national technology vendor who tries to educate their hundreds of web and traditional marketing specialists to not use the bespoke landing page approach, but to always try to integrate into existing site structure.
Often though there is not one right or wrong approach and a hybrid can be used, i.e. you create tailored landing pages only for high volume/high expenditure generic Adwords pages or for major offline ad campaigns.

The home page can be a landing page

Note that a landing page could potentially be the home page although this is not typically best practice. But, if a company has a limited range of products or the main campaign objective is to generate awareness rather than response.

Different referrer types

To make the landing page effective, we also need to think through the full range of places the visitor may originate. There are 3 main origins we need to design the landing page to accomodate:

Online media placement. Visitors can be referred by clickthrough from any online referrer such as a search engine, online ad, affiliate site or e-mail campaign. There are two main types of landing page for these placements:
Offline media placement.
Offline ads or direct mail may have a specific campaign URL (CURL) such as www.quotemehappy.com
This is the landing page for these offlin referrers.
Visitors that navigate from elsewhere on the site. Such visitors are not using the page(s) as a “landing page”, but still need to be accomodated if you are using a deep linking strategy.

Landing page success factors

To be effective, landing pages need to combine the following:

Usability
Accessibility
Persuasion
Develop trust in the brand

My Twelve microsite success factors

Before I run through the success factors, remember that guidelines are only guidelines, they of course, have exceptions. The only way to be sure of what works for your audience and your market is to conduct tests such as usability studies, A/B testing or multivariate testing. Having the right web analytics tool is vital to this.
As a minimum, you should readily be able to view data on bounce rates (the proportion of visitors who leave the page without visiting more pages) and conversion rates (the proportion of visitors who complete the intended outcome) for different referral sources (e.g. paid vs natural search vs online ads). Ideally, it should also enable you to complete A/B testing where different visitors are served different pages so differences in bounce and conversion rates can be assessed.
Second, remember that the guidelines are dependent on the users typical viewable area of screen. While many still design for a minimum of 1064X768 or even 800 by 600, the latest data on screen resolutions shows that over three quarters are now higher than 1024 by 768 although this is skewed by the designer audience of that source! So check your own analytics!
However, if browsers open a new window, for example from search results page, the new window may be smaller than full-screen.
So finally! these are my top 12 guidelines for landing page effectiveness:
ONE. Deliver RELEVANCE.
Unlike casual visits by browsers, visitors arrive on landing page with a directed goal or intention in mind. So the first thing you have to do is instantly show relevance to help visitors achieve that goal.
A clear headline should show relevance and also engage the visitor to scan down the page. You need to show the visitor they have selected the right place to find the brand, product, deal, information or experience they are looking for, so the headline must clearly indicate this.
Other key “relevance messages” should be readily scannable through chosing the right headlines and with panels drawing the eye to the different areas as in the Huggies example. Tests tend to show that larger fonts give better response.
Since hitting the landing page is often the first experience of a company, we have to answer basic questions that the customer has about the company such as “Who are you?”, “What do you do?”, “Where are you?” “Do I trust you?” You may do these on the home page, but does the navigation on the landing page allow these questions to be answered. Standard menu options such as “About Us” or “Contact Us” can achieve these.
TWO. INTEGRATE with referral source(s). The customer journey to your web site started elsewhere. To deliver relevance also requires consistency with what they have already read and seen to meet their expectation.
So in terms of message, branding and creative the landing page needs to deliver an integrated communication. This applies particularly to offline ads, interactive ads and e-mails.
The key message on the landing page needs to be consistent with the key message of the referral source. So again, you need to show the visitor they have selected the right place to find the brand, product, deal, information or experience they are looking for, so the headline must clearly indicate this.
THREE. Provide sufficient DETAIL to support the response decision. More generally, the whole experience needs to be right to generate response.
For me, one of the most important aspect of landing pages, and one that is often not right, is that there isn’t enough detailed information on which the visitor can decide to signup.
To help determine the right-level of information, best practice is to use design personas to identify typical information required and the gap relative to what you deliver. Also think about the level of “domain knowledge” the user has – do your technical product descriptions make sense. Also think about “tool knowledge” – where your landing page requires using additional tools what knowledge is required to use them effectively and are you providing the right explanations.
FOUR. Start the user on their journey. The design should make the next step clear and minimise the number of clicks required for response since every extra click required in response will generally reduce response by 10%. It is best practice to include the initial data capture on the first page as shown in the Salesforce.com example.
If the response mechanism is on another page use multiple calls-to action to gain response since some visitors will respond to images and some text hyperlinks. Make all images clearly clickable, for example by making them look like buttons.
Form-related approaches to improve the journey:

Limiting the options on each page is an effective technique.
Grabbing attention in first 30 seconds through a headline and lead that reflects ad copy and “isn’t too clever”, i.e. be direct.
If it is a multi-page form, then draw users in with easier initial questions.
Allow the form to be saved part way through the quotation
Use dynamic headlines related to referrer including search keyphrase to help deliver relevance
Use focus groups to decide what to test – marketers who are too close to the problem may disregard factors that are important to customers

The words used to form calls-to-action are critical to create a scent trail that users of the site follow. An effective scent is delivered where the words match what the user wants to know or achieve.
FIVE. Use the right PAGE LENGTH. This is a difficult one to give guidelines on. The right copy / page length is one that minimises the knowledge gap between what the user want to know and what you tell them.
Some designers would suggest that content must fit on one page that doesn’t require scrolling at 800 by 600 resolution. But short copy is often inconsistent with Guideline 1. Also tests have shown that page can be scrollable – users will scroll if they appear scrollable. However, it is best if key information include response mechanism are above the fold.
To summarise, I would say, make it short (for impulsive readers) AND long (for readers who want to read more).
Of course, the only way to get the length right is to test. This Marketing Experiments test
suggested that long-copy outperformed when driving visitors to a product page from Google Adwords.
SIX. Use meaningful graphics. Graphics must be consistent with the campaign and generate empathy for the audience. Don’t understimate the importance of quality graphics – stock graphics rarely work. It is difficult to assess how graphics influence conversion rate, so the implication is test.
SEVEN. Remove menu options? Another guideline that causes disagreement. Removing menu options will often increase conversion rate since less choice of where to click is offered, but for those who don’t respond will give a poor experience and prevent them browsing other parts of the site. Often a compromise is best with a reduction in menu options to top-level options only.
EIGHT. Consider using a ‘flowable’ or liquid layout design This maximises real estate at a given resolution – Amazon do this, Orange don’t.
Although this can work well for a retailer to show more products above the fold in a category, this is achieved with a loss of control of design. For landing pages, a controlled, fixed design will often work best.
NINE. Remember search marketing
There are three aspects to this. First an offline campaign will lead to people searching on your brand or the campaign strapline.
Make sure you are using paid search to direct visitors to the relevant pages particularly during the campaign.
Second, if the page is integrated into the web site and will be used in the long-term, optimise it for relevant search keyphrases using the search engine optimisation techniques described here.
Three, Google sends out a robot “Adbots Google” to test landing page for relevance and speed, so make sure your <title>, headings and body copy include the keywords you’re using to trigger your ad and including in ad copy.
TEN. Remember the non-responders
Provide a choice for those who don’t respond despite your carefully crafted landing pages. Provide a reasonably prominent (trackable) phone number or perhaps a call-back/live chat option. Also provide some options for them to browse or search elsewhere on the site.
ELEVEN. TIMITI!
TIMITI is a term coined by Jim Sterne, author of Web Metrics
It stands for Try It! Measure It! Tweak It! i.e. online content effectiveness should be reviewed and improved continuously rather than as a periodic or ad-hoc process. Because the web is a new medium and the access platforms, user behaviours and competitor approach all change continuously, what works at the start of the year will certainly not work as well by the end of the year.
TWELVE. Consider landing page longevity
Landing pages are often used for short-term campaigns. If so, you need to carefully manage when they and links to them from within the nav are expired. Risks include out-of-date offers and visitors typing in URLS which are no longer valid. Use of a custom 404 Error page is essential to manage these problems gracefully.
Finally, remember that there are always exceptions to guidelines and some have suggested that many of the commonly held usability guidelines are myths
See also Bryan Eisenbergs ten unwritten Internet design rules
So that’s my guidance, as always, tell me what you have found. Share the approaches you have found effective. Thanks.

