Jun 11
9
Recap: Social Media Customer Response Summit
The Customer Response Summit [#crsummit ] is a powerful event meant to be a place for leading edge companies to share ideas, best practices and success stories with each other. I had the privilege to speak at the event and was a key contributor to a superb display of thought leadership in one of the hottest topics around… Social Media in the enterprise.
Below are a few of my key takeaways:
Incubate and Conquer
This was a theme of this event. Leading edge corporations have all taken the approach to test this space in a very similar way. We have seen this time and time again with the introduction of new technology or ways of communicating. It is a cautious, methodical, logical approach to “testing the waters” and it is proving to be very effective so far.
Experience Reigns over Cool!
One might have imagined that in order to address users that come in from Social Media, you might need someone “who could speak that language” (i.e. a young person who lives Social) but this was not entirely the case. Experienced staff is being handpicked that possess a deep understanding of company products and services while at the same time are well connected within the enterprise. These are folks that are able to promptly get to the right source of information and get the answer to the customer fast and effectively.
End to End Experience Management
The ability to add the Social inputs into the existing database of customer interactions is the only way to put the entire picture together for each client and provide an end to end experience. Also, integrating this data with information collected from online chat sessions can give you customer data that is powerful beyond measure.
The most compelling message I got from this event was confirmation of two things I have always believed to be fact: 1. Social Media and the Enterprise are simply meant to live together. Our affiliate banks have tremendous opportunity to engage with their client base and community in ways we never thought possible. 2. The other fact is that we are merely scratching the surface on the true value that Social Media can bring to the Enterprise. This is no longer considered a race that companies must jump into, but a marathon where only the nimble and strong-minded companies will survive.
Banking by .
Jun 11
9
Mobile Banking Skyrockets, Study Shows
Mobile devices are becoming one of the primary portals Americans are using to manage their finances, access the Internet or shop online. In recent years, mobile banking has been introduced to consumers, allowing them to forgo conducting transactions at physical financial locations, and opting instead to process them through their mobile device. While the mobile banking process was initially met with some concerns over security matters, these fears have been allayed in recent years. As a result, mobile banking platforms are booming, and expected to continue their upward growth, according to the results of a new study.
New data from leading research firm comScore reveals more Americans are relying on the mobile platform as a primary method of conducting financial transactions. The results of the study show the number of Americans who accessed their bank, credit card or brokerage account from their mobile device during the fourth quarter of 2010 increased by 54 percent from one year ago, topping out at 29.8 million consumers. Twenty-six percent of respondents say their mobile phone is the primary way in which they access their accounts. Only four percent say they conduct banking transactions by contacting the branch via phone calls and another 10 percent said they still do their banking at a branch.
“More people are turning to the convenience of mobile devices for their financial service needs, fueled in part by the adoption of smartphones, 3G devices and unlimited data plans,” comScore Vice President Sarah Lenart said. “The ubiquitous nature of mobile devices affords financial brands an important channel to reach and engage customers, whether it’s at home, work or on-the-go.”
The results also broke down the ways in which consumers accessed their financial accounts via their mobile devices during the fourth quarter of 2010. Roughly 18.6 million Americans gained entry to their accounts via a mobile browser, an increase of 58 percent from the previous year. Another 10.8 million relied on applications to access their accounts, up 120 percent from the same period of 2009. Lastly, the number of consumers who utilized SMS text messaging to access their accounts increased 35 percent to 8.1 million.
However, a small percentage of the respondents reported they were unaware they could access their bank accounts through their mobile devices. Six percent of smartphone users were unfamiliar with mobile banking services and 5 percent of non-smartphone users gave the same answer. Many banks are doubling their efforts to market mobile banking services to consumers, as evidenced by Bank of America’s recent announcement that it plans to hire new executives to make improvements to its mobile platform, according to Bloomberg.
However, almost 50 percent of those surveyed say they continue to rely on online banking to conduct the majority of their financial transactions. While mobile banking is expected to grow in the coming years, online platforms continue to provide customers with more services and flexibility in managing their accounts. Currently, typical mobile banking features allow consumers to check balances, transfer funds and, in some cases, deposit checks by photographing and emailing check images. However, online banking allows consumers to see a running list of account activity, pay bills and review their investment account details. Online banking also allows users to transfer funds to other customers, a popular service for parents with college-age children. Some mobile banking users are finding ways to maximize both services, as banks generally require users to have an online account with the institution before they can enroll in mobile banking.
