Formulating a Digital Strategy for Your Brand or Business

Marketing strategy formulation is the process of defining an organization's marketing goals and objectives and creates a guide how to achieve goals and objectives. Today marketing platform is change. Digital marketing will be come to the formulation marketing strategy process. Following figurer shows Digital Media Planning Process for your brand or Business.

Digital Media Planning Process

Objectives of the Brand or Organization

Use SMART Objectives Approach to define your objectives. You can have more than 1 objectives example to increase 25% gross sales of Business. SMART objective is you can achieve to your objective in future. SMART mean Specific, Measurable, Attainable/Actionable, Relevant, Time-specific

SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis is to take the information from the environmental analysis. It is separate analyzed internal issues (strengths and weaknesses) For example the main strengths of a business might be a Quality product and Knowledge and loyalty employees and the main weaknesses might be limited financial resources in organization. External issues (opportunities and threats) for example the opportunity of a business might be have gaps unmet needs of customers and threats might be competitor launch the new low price products in to markets.

Select Target Audience

Clearly define the audience you are trying to reach through your digital strategy. Example for “Sri Lankan, Female, above aged 16, with specific interest in beauty and wellness”

Set Communication Objectives

What behavioral change you expect from the Target Audience, as a result of them is being exposing to your digital marketing campaign? It may be Raise awareness, convince a product benefit and increase Buy. These communication objectives related to the final main business objective.

Select the Right Platforms

Setting up platforms on every network is don’t want be select. You understand where my target audience in online. Select effective one more platform to doing marketing communication. These platforms are Search, Social, Display Ads and E-mail activities etc.

Select Digital Channels

After select the platforms, we select the effective channels to achieve both Organization Communication Objectives. If platform is social media, channels may Facebook, tweeter. We can identify 03 types of media when we select the digital channels. They are Paid Media, Owned Media and Earned Media. We advertising other webpages it mean paid media examples for Display Banner Ads, Facebook ads and Pay per click. Owned Media companies are not need to pay for advertising. They can freely advertise their ads in online by using owned media. As for examples, Facebook Fan Pages, Twitter Accounts, YouTube Channel and Mailing Lists are owned media. Earned Media, companies can earn money from using earned media. For examples, on Facebook around your brand, User generated content, Recommendations sharing and viral marketing.

Implementation, Continuous, Monitoring, Reporting, and Optimizing

Finally we implement and analysis our digital marketing campaign. Example for No of the like we have on Facebook page, No of review Owen website and conversation about over brand in online after we implement digital marketing campaign. If our digital marketing campaign successfully achieve our objective/s, can continuous our operation and if it is not we change our digital marketing campaign.

So, we think you have learnt Formulating a Digital Strategy for Your Brand or Business. We hope to deliver you more important points from our next Blog Post as well.

See you from my next Blog Post soon…

Online Reputation

Reputation is a rough measurement of how much the community trusts you. Each and every person in the world has a separate reputation he/she has built. Far From Being Something Only Other People Can Control, Your Reputation Is An Asset You Can Both Control And Grow To Your Competitive Advantage. Same as for the Organization, to country has their own reputation with them. 

Online reputation is improving your name or your brand's good standing. When we want to learn more about another person, the first place we turn is the Internet and Google is the top search engine to do so. Online reputation in the sense, managing a better reputation in the digital world. It may profitable to the customers and also it is very difficult task to do. Nowadays internet is open for all. Every day, over one billion names are searched on Google. Same thing we can apply for the company. If someone likes to learn about a particular company, obviously they log on to the internet and search the information.  Therefore it is essential to publish the most accurate data to the internet otherwise your reputation and all may defer from what you expected.

Your online reputation can be seen in a number of ways. Whether you’re seeking employment, selling a product, looking for an investor or trying to score a date, someone is going to turn to a search engine to learn more about you. 

The most common groups are,

• Consumers
• Stock holders
• Marketers
• Journalists
• Employers
• Personal people

Managing Your Online Reputation

When using social media and online networking tools, realize that your online persona will shape others’ opinions and perceptions of you personally and professionally. That makes sound judgment and a smart posting strategy a career essential. Nowadays, more and more personal information surfaces on the web. For example, some of your friends might mention your name in a social network or tag you on online photos, or your name could appear in blog posts or articles.