Editor: Alex Rojas writes articles related with technology, social media and marketing. Sponsored by Costa Rica Hotels, Motor de reservas en linea and Travel to Costa Rica

The Most Powerful Secret In Facebook Ads

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Rojas) — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 12:10:18 PDT

Yesterday we discussed the trick to growing a Facebook fan base — to place the like button everywhere, get folks to like everything, as treat your fan base like an email list. Now that you have the initial set of fans, here’s where the fun begins.

Facebook has 3 types of connection targeting: users who are fans, users who aren’t fans, and friends of fans. It’s this last option that is amazing– so awesome that I’m afraid public mention of it may cause Facebook to remove it. And that’s why we keep testing, plus don’t reveal all our tips, but I digress.
Let’s consider a poker site– the National League of Poker. When we target only fans of the page, Facebook gives us an audience of 2,060 people:

The actual fan count is 2,894, but that’s because Facebook’s estimate are delayed and we’re automatically filtering by US 18+. By using the first connection targeting option, we can continue to nurture those folks who have become fans. As a marketer, you know that you want to say something different to folks who already know you versus those who don’t, right? So why is it that Facebook advertisers treat everyone the same? When you use the first connection option, you’re trying to move people from the interest stage to either desire or action. You should not be trying to generate awareness with these folks who are already fans. Note that how our messaging is quite different than “Learn how to play poker!”
If you already are a fan of the page, the like button won’t show up, by the way. It will just say “You like this ad/page”– and if you have other friends who like it, they’ll show up, too. Sometimes the unlike button shows- not sure what governs when it shows. There are so few advertisers that are sending traffic to Facebook pages and also using connection targeting that it’s hard to tell.
Finally, this is what you’ve been waiting for. The average Facebook user has 130 friends. So the 2,060 fans allow us to reach 304,800 people.

This particular example works out to 148 friends per fan. The larger the base, the smaller the number of friends per user. It’s partly that your initial users are more likely to be early adopters and have more fans in general. But it’s also that the more fans you have, the greater the chance of overlap between them, such that the unduplicated audience decreases. When you have over 500,000 fans, then your factor of reach vs fans may be only low double digits. While decreased reach may appear bad, this is actually VERY good, since it means that each time you show the ad, it’s showing MULTIPLE people below providing endorsements. Awesomeness on Facebook = maximizing PEER PRESSURE!
Consider an ad for a pizza restaurant that says they have the best pizza in town. Yawn. That’s what 99% of advertising is about– in fact, pretty much all advertising outside of Facebook is like this– we just tune it out. Now imagine the same ad, but below it, your friend says they like it. Might you trust the claim a bit more– perhaps even be more likely to drop in and order pizza the next time you drive by the place?
How do you think this may affect the CTR as well as the conversion rates?
What if we could say this to 304,800 people– showing each of them an ad that had their particular friend’s endorsement below it?
What if you got clever with your ad copy to make outrageous claims?

By the way, these are fake examples– you’ll have to see what you can get by Facebook’s ad review team. The winning psychology: if you’re doing retargeting (remarketing) on Google, then you can use similar ads in your direct fan and friends of fans (FOF) targeting. For example, if someone has abandoned their shopping cart, you can say “Hey, why didn’t you buy? Here’s 10% off now to make it worth your while!” And you can put a retargeting pixel on your Facebook page, but that’s something to discuss in a post by itself.
Now consider the reach you have when you multiply your fan base by 150 and hit each of those folks with ads that have endorsements attached. The Las Vegas metro has 606,460 people on Facebook.