People love pictures and videos, but search engines ignore them when it comes to ranking your site. But there is a way to provide delightful photos and videos for your readers and please the search engines while you’re at it. And, it’s easy to do.
When you add photographs and other media to your website, give them titles. Viewers won’t see the titles–but search engines, which scan for words and phrases, will. That is how you get around the search engines’ blind spot for images.
While you’re at it, go to the trouble of crafting good titles. That is, think about your key word choices and how you can work them in. Include a description of the photo, a list of who’s in it and, if there’s room, where it was taken.
Another advantage of placing titles on all media: some programming allows for a little pop-up window showing the title of the photo when a reader moves the mouse over it. And people who load web pages without images will at least be able to read the informative title.
Depending on the software used to create your website, you may also be able to add descriptions and alternate text for your media. That’s another opportunity to include key words that move you up the search engine ranks.
Finally, be sure to include descriptive captions for all media on the page itself. People often read captions before they read anything else. And, of course, the search engines will read them, too.
As you would with key words and phrases in the rest of your content, make captions, titles and descriptions you read as naturally as possible. People–and search engines–like that, too.
Marketing by .
May 11
31
Location, Location, Location: Place Key Words Where They’ll Boost Your Ranking
You’ve selected key words and phrases to boost your web traffic and SEO (search engine optimization). So now what?
In the “old days,” that is, before 2003, SEO specialists simply stuffed as many key words into a web page as possible. This often created pages unintelligible to humans, but search engines liked them just fine.
But then Google changed its search parameters to focus on natural word use patterns. Today, sites that are “key word dense” are filtered out in favor of more readable sites.
That’s great news for marketers who actually want to communicate with readers. It means that the right readers can more readily find relevant sites, find the information they seek, and, hopefully, become customers.
So where do you place key words to attract the right customers?
Page content – Looking for the big secret as to where to place key words to attract the largest volume of qualified readers? Write your content to appeal to your readers’ interests. Yep, that’s the secret. Use the AIDA formula: get Attention, create Interest, build Desire, and call your reader to Action. After you have written your content, go back through it and look for places where you can add more key words and phrases without comprising readability.
Page titles – You probably know that each of your web pages has a title. Search engines “know” that too, so they search those titles. So each page title on your site is a great opportunity to draw people right where you want them which, hopefully, also happens to be right where they want to be. You can also embed key words in your page title’s HTML (HyperText Markup Language). Speaking of which…
Meta tags – Meta tags are key words in the HTML code of your website. They are seen only by search engines. Due to Google’s efforts back in 2003, search engines no longer treat meta tags as natural word usage, but they still see them. So use them.
With your written content and meta tags ready to go, what about photos and video? Good question. Search engines do not “see” these when they rank your site. But there’s a way around that. Stay tuned.
Marketing by .
May 11
26
Search Engines and Keywords: Going from Hide to Seek
If you want your website to be found – and who doesn’t? – get in the habit of using key words effectively. Key words are the terms and phrases that people type into search boxes. When the key words that people type match key words woven throughout the content of your website, the search engines can guide them to you.
Let’s look at an example of how it works, along with some suggestions for boosting your “findability.”
Take attorneys. A Google search just turned up 201 million–Yikes!–hits for attorney. Narrowing it down to family law attorney generated 10.1 million. Family law attorney San Francisco pares the possibilities to a paltry 5 million. Better, but still too much.
If you were an attorney, you would be wise to find a way to the top of a search pile. But even 5 million is a big pile. What can you do?
Choose key words that are specific to your business. The more relevant the better. “Attorney” is clearly too general for winning qualified leads.
But don’t be too specific. If you sprinkle “left-handed family attorney” liberally throughout your web copy, the search engines will likely rank your site high each time someone searches that term. But it may be a while before anyone actually does such a search.
A variety of relevant key words can make you more findable. For instance, adding “Geary Street” and “San Francisco” to search for “family law attorney” reduces results to 231.
Use search engine to help you determine relevance and volume. Once you’ve made a preliminary selection of key words, you can get a very good idea of relevance and volume just by searching them on the likes of Google, Yahoo and Bing. You might also research possible key words on Google’s free AdWords service.
Key words (and phrases) are your friends. Like any friendship, let it grow and you’ll see increased web traffic–and more qualified prospects. In the next post, I’ll talk about where to place key words to increase your odds of being found.
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