blogging Archives - AndreaVascellari.com

This is Something Personal

Do you know what’s missing here? Me, the real me.

Sounds crazy I know, but it’s true.
I spent the last few years sharing tons of valuable stuff that can help you to succeed online. I did it because I believed in it, because I wanted to help people and because the time was right. Now all the late comers joined the party and it seems to me that there’s nothing else to read online. “How to do this, what to to do to get the best out of that, or 1,000 tips to kick ass on this other thing…”

What’s missing is the personal perspective on things.

So, I think it’s time for me to change gears and share my experience from a different perspective.
Because when you need to find out ‘what’ or ‘how’ in order to do this or that, what do you do? You search on Google and you find all the answers.

From now on, you won’t find the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ here, I’ll leave that to Google. On my blog, you’ll find the ‘why’.

And you’ll find an absolutely unique ‘why’ because it’s going to always be from my experience, which is something that no one else will be able to tell you. That’s the new value that I’ll offer and share with you.

At times you might actually end up disagreeing with me, but hey…isn’t learning from each other the best part of a sincere discussion? It will be great to do this on a new and different level.

Every now and then, I might share an interesting post on what and how you should keep your eyes on things, but I’ll focus more on this new direction.

Love it? Hate it? Questions?

This is my digital living room and you are welcome here. Grab a drink and let’s talk.

Andrea

P.S. If you like the new vibe, here’s my RSS feed and this is my newsletter. Let’s stay tuned.

Communications Report for April 27th 2011 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

Metrics & ROI – 2011 Trends: Turning Data Into Action; Mobile; Social Marketing – Most marketers understand the value of good customer data, but they still struggle to organize and use it effectively: 62% cite “turning data into action” as their top marketing issue in 2011, according to a report by Unica.
Companies increase outsourcing for SEO, PPC and social media: survey – The report is based on a survey which polled 900 client-side advertisers and agencies. It found that the number of companies handling SEO exclusively in-house fell from 51% in 2010 to 44% in 2011, and the number handling paid search in a similar fashion dropped from 47% to 38% over the same time period.
25 reasons why you should be blogging – The main benefit of a blog in terms of search engine optimisation (SEO) is that it builds backlinks to your pages. If your content is good then people will discuss and share it, creating links to your pages on their websites, their own blogs and through social platforms like Twitter.
TEDxEdges – Ricardo Sousa on Teen Entrepreneurship – @ricardojrsousa – Wow!
Free and Easy Email Reminders with FollowUpThen – Handy tool.
6 Smart and Effective Email Marketing Tactics – Here are several simple, emerging email marketing methods with which brands are seeing success.
IAB: Internet Advertising Reached $26 Billion In 2010, Display Grew Twice As Fast As Search – Compared to other forms of advertising, Internet advertising surpassed newspaper ads in the U.S. last year ($22.8 billion) and is now second only to TV ($28.6 billion).
Google’s collateral damage after algorithm changes, illustrated – TNW Google – SEOBook has created an interesting infographic that details the effects that changes to Google’s algorithms have had on the web.
Search Marketing To Grow 16% This Year [REPORT] – Search marketing will grow 16% this year to $19.3 billion and 74% of North American ad agencies say their clients use Facebook, according to a study released Wednesday.
Cost of Facebook Ads Jumped 40% This Year [REPORT] – Search engine marketing grew 17% year-over-year primarily because of increases in the retail and finance categories. Display advertising showed a 300% jump in exchange ad inventory and a 30% cost-per-thousand (CPM) decline, which Efficient Frontier attributes to “greater gains in reach and efficiency within the ad exchanges.”
Google Research Shows How Online Ads Drive Offline Sales – The relationship between online search advertising and online sales can be easily quantified, and that’s part of what makes Web advertising so powerful compared to its print and broadcast counterparts.
HOW TO: Improve Engagement on Your Brand’s Facebook Page [STATS] – Here findings along with tips about when and how to make the most of a Facebook post.
2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report – A significant 3300 social media marketers provided valuable insight.
Moblie Marketing & Tagging Infographic – Infographic.
7 tips for a killer Facebook landing page – A great Facebook landing page should turn visitors into subscribers, engage people, and encourage them to explore your products and services further.