UNLV has 14,151 fans of our page of their 3 Las Vegas stadiums. We can cover over 50% of Las Vegas Facebook users with an endorsed ad. Consider if you’re a dentist in a suburb of 100,000 people. You need only a fan base of 500 people to effectively dominate your town with endorsed (FOF) ads– to have more than 50% coverage of a geo-graphic area.
Now before you go crazy with FOF targeting, consider when it works and when it doesn’t:

B2B: Nearly a complete FAIL. Why? When you do FOF targeting for an electronics manufacturer targeting design engineers, you end up targeting that design engineer’s family and friends who are decidedly NOT interested in the latest data sheets on your 16 bit transformer assemblies. For B2B, use workplace and interest targeting to hit their place of employment and title.
Consumer products and entertainment: ABSOLUTELY! Targeting the friends of of your fans is highly likely to result in something interesting to them. Ask yourself what percentage of a user’s fans will be interested in their endorsement of a new movie, their favorite brand of soap, or whatever.
Local: This is the goldmine of Facebook ads. People’s Facebook friends tend to be people they see and interact with in real-life. There is a high likelihood that you can leverage that fan’s recommendation broadly across their friend base. You can make it even better by adding a geographic and age filter, so you’re not showing ads to old college alumni or children, depending on what your business does. BlitzLocal has asserted that Facebook is the sleeping giant of local, because of the wealth of trusted information available and effectiveness of targeting. We don’t believe this will replace Google, but rather, augment it.

By the way, users who are being hit with this targeting aren’t aware that the advertiser is doing so– unless you are as blatant as the example I’ve provided. The ad itself doesn’t show what targeting criteria was used to match them to the ad. Note to Facebook: this would be a cool feature– and it would assuage many of the privacy concerns, where users are afraid that anything they have on their profile or interactions on Facebook is fair game for ad targeting.
There is a third targeting option, which is to exclude folks who are fans. Negation targeting matters only when your fan base is large enough that you risk showing awareness ads to folks who are fans.
TYING IT ALL TOGETHER
Few people realize that Facebook plays at all points in the conversion funnel– they simplistically believe that Facebook is just display advertising with social elements, and that Google is for conversion. It’s true that Google is primarily demand harvesting and that Facebook is more towards demand generation.

(image courtesy of Facebook)

More accurately, because you can target whether people are totally new to you, are connected to someone who does know you, or knows you– that lets you separate out your messaging and conversion paths. Most marketers are familiar with the AIDA funnel (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action). And you can see how clearly Facebook’s ad system allows you to hit people at each of these points.

Advertisers inherently understand that word of mouth has been the most powerful marketing vehicle– previously unmeasurable. These ad options on Facebook, which we’ve only superficially covered here, allow not only for the measurement of word of mouth, but the aggressive amplification of it. Social media is inherently about leveraging trust to promote your business.
Was it Mark Twain who said something like “The key to success is to be genuine…. Fake that and you have it made!” Seriously, when you have a solid brand, you get an amazing boost from advertising on Facebook– the investment you’ve made in your brand means that users are already aware of who you are, are more likely to like your page, and are more willing to endorse you– whether they know it or not.
In our next article, we’ll discuss the next phase of your Facebook campaigns– how to manage your pages effectively such that you build upon the principles we’ve discussed so far. What if your company has multiple brands and multiple products in multiple countries. Do you create one page for each combination of country, product, artist, and language? Maybe have one page per country and then separate tabs for each product, so local fans can interact? Or maybe one page per product with tabs by country? The answer is none of the above and we’ll explain why.

Dennis Yu is Chief Executive Officer of BlitzLocal, a firm specializing in the intersection of Facebook and local advertising. Mr. Yu has been featured in National Public Radio, TechCrunch, Entrepreneur Magazine, CBS Evening News, and other venues. He is an internationally sought after speaker and
author on all things Facebook. BlitzLocal serves both national brands and local service businesses.

Editor: Alex Rojas writes articles related with technology, social media and marketing. Sponsored by Costa Rica Hotels, Motor de reservas en linea and Travel to Costa Rica

Hotel Marketing Ideas for 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Rojas) — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 20:30:35 PDT

As has become my tradition at the end of each year and beginning of a new one, here’s my summary of 111 marketing ideas to consider as we enter 2011.

