This is a fantastic, creative video that shows Coca-Cola's approach to social media and what it means to them. Being one of the largest brands in the world with big budgets, perhaps gives them a greater opportunity than others when it comes to social media, but there's some good examples of best practice and lessons that everyone can take away and use in their own approach to social media.

While this video tells the story about what Coca-Cola are doing in the social space, you can't help but notice the 'liquid' reference used throughout. It's a constant reference to their product and in turn, makes this video part of their own social media strategy rather than simply a story about what happens behind the scenes. They've cleverly started an uncontrollable conversation by telling the world what and why they do it, and then posting on You Tube.

Could you tell the world what and why you do something? Could it be something that people would share to promote your brand?

There are no comments on this post yet. Be the first..!

Its that time of year when everyone thinks about sending out Christmas emails to say 'thank you' and wish you 'all the best'. It's increasingly common to get emails along the lines of 'Instead of sending Christmas cards this year...'. All of thats fine, however, it might be worth thinking twice about your message, and double checking the accuracy of your campaigns.

We've seen a mixed bag of emails so far this year, and even found ourselves having to correct people's mistakes when they realise their campaign's gone wrong. More and more people are trying email marketing themselves, but few are consciously thinking about the message they want to get across, or the potential impact it might have on their brand.

The Good

First, we've seen some really nice, simple examples of Christmas emails. These have been 'on brand', perhaps using the same theme as the company website and more importantly, sent with thought and consideration about what the email should achieve. Usually, this has meant a short, snappy 'Happy Christmas', perhaps accompanied by a message about opening hours or who to contact over the Christmas period. The email has a purpose, and is likely to add value to the senders brand. it will be read, and quietly acknowledged and deleted without any fuss.

The Bad

Our experience this year of bad Christmas emails has made us shiver with horror! These have usually been created on a whim, without any real thought into why the email is being sent. Its as though someone has woken up one morning and thought, 'Today we must send an email newsletter'. Why? Because its Christmas? Thats the wrong answer.

These types of emails have carried no real purpose, mixed messages and usually nothing to identify the email with the brand that sent it. We've seen emails sent with publicly visible distribution lists, and even clickthorugh links to administrative login pages! These have usually been sent directly from Outlook (or equivalent), perhaps based on a MS Word template, with some dodgy clip art to boot. So not only is there visual brand damage, there's also the potential for damage to your domain name and email reputation.

The Ugly

The worst Christmas email we've seen this season involves one of those online 'e-card' services. I received one of these today, but immediately assumed it was spam so instantly deleted it. I was then suprised (perahps I shouldn't have been) to receive a following up email later in the day to tell me that I'd been sent an e-card, that might have gone into my spam folder, so I should check it, just in case it hadn't been delivered. So, I'm interrupted twice by someone with whom I have a tenuous connection with at best. If they put this level of effort into their email, what can I expect from their service?

Why this matters

Chistmas is an exciting time; parties, presents and (hopefully) a bit of time off to look forward to. This means that people are busy, catching up with Christmas shopping, or simply trying to clear their desk so they can come back in the New Year to a clear inbox. If you send inane emails that people can't open, include the wrong links, or don't offer people the option to remove themselves from your mailing list, you're getting in people's way of winding down for the holidays. I find this really frustrating. More and more companies are experimenting with email marketing, and doing it badly. Think you're saving money by doing it yourself? You may be in the short term, but for what needn't be especially expensive, wouldn't it be worth doing it properly if you're going to do it at all?

There are no comments on this post yet. Be the first..!

Andrew Armitage will once again be talking about Twitter, Facebook, Linked In and other forms of social media on Friday 1st July in Barrow. Organised by CN Media, this is the 2nd event that follows a successful presentation in Carlisle back in March.

The ½ day event conference will show you how social media can help your business and is ideal for any business or organisation wondering how they should use social media to raise their profile. For those who've already taken their first steps in Facebook and Twitter, why not come along and share your experience with those businesses that have already reaped the rewards of a successful social media strategy.

In addition to Andrew giving an overview of social media, sessions include practical tips on making the most from social media with CN Group's digital strategy manager Nick Turner and a look at the legal do's and don'ts surrounding social media with Burnetts Solicitors.

