One Degree: “Jordan, can you tell us about your .sig file and what the pros and cons of your approach are?”
I use the animated headline feature from “Feedburner”:http://www.feedburner.com/ in my .sig file, to publicize my blog. It is a very cool feature that I think everyone should try (provided they have a Feedburner feed associated with their site). The response to it has been overwhelmingly positive, and I have to agree that it does give my messages an extra bit of credibility than a static text “siggy” or even a company logo would.
Here’s a peek at what we’re talking about here:
Jordan Behan
www.telltenfriends.com
778.840.TELL (8355)
Jordan Behan: I opted to list just my url, and not a full company name and title, in exchange for less content to have to look at. I’m still pretty convinced this was a good decision, as it shouldn’t be too busy, in my opinion.
When people first see it, it’s not out of the ordinary for them to say “Wow, I want one of those!” But here is where I start to list the cons of this method. I do web marketing and PR consulting, specializing in small business. Many of my clients and prospects discover what an RSS feed is when I explain it to them, and not before. If you’re not already familiar with the use of feeds, then you might not understand the content that you see when you click the link in the animated .gif. I have yet to have anyone ask about the “site” they get linked through to when they click, but I have to guess that for some it is a bit confusing. They might have expected to be linked to my site, not the Feedburner feed.
Category: Blogs
Ideas, connectivity and community. Those elements are the essence of One Degree.
When Ken me to Five Questions about a year ago, I was honored to be included on the list. I was the eighth person to be interviewed, only four removed from marketing guru Seth Godin . (That’s is likely as close to 15 minutes of fame as I will probably get.) The roster of individuals for Five Questions has become a who’s who of the digital industry – a huge accomplishment in just over a year.
But there is a glaring omission on the list. It dawned on me that no one has interviewed Ken Schafer. So, after becoming a One Degree contributor myself recently, I told Ken that my next contribution would involve rallying up five industry leaders (also One Degree contributors) and turn the table on him – interviewing the brains behind it all.
So, without further adieu, here are Five Questions for Ken Schafer, one each asked in order by Michael Seaton, Kate Trgovac , Sulemaan Ahmed , Mitch Joel Bill Sweetman .
Seaton: “Ken, what are two major changes you have witnessed in the digital world since launching One Degree that you believe will change marketing forever, and why?
Two major changes in the last 18 months, huh? I know online marketing changes fast, but I’m not sure it changes _that_ fast. 🙂
The two things that weren’t on my radar a year ago were the importance of social media sites and video.
18 months ago when we launched I would have cited “LinkedIn”:http://www.linkedin.com/ and “Flickr”:http://www.flickr.com/ as my prime examples of social networking. But the concept has now exploded and we’re seeing community, communication, colloboration, and shared wisdom flowering all over the place. I’ve been expecting this for ages but now that the “hive mind” is starting to emerge it is truly exciting.
Video has been on the Net for ages of course but the ascendence of “YouTube”:http://www.youtube.com/, “Google Video”:http://video.google.com/ and video content via “iTunes”:http://www.itunes.com/ has reshaped the online landscape this year in ways I wouldn’t have expected.
My guess is that we’re seeing an acceleration in adoption of new services and business models that will make business that much harder. How do we keep up when sites go from not existing to the top ten most trafficked on the net in a year or two?
Trgovac: “What is your career-planning advice for a high school grad that comes to you and says “I want to get into marketing.”
I was recently asked to help someone define success metrics for a corporate blog. I thought this was such a great topic that I’d share my answer with a wider audience.
Many of the success metrics for blogs are similar to those that might apply to a Website, since blogs are a variation on a Website.
These ‘shared’ success metrics include:
Blog/Website Traffic
- Unique Visitors
- Unique Visits
- Repeat Visits
- Page Views
- Page Views per Visit
- Average Time Spent on site
Blog/Website Brand/Content Interactions
- Content Page Views
- Content % of Page Views
Blog/Website Responses (if applicable)
- Number of Desired Responses
- Conversion Rate from site visitor to Desired Response
- Cost-Per-Desired Response