Planning & strategy

The #1 purpose of marketing is retaining your customers. Focus on that before pursuing new markets.
Read The Concierge Approach to Content Marketing
Why you? Why now?
Personalization is a growing trend - use it wherever you can
Make a stop-doing list
Make sure you’re signed up for fresh new ideas from me each week (if you haven’t already)
Talent is everything. Spend all you can (and then some) recruiting, retaining, rewarding the best people.
Do you have a list of allstars you want to hire? Always be casting. (Good Seth Godin post)
Recruit from clubs
Offer new hires $2,000 to quit before they begin
Are you prepared to let 75% of your new initiatives fail?
“The most important trait for innovation today isn’t creativity, but curiosity.” – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Consistency is everything
We’re all stock traders now
Post a list of customer suggestions in action
Read Peak by Chip Conley

Social Media

Appoint a social media ambassador to “own” your efforts in this area
When building your social media team, include person from every department: management, marketing, PR, product development, customer service, etc. ““Employees can take brand message, localize it, and put their personality behind it.” – Claire Elias/STA Travel
Read my free report – Beyond Account Setup: 29 Ways to Optimize Your Social Media Profiles
Don’t try to buy social media fans. Avoid the “campaign” mindset, and understand that forming the relationships for a great online community will take years.
The one-line recipe for success in social media: An inside story from a real person that loves what they do
Turn guests into content producers
Turn your loyal fans into celebrities
Put a Flip camera on every property
Make sure to have a human identity behind your corporate social media profile
Don’t outsource Twitter
Retweet your own important content (people could miss it otherwise)
Try using Twitter to collect testimonials. Save positive tweet mentions as favorites you can refer back to.
Use TwitterSheep to find what your followers care about
Create a Twitter background with contact/sales information
You don’t always have to make sales offers in social media to make a lot of money – go 0ff-topic every once in a while
Try some of these Facebook plugins from Involver
Think twice about advertising your Facebook page URL – it only builds their brand, makes you even more reliant on them. Instead, send traffic to a landing page hosted on your site.
Get creative in the way you share photos on Facebook
Used LinkedIn to generate sales leads
If you’re opening a new hotel, consider using a Flickr group to build pre-opening buzz
Social media is the richest focus group that ever existed
Learn from Fairmont and have social media followers create your next promotional package
Social ROI is from insights, not necessarily sales
Google and Bing have confirmed that Twitter/Facebook postings do help with search engine placements
Understand the basics of social CRM
Start observing the best hotels on Facebook, like Joie de Vivre
Start following the best hotels on Twitter, like @FairmontHotels @Kimpton @ApexHotels
Learn from Fierro Hotel on how to use Tumblr: InsideBuenosAires.com and WeLoveFierro.com

Website

Don’t celebrate the launch
Be compatible with Google’s Instant Previews
Build content through partnerships
Buy a .TV domain name and create a video channel there
Look at these 15 well-designed websites – and see why they work so well
Try optimizing landing pages around ‘who’ you know, not ‘what’ you know. (Including connections from networks like Facebook gives a personal connection to the company.)
Drive traffic by reaching out to past guests
Make sure you do 3 things in 3 seconds: 1) load the page quickly 2) Visually WOW them 3) Get them involved
Use this checklist of 43 questions if you’re going through a re-design
Take advantage of “white hot” online touch points when asking for action
Use video creatively throughout the revenue cycle
Think about using travel webcams like Starwood is doing with RoomWithAView.com
Search optimization is more important than ever, but the rules have changed. Learn and adapt.
Know how Google instant affects your marketing
Use live chat on your website to close more sales
Maintain consistency (in everything) across all booking channels
Encourage direct bookings by verifying website security, offering multiple language and currency support
Read Speak Human by Eric Karjaluoto

Mobile

Create a mobile-friendly website to avoid platform issues
Know that 81% (to 19%) prefer mobile websites to mobile apps for researching products and prices (eMarketer 2010 survey)
Make sure you don’t run a mobile ad, and then send traffic to a page on your site that’s not mobile-friendly
Use QR codes to bridge the online/offline gap (Example from Tailor Made Hotel)
4 important things to do with mobile for customers: learn, recognize, reward and personalize
You’re not going to succeed in mobile on your first try. Experiment now – learn by doing.
A big opportunity for mobile is rewarding loyalty.
Look at TopGuest
Creating great mobile experiences requires you to get out in the world and interact with your environment. Don’t design in a cubicle.