After presentaions and a Q&A session with the panel, there will be a chance to network and discuss social media with our "digital champions" - local businesses who have already made a success of social media. Laptops will be available so that you can get practical advice on using Facebook, Twitter, etc.

For information and booking, visit http://www.cngroupshop.co.uk/acatalog/Social_Media_for_Business.html.

Image Credit: Flickr/West.m http://www.flickr.com/photos/westm/

There are no comments on this post yet. Be the first..!

This week Google Analytics have begun to roll out new dashboards and a revamped user interface (UI). We signed up to join the 'beta' phase and having logged in this morning, a bright red link in the top corner of the page inviting us to try the new version was just screaming out to be clicked.

It's early days yet and we've not had a proper play about with all the new features, but I thought I'd just give a quick overview on the some of the main changes that we've seen so far.

The new version is certainly more enjoyable to use and it seems that there is some good continuity from the previous version. Hopefully this means people won't feel to lost when they make the changeover themselves.

New Dashboards

The main difference as far as I can tell (so far at least) is the new dashboards. Many of the reporting features seem the same but the dashboards themselves are significant, as for many, this is the first page you see when you log in to analytics.

The dashboards have been 'widgetised' which basically means you can customise it with the metrics that you're most interested in. This of course was possible to do before, but adding a new repot to the dashboard was awkward by having to dig down to the relevent report and clicking the 'add this report to dashboard link'.

Clicking the more visible '+ Add Widget' button throws up a selection window where you can choose from a number of options:

1. How you'd like the data displayed (from a simple metric, pie chart, timeline or table);
2. The actual data you wish to show (which is dependent on your choice of how data is displayed);
3. A name for your new 'widget'.

Looking at this image there does still seem to b be some confusion as to whether the dashboard will use 'gadgets' or 'widgets'.

Of course the basic dashboard is already pre-set with a number of existing widgets, and these are easily moved around on screen or modified to display different statistics, and there is still the option to specify a chosen timeframe. You can even change the name of your dashboard which leads on to the next major new feature.

Multiple Dashboards

The previous version of Google Analytics offered a single dashboard, but in an update that will be welcomed by larger web teams, you can now have up to 20 different dashboards for each site profile. So for a design/development team who are interested in the technical details of browser type, screen size etc, they can choose their preferred statistics, and a marketing team who are more interested in the popular pages and traffic sources can have their own overview. 

One thing however which seems a little annoying is that clicking on a dashboard metric does absolutely nothing. I would have expected a click here to link through to the relevant page with more detailed figures, but getting down to the next level of data requires clicking on the menu bar at the top of the page.

Home Page Improvements

For those with multiple website profiles or accounts within analytics, the home page also shows some welcome changes. As a digital agency, our analytics account has in the region of 80 website profiles. These have typically been grouped into different 'sub accounts' which we had to click into first. The new home screen lists all the websites in your profile and even offers a link to jump straight to a specific section of the website's report. Much quicker!

Still in Beta

The new version of Google Analytics is still in Beta which is essentially a pre-release testing. Many of the usual analytics functions are present and work as expected, however there is currently no export to PDF feature or email scheduling. Both of theses are pretty essential features for non-technical website owners to get regular updates on their website's performance in an easy to read format. Fortunately, it's still possible (and essential really) to nip back across to the older version.

Google have promised many more features in the new dashboards and other areas of the upgraded analytics, and no doubt these will be released over time. We're certainly pretty impressed with the changes we've seen so far and are somewhat relieved the update appears to be more evolutionery than revolutionary. Sure, it will take a bit of getting used to when everyone finally switches over to the new version, but compared to some of the updates to the Google Adwords platform in recent time, this update seems to have started with what was good about the older version and updated with new features that for some have been long overdue.

There are no comments on this post yet. Be the first..!

Did you know that the Solo payment card will soon be de-activated. From 31st March 2011, card issuers will stop accepting Solo transactions.

Customers who have been using a Solo will have been informed about the change, but if you charge a Solo card on a repeat transaction basis, you will need to update the customer's information.

Depending on your payment service provider, you shouldn't need to do anything, but it may be worthwhile checking that if people try to use a Solo card after the 31st, their transaction won't fail. The last you want as an ecommerce site owner is customers to think your site is broken or inefficient, when in fact their transaction was declined because their card was out of service.

Perhaps a banner or message to remind people of the change will help

There are no comments on this post yet. Be the first..!