Google search is often the first place people look for information that's published about you. Here are a few ways to manage your online reputation and help control what people see when they search for you on Google

1 Search for your self

Search for your name on Google to see what information about you comes up.

2. Create a Google profile

With a Google profile, you can manage the information such as your bio, contact details, and other information about you that people see. You can also link to other sites about you or created by you. For example, you can link to your blog, online photos in Picasa, and other profiles such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

3. Remove unwanted content and the associated search results

If you find content online say, your telephone number or an embarrassing photo of you that you don't want to appear online, first determine whether you or someone else controls the content. For example, if the photo you want to hide is part of your Picasa account, you can simply change your photo visibility settings. If, however, the unwanted content resides on a site or page you don't control, you can follow our tips on removing personal information from Google.

4. Get notification when your personal data appears on the web

You might want to get notified if new information about you like your name or email address gets published online. The Web feature of your Google Dashboard can help you keep an eye on what’s out there about you.

Website Usability - Leisure World Water Park Website

Now most people visit more than one website every day for their wants. But we don’t think how user friendly those website. In My early blogs, I wrote about what is website usability. Website designing very simply, that mean user or visitor can easily find what they looking. Website usability very importance when designing a website as many visitors came and taken time for get their information. Website promote its products, provide information, sell its products, take orders, and give answer to customers’ questions.

Website designers think how to developed and maintain usability website. When website is designing, web designer understand what users wants, what target users refer website. It’s simply mean be user friendly and website must be useful, valuable, accessible, and finding. So web designer use latest technology for website designing.  

Today I talk about Leisure World Water Park  website usability. Under web usability I checked under criteria like accessibility, identity, navigation and content.

Accessibility

1. Site load-time is reasonable - It is loaded quickly and can access within few seconds.  

2. Adequate text-to-background – can’t identified text because white and yellow font in blue back ground and not clear its

3. Font size/spacing is easy to read – font size well but color are not clear

4. Flash & add-ons are used sparingly – yes, flash add

5. Images have appropriate ALT tags – yes images have appropriate ALT tags

6. Site has custom not-found/404 page - No

Identity

7. Company logo is prominently placed – Yes, The logo is containing with their theme color yellow and able to catch the eye of readers

8. Tagline make company’s purpose clear – tagline clearly see with logo

9. Home-page is digestible in seconds – yes, but can’t back came to home page easy because not home page bar. It have only back button.

10. Clear path to company information – yes provide better information about it

11. Clear path to contact information – contact information provide better

Navigation

12. Main navigation is easily identifiable – yes main navigation is identify easy and it can developed better

13. Navigation labels are clear & concise – not better, it can develop better

14. Number of buttons/links is reasonable – not reasonable, only linked with Facebook

15. Company logo is linked to home-page – it’s not link

16. Links are consistent & easy to identify – linked with Facebook and it is consistent & easy to identify

17. Site search is easy to access - There is not search button in this site.        

Content

18. Major headings are clear & descriptive - Major headings are clear

19. Critical content is above the “fold” – no Content is poor

20. Styles & colour are consistent – they use their blue theme colour

21. Emphasis (bold) is used sparingly – yes, they are using better font and sizes to the main headings also

22. Ads & pop-ups are unobtrusive – not well

23. Main copy is concise & explanatory – have a good concise

24. URLs are meaningful & user-friendly – URL are same with the company name so it is meaningful & user-friendly

25. HTML page titles are explanatory – Yes it is explanatory

Finally I tell this website is no very good and it can't attract to customers more....

Facebook Marketing

Hi this is my new blog after talk about the social media. In this blogs I talk about small history about Facebook and how we use Facebook page to business

Mark Zuckerberg, 23, founded Facebook while studying psychology at Harvard University. In February 2004. Within 24 hours, 1,200 Harvard students had signed up, and after one month, over half of the undergraduate population had a profile. The network was promptly extended to other Boston universities, the Ivy League and eventually all US universities. It became Facebook.com in August 2005 now Facebook became a largest social media in the world.

Facebook and Your Business

If you’re looking to create a Facebook page, you’re not the only one. Businesses have begun to see real results from the use of these user-friendly pages. Since so many people are using Facebook profiles for personal use as well as for professional reasons, it makes sense to learn how to create a Facebook pages for your business too.