Reputation Management

Tracking online reputation should not just be aggregating reviews. Use a tool that gives you insight into trends and patterns.
I recommend you start using ReviewPro (Why I am)
Begin tying online reputation to your staff bonuses
Know that 86% of consumers are using reviews as a deciding factor in their purchasing decision
An unhappy customer used to tell 3 people, now they tell 3 million. This highlights the importance of quickly catching and resolving issues.
On the brighter side, the majority – two-thirds, actually – of online reviews are positive [research from Keller Fay Group]
Increase customer confidence by monitoring, collecting, and re-publishing positive reviews
Monitoring for online mentions sometimes provides you with some great promotional material
Write better post-stay “thank you” emails to encourage online reviews
Get creative in how you ask for reviews. Like a banner on your WiFi network login page.
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that you will do things differently.” – Warren Buffett

Advertising

Run a brand ambassador campaign in social media (Mashable examples)
Let a customer write your next ad
Experiment with strong risk-reversal messages in your copy
Embrace behavioral ad targeting in PPC and elsewhere
Banner ads are quickly evolving
Partner with websites that attract people already decided to visit your destination
Barter unsold rooms for advertising

Email

Social media use has not replaced email for sales (Just look at Groupon)
Make sure to use good landing pages
Add some security indicators (like a sample email screenshot) to increase email subscription rates
Segment your email list by personas (not just purchase history)
Build a preferences center to help subscribers receive more relevant emails
Permission isn’t forever

Service

Customer service is the new marketing
Understand the “Brand Butler” trend
Ask your guests if they would recommend you to a friend
Create a buying experience centered around the customer
Re-think your guest check-in process
Real-time responses are crucial on the social web. Have systems and processes to deliver timely information and support to your guests.
Try a service like CoTweet to share support responsibilities among staff
Read Experience Economy by Joseph Pine and James Gilmore

Amenities & Technology

A poor hotel Wi-Fi experience influences 36 percent of business travelers on whether they re-book that specific hotel in the future [more research on hotel WiFi]
iPads are the #1 most-wanted tech amenity guests want from a hotel [USA Today poll]
Consider virtual meeting technology as a way to profit from lower business travel volume

Press & Media

Send out social media news releases
Try PitchEngine – a social media PR builder
Start offering more unique hotel amenities that get people talking
Listen to the PR 2.0 chat

Measurement & Analytics

Understand travel booking isn’t usually a linear process
Learn how Barbara Pezzi improves her marketing with analytics segmentation
Run these 10 reports in Google Analytics
Social media should shorten your sales cycle. Watch your number of sales leads, cost per lead, sales closing ratio, channel conversion rate, and time to closing to measure improvement.

Source: http://www.hotelmarketingstrategies.com/hotel-marketing-ideas-for-2011/

Editor: Alex Rojas writes articles related with technology, social media and marketing. Sponsored by Costa Rica Hotels, Motor de reservas en linea and Travel to Costa Rica

Acortador de direcciones específico para las páginas de Google

noreply@blogger.com (Marketing) — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 07:50:46 PDT

El gigante de internet Google ha lanzado el acortador de URLs (direcciones de internet) g.co, para reducir el número de caracteres de los enlaces a las webs y servicios de la compañía bajo la premisa de que "más grande no es siempre sinónimo de mejor", ha informado en su blog.

Con este servicio Google quiere acabar con la picardía de los ciberdelincuentes, que en ocasiones emplean los acortadores de direcciones para camuflar páginas maliciosas: g.co garantizará a los usuarios que están accediendo a links oficiales.

Los acortadores de URLs son útiles para publicar enlaces en páginas a webs como Twitter (que solo permite mensajes de un máximo de 140 caracteres) o el propio Google+.

Editor: Cristian Segura writes articles related with technology, social media and marketing. Sponsored by Costa Rica Hotels, Motor de reservas en lineaandTravel to Costa Rica

Windows XP tiene los días contados

noreply@blogger.com (Marketing) — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 11:31:18 PDT

Windows XP tiene los días contados, exactamente 1.000. Microsoft ha anunciado que ha decidido retirar definitivamente el sistema operativo del mercado, y a partir del 8 de abril de 2014 los parches de seguridad y las revisiones de todas las versiones de Windows XP no estarán disponibles.

