eDigital Malibu office in North Bondi, Sydney has been officially set up! Natural light, natural breeze and just 5 minutes walking to Bondi beach. Anyone is welcome to pop in :) Mauricio.

Author: Mauricio Escobar Mármol

NEWS JACKING! IT IS NOT NEW BUT AN OLD SUCCESSFUL CONTENT STRATEGY.

Recently digital content creators are using the term “News Jacking” as a new, innovative technique to generate traffic to websites. “News Jacking” as a term might be new but the intrinsic activity of publish digital content that is aligned to fresh and hot news topic is not new. I have been successfully used this approach for many years in different roles.

When I was supporting Homesite.com.au (Former News Limited website); we promoted home renovation content liked to top celebrities who were “hot” on the news stables at the time. An example promoting Simone Callahan home renovations activities when a great chuck of Australian public wanted to know about her and how she was dealing with her new life as an ex-wife of a popular Australian Cricket player Shane Warne. We also managed to produce content on Cate Blanchett house renovations and other celebrities who were “hot” during that time. The celebrity based content pages were some of the most visited pages of the website as users were searching for news content related to them. Those articles helped us not just increase our monthly UB’s ( visits) but also conversions to our clients pages.

Again at The Athlete’s Foot, (when I was leading all the Social and Digital Marketing activities) we were the first to create content related to some of the most popular news stories related to running shoes in Australia. Every 6 months global running shoe brands launch a specific shoe that will propagate on thousands of websites within a day. The mission here was to have the most compelling articles ready ( and SEO optimised) and push live on the day the news were officially released to the Global news agencies. These strategy helped us gain top SEO positions for specific branded related shoe terms that greatly affected our visits and conversions.

Successful Newsjacking requires not just the creation of articles related to (real time) top news and connecting them to your products or services but also:

a) A detailed plan of the key topics, celebrities and stories that you would like to monitor (using Google alerts or any other news monitoring tool) that will best align to your brand unique selling proposition.

b) Establishment of the right tone and voice that you would like to give to each new content piece created. As a successful NewsJacker, you will will need to answer: Are your content pieces going to produce shares/likes? Do your content piece want to document or show a different approach to the news story; or produce controversy? would your news related content intend to educate people? or alternatively produce an entertaining piece of the news’ story?

c) Monitoring and tracking of conversions, visits, time on site and actual conversions. You NewsJacking strategy will need to answer: is the traffic generated value to the business, is it creating revenue from new visitors who might possibly never been on the website otherwise?

Obviously, there will more more factors to analyze when doing Newsjacking such as propagation channels, timing selection, etc but overall I consider the above the key factors.

Have a nice rainy wednesday in Sydney.

Mauricio

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Nice creation from Volio for Esquire Magazine where users can (via voice) interact with user selected content. 

Author: Mauricio Escobar Mármol

TOP SIX TIPS WHEN MANAGING DIFFICULT COMMENTARY ON SOCIAL MEDIA 

Reading an article published on The Deal Magazine (notes from Liem Viet Ngo, Lecturer Australian School of Business and Brian Giesen, Strategy Director at Ogilvy) about how to deal with negative social media commentary from consumers, reminded me key fundamental aspects I have been practising for clients when managing difficult commentary, complaints and “trolls” ( people just just love being cynical, sarcastic or just on-going complainers).

Key rules when dealing with difficult commentary:

• NEVER ignore commentary. Become aware and take note of this people.
• Respond within a DAY. No excuse for brands to open Facebook pages or twitter accounts if they cannot respond to complains, questions on the day. Remember than when responding your brand not only get noticed by your fan but also by her social network of friends and followers.
• Do not argue online. Move conversations to private email or even better to phone conversations.
• Find out ALL details of complains. Sometimes I have had people who do not even know what they want OR even worse they are complaining for a service they have had at other competitor’s business.
• Not all complaints are equal and need different treatment. Some can wait, some have to be followed up immediately. Find out how influential the person is and prioritise accordingly. Go to their Twitter, Facebook, flickr, accounts and find more about them in their public profiles.
• Focus on your brand DNA. Do not let social to distract you or confuse your customers. Talk what you are mean to talk. Let the other commentary to other brands.

As Liam quoted in the article, the meaning and value of a brand is co-created, curated and shaped by customers today.

You (as a brand captain) need to help customer’s co-create, curate and shape the perceptions, visions of what the brand is today and it is going to be in the future.

Cheers and have a nice week :)

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• CALL US ON +61431324899. Check out eDigital Social Media Strategy and Social Media Management services.
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People do not trust brands Facebook pages or Twitter accounts, according to Technorati. You have to work harder to build that trust.

NEXT

• CALL US ON  +61431324899. Check out eDigital Social Media Strategy and Social Media Management services.
• Check Mauricio Escobar (eDigital Consultant) experience and recommendations on his LinkedIn profile.
• Connect with eDigital on Facebook

Sports Fans use of Social Media. Check out findings from GMR Marketing study

Insights

• Sport fans are 10 times more likely to check the Internet for breaking sports news than they are to turn to sports radio.
• Slightly more people use Facebook and Twitter than national news websites, at 41% to 40%.
• 86% of respondents check sports news at work and even during work meetings
• 13% get their breaking sports news from TV, and 4% from radio.
• It doesn’t matter where fans are; social media lets them get their sports fix in any place, any time.
• Nearly three quarters of respondents said they’ve checked social media for sports news at a party, nearly 70% during a meal, and 58% while in the bathroom!
  

NEXT

• CALL US ON +61431324899. Check out eDigital Social Media Strategy and Social Media Management services.
• Check Mauricio Escobar (eDigital Director) experience and recommendations on his LinkedIn profile.
• Connect with eDigital on Facebook