Types of Facebook Pages

1. Facebook Fan Pages

Pages are for businesses, brands and organizations to share their stories and connect with people. Like Timelines, you can customize Pages by posting stories, hosting events, adding apps and more. Engage and grow your audience by posting regularly. People who like your Page and their friends can get updates in News Feed. You can create and manage a Facebook Page from your personal account.

Note: If you want to create a Page to represent a business, brand, organization or celebrity, you must be an official representative.

There are six Facebook page types

1. Local Business or Place
2. Company Organization or Institution
3. Brand or Product
4. Artist, Band or Public Figure
5. Entertainment
6. Cause or Community

2. Facebook Group and Community Pages

You can also create a Group or Community page, rather than a Facebook Fan page, and there are options to do that to the right on the page that opens when you create a business page. Facebook Group

How create a Page

1. Go to https://www.facebook.com/pages/create
2. Click a Page category
3. Select a more specific category from the drop down menu and fill out the required information
4. Click to check the box next to I agree to Facebook Pages Terms
5. Click Get Started

Note: If you want to create a Page to represent an organization, business, celebrity or brand, you must be an official representative.

How to maintain Facebook page

• Invite Contacts and Friends to Become Fans
• Adding a Facebook "Like" box to your website
• Target a Specific Niche
• Develop Relationships with Similar Businesses
• Obtain a Unique Username
• Links to other sites (news and articles that interest your customers.
• Personal updates)
• Ask interest and business related question

More Benefits of a Facebook Page for Business

• Help you to connect with your customers and clients in a more personal way.
• Helps to create a more professional appearance and a more professional reputation in your market.
• A Facebook page allows you to send updates about events, promotions, and other newsworthy happenings related to your business.
• You can interact with your customers and clients
• Gain a larger client base
• Cost effective promotion and marketing
• 24*7 hour access
• Viral Marketing

So Facebook now increase rapidly in Sri Lanka and international and it have more opportunities to business to increase the sale..  

Social Media

Hi guys, today I am going to discuss about a very interesting topic which comes under Digital Marketing subject area. It is Social media. Its means interactions among people in which they create, share, and/or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. The main social media are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube accounts.

THERE ARE 6 TYPES OF SOCIAL MEDIA

• Social Networks  (Facebook, LinkedIn) 
• Bookmarking Sites ­(Delicious, Stumble Upon)
• Social News (Digg, Reddit) 
• Media Sharing (YouTube Flickr) 
• Micro blogging (Twitter)
• Blog Comments and Forums

Social media networks were a novelty ten years ago, but today their importance Marketing area for business. Businesses have definitely realized the power of social media and accepted that social media marketing has to be part of their marketing

BENEFITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

• Increased exposure
• Increased traffic
• Developed loyal fans
• Generated leads
• Improved search ranking
• Reduced marketing expenses
• Improved sale
• Manage interactive communications
• Community facilitator
• Bring awareness to the target market
• Viral marketing

WHY SOCIAL MEDIA BECOME A POWERFUL MARKETING TOOL

Social is now the top Internet activity most local and international people spend many times daily on social media, a higher time-spend than any other major Internet activity.

• Facebook is still the leading social media network and continues to grow
• Facebook now has 1.3 billion users
• Facebook averages 1.23 billion monthly active users
• Facebook averages 945 million monthly active mobile users

Google+ is now the second largest social network. Keep in mind that a Google+ account is mandatory whenever a person creates a new Gmail account. This is pushing up the account ownership stats. But no other social network has Google’s web assets leverage.

YouTube is more popular than cable TV 

LinkedIn is still the largest professional business network and continues to grow 

Pinterest is the fastest growing social network right now

CHALLENGES BUSINESSES HAVE IN USING SOCIAL MEDIA

• Lack of time
• Nobility to measure value
• Difficulty integrating social media with other business activities
• Lack of budget
• Security problem

HOW MANEGE USING SOCIAL MEDIA CHALLEGES

• Check your privacy settings
• Create strong passwords
• Think twice about who you add, follow, or connect
• Think before you post Always remember, once shared online, your information is no longer private
• Be careful what you click never ever click on suspicious links, even if they look enticing
• Limit your use of applications and extras (like games and quizzes)
• Take action if you see suspicious activity
• Have basic security software in place and keep it up-to-date

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS

• Rise of social paid advertising
• Increase social media games
• Google+ will become a major factor in social media.
• Brands publishing
• Business will use social media even more in their campaigns.
• News trends
• More mobile use for access to social media