Según ha informado un miembro de la compañía, Stephen L. Rose en elblog oficial Windows Team Blog, Microsoft ha tomado esta medida, pese al éxito que ha supuesto esta versión del sistema operativo de Windows, principalmente porque ya exite una versión mejor que Windows XP y porque es necesario "seguir adelante".

La retirada de los parches y las revisiones supondrá que los ordenadores que funcionen con Windows XP "serán vulnerables a las amenazas de seguridad". Además, muchos proveedores de software de terceros no tienen planes de extender el soporte para sus aplicaciones que se ejecutan en Windows XP, lo que aumenta los riesgos de seguridad.

Sin embargo, desde Microsoft destacan que la parte positiva de todo esto es la alternativa que ya existe para Windows XP, Windows 7. "Llevar este cambio hacia delante es más fácil que nunca con una serie de herramientas para ayudarle en cada paso del camino. De hecho, algunas de las empresas más importantes del mundo ya se han trasladado a Windows 7", aseguran Rose en el blog oficial.

Editor: Cristian Segura writes articles related with technology, social media and marketing. Sponsored by Costa Rica Hotels, Motor de reservas en lineaandTravel to Costa Rica

The reliability of user–generated hotel reviews

noreply@blogger.com (Marketing) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 10:45:19 PDT

If online review sites were both unreliable and mistrusted, they would quickly become irrelevant. Even if online review sites were trusted by consumers but were significantly unreliable, they would not provide any value to customers and would quickly lose their audience. A new study shows now that neither is the case.

As online reviews have grown in popularity, attacks regarding their authenticity and trustworthiness have increased. TripAdvisor, the leading online review site for hotels, has been criticized for allowing reviews to be posted by anyone about any hotel, without needing supporting evidence. In an attempt to evaluate the legitimacy of these concerns, we compared results from TripAdvisor reviews with the Market Metrix Hospitality Index (MMHI), a well known hotel customer satisfaction panel in operation since 2001. Customer evaluations for 67 hotels were directly compared using TripAdvisor and MMHI data for 12 months. The results indicated that these sources provide consistent results by property although more variability was identified in the TripAdvisor reviews. This study should help address questions raised about the credibility of user–generated reviews and review sites.

Several years ago TripAdvisor partnered with Market Metrix to create a customer satisfaction scoreboard designed for the needs of hotel managers. The key metric used is the Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI), which is a new score that rates each TripAdvisor review from 0–100 based on 7 questions from the TripAdvisor survey. The CSI score makes it easy to compare results to local benchmark sets and determine which reviews require immediate action. Different from TripAdvisor's Popularity Index, the CSI score allows reviews to be compared to any competitors and trended over time. A satisfaction scoreboard for each hotel is displayed on the property's hotel manager page on TripAdvisor.com. For this research study the CSI score was the metric used for TripAdvisor Reviews.

The hotels used in this comparison were selected on the basis of their location, brand and type to achieve a diverse mix. Each hotel also must have received a sufficient number of responses. Statistical analysis was conducted to compare the similarity of scores for each hotel, the distribution of the data, and the change in scores.

The most significant conclusion of this study is that the mean scores of hotels track very consistently and closely between TripAdvisor (CSI) and MMHI. This indicates that, when taken as a whole, the reviews for a particular hotel are a reliable measure of average customer satisfaction of that hotel, given adequate sample size. However, the variability of scores was found to be slightly greater among TripAdvisor hotels. TripAdvisor reviews were more spread out with more high scores and more low scores. While some persons may appreciate reading a wider range of reviews about a hotel, extreme observations may be distracting or even distort consumer perception.

Why would TripAdvisor CSI Scores have higher variance than MMHI? Differences in survey methodology (number of questions, scoring, and sample selection) all play a role in differences in variance between these two sources. The fact that TripAdvisor surveys come from customers who are not part of a sample–controlled panel but are motivated by many different experiential and psychographic factors could be a source of variance. For example, it is logical that individuals who have had either an exceptionally good or bad experience would be more inclined to post a review, but individuals across the satisfaction scale would likely participate in a sample–controlled panel study. This would lead to higher variance among TripAdvisor reviews.

If online review sites were both unreliable and mistrusted, they would quickly become irrelevant. Even if online review sites were trusted by consumers but were significantly unreliable, they would not provide any value to customers and would quickly lose their audience. Our findings show that neither is the case. Review sites are gaining in popularity as customers are clamoring for more peer–to–peer support.

Consumers, in general, trust established review sites. And at least TripAdvisor, based on this study, is a reliable source for obtaining customer satisfaction information of a given hotel. Therefore, UGC will increasingly reduce the impact of traditional marketing and sales efforts and add value to strategies that will increase the customer experience and ultimately the scores of hotel reviews.

Related Link: Market Metrix

Editor: Cristian Segura writes articles related with technology, social media and marketing. Sponsored by Costa Rica Hotels, Motor de reservas en lineaandTravel to Costa Rica

Coral Technologies: Consultoria en e-busines, Mercadeo medios Digitales

Diseño web costa rica – páginas – sitios web

Pagos en linea en Costa Rica

Sitio web exitoso para ventas

What's a QR Code?

Coupons:

Website:

Travel/Maps:

Personalized URLs:

Simplify Online Ordering:

Schedules:

Branded Marketing Materials:

Descubre cómo seleccionar a todos tus amigos de Facebook con un sólo click

Preguntas y respuestas sobre las páginas en Google Plus

Ya tengo página en Facebook, ¿necesito otra en Google Plus?

¿Cómo uso la página de Google Plus?, ¿igual que la de Facebook?

¿Puedo tener una url personalizada para la página de mi empresa?

¿Puedo crear una página sin necesidad de tener un perfil personal?

¿Pueden varias personas administrar una misma página de Google Plus?

¿Puedo hacer desde una página e empresa lo mismo que hacía desde un perfil personal?

Google Analytics Real-Time and Google Analytics Premium rolling out now

Cambia tu perfil de Facebook en tres minutos

Google, Facebook and TripAdvisor on what’s next for online travel

How OTA hotel reviews drive bookings

5-star online hotel reviews go for $5

Plan de Redes Sociales

8 Ways to Find Great Social Media Content

#1: Google Alerts

#2: Google Reader

#3: Facebook Friend Lists for Better Facebook News Feeds

#4: Twitter Lists

#5: HootSuite

#6: Paper.li

#7: Alltop

#8: Mobile

Skype Lets Users Find WiFi Hotspots

LinkedIn Enhances Mobile Experience: This Week in Social Media

Ya puedes publicar imágenes directamente en Twitter

Mostrar quién es el administrador o propietario de una página de Facebook

Rules of High rankings changed: Surviving Google PANDA update

What is Google PANDA update?

So what does Google mean by “low-quality” website?

Learning from the mistakes of Big Publishers

Ezinearticles.com -

eHow.com -

About.com -

Blogspot.com -

Google has nothing against articles, but against low-quality articles and their repetition

What NOW? Time to consider other facets of article writing

Start a blog (meaty, juicy and UNIQUE )

Guest post on niche-related blogs

Invite guest posts from niche-related bloggers

Submit your blogs in premium blog directories

Use Social Media Channels for promotion

I am already PANDA hit. How can I improve my condition?

Concentrate on content:

Build more backlinks

Socialize your content

Panda (emic) Attack : A battle against stale content; not against article directories

Google Panda: Forcing Businesses to Create Better Content

The Perfect Landing Page. 12 Landing page Tips and Examples

Landing page best practice advice

Salesforce.com – an example of the Perfect Landing Page?

Defining landing pages

Landing page goals

Different types of landing page

A. Landing page(s) integrated into site architecture and style

B. Bespoke landing pages that are not part of the main site structure or style

The home page can be a landing page

Different referrer types

Landing page success factors

My Twelve microsite success factors

The Most Powerful Secret In Facebook Ads

Hotel Marketing Ideas for 2011

Planning & strategy

Social Media

Website

Mobile

Reputation Management

Advertising