Communications Report for January 13th 2011 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

Participation in Real-Time Social Media Increased 20% in 2010 – Blog writing declined by 4%, and forum participation decreased by 11%. Participation in real-time social networks and microblogs, however, both grew by 20%.
Momentfeed is Google Analytics for the Real World – With the proliferation of location based services, it would seem that there is a real opportunity to better understand how people go about their daily lives.
YouTube Reports 200m Mobile Daily Mobile Views, 2.0 App for Android – 75% of respondents say that mobile is their primary way of accessing YouTube.
HOW TO: Create a World-Class Online Community for Your Business – 9 steps businesses must take in order to make their online communities world-class.
Are We Too Obsessed With Facebook? [INFOGRAPHIC] – Some highlights about Facebook usage, 2010 trends, adoption numbers and a great deal more.
5 Predictions for Small Business in 2011 – Here are my five predictions about how small businesses will continue to adapt to changing technologies as we move into the new year.
Email, Social Media to See More Marketing Dollars in 2011 – Email and social media are the top tactics marketers worldwide expect to increase budgets on in 2011.
10 Online Tools for Better Attention & Focus – A handful of the best apps for fighting back against the constant distractions of our digital lives.
44% of Online Sharing Occurs Through Facebook [INFOGRAPHIC] – Impressively, 44% of shares occurred through Facebook in 2010, up 33% from last year. That number does not include shares done via Facebook’s “Like” button, which means the actual, universal percentage of shares through Facebook is likely higher.
5 ingredients of smart online commerce – Seth’s Blog – Few things they do that make them successful online.
Exploring the Twitterverse – With Twitter at the center of the stellar system, apps orbit at different rotations based on their design and functionality.
6 Predictions for Digital Advertising in 2011 – Whether they choose to go big or small, the social web equips advertisers with significantly more consumer data points than ever before to improve the targeting and relevance of online advertising.
5 Predictions for Small Business in 2011 – Predictions about how small businesses will continue to adapt to changing technologies as we move into the new year.

Get a copy of #aoc3 and Support Charity Water – Blog Action Day 2010

Age Of Conversation 3

Did you know that just $20 can give one person clean water for 20 years? An average water project costs $5,000 and can serve 250 people with clean, safe water. This means that purchasing a copy of the ‘Age of Conversation 3’, the book that I co-authored with an amazing group of marketing pros, really can make a difference to someone’s life!

Today is Blog Action Day for Water and it’s also a call to action to make this book get onto the Top Sellers’ List at Amazon! Get a copy (or more) today:

It’s available in:

All proceeds go to charity water. Make a difference…

Andrea

It’s Time to Go Back to Conversation Streams

A recent twitter conversation with Dan York got me thinking.

The increasing pollution of the web with meaningless content made bloggers move towards higher quality blog posts. This led many bloggers, including me, to gradually reduce the frequency of released content. Blogs lost that dynamic conversation and vibe they used to have back in the day.

Did all this interaction disappear? No, not at all. It just shifted to social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Buzz etc. The only problem with it is that people started to rely too much on these external platforms/environments… read this great post by Bernie Goldbach to understand more about what I mean.

Back to Dan and me. A few days ago, Dan sent out a tweet with a simple question and a link that was redirecting to a really short post on his blog. Initially I thought “why didn’t he choose to have this conversation just on Twitter?” But after a second that blog post brought back to my mind the early days of when I started blogging around 2002, when we owned our content, when we were the hosts of our conversations, when people loved to comment on posts because it was like sitting in a cafe’ and talking with some good friends about topics we cared about the most. In 2002, we probably weren’t talking about streams yet, but that was the feeling and I believe we should probably get back to it. We still need our digital homes, we can’t live like digital nomads.

As long as the quality of what we share is good, meaningful or it represents a good conversation starter I think we should still invite or leave the door open to our friends to have a cup of coffee in our digital living room to sit and talk. Worried about what people on the outside are saying? No problem, there are a bunch of tools & tech (i.e. backtype) that can eventually help us capture what the social web is saying about it.

I think this magic feeling is not gone, we just don’t need to forget about it…and this would probably help us avoid ending up feeling like Loic (@Loic it’s all good! Your name is not Brogan or Godin. You are Loic and that’s how you talk and engage with your audience. It worked well for you until now, just keep at it!).

What about me? Well, as soon as this intense period for the new launch of itive.net is over, I’ll get back to my regular posting activity… bringing back the stream feeling…or I’ll probably start right away 😉 I guess you’ll find out!

How about you? What’s your take? I’d love to hear your thoughts about this.

Andrea

[Communications Report] for September 9th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

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B2B Ads: Women click, men act | Econsultancy – Women deliver a 23% higher clickthrough rate than men, but men are 53% more likely to buy, start a free trial, download or complete a desired action than their female counterparts.
B2C Outpacing B2B in Social Measurement [stats] – B2Bs focus less on hits and followers, more on sales.
5 Educational Email Marketing Infographics – Despite being the elder statesman of online marketing tools, email is still growing in adoption as a marketing channel.
AP Stops Fighting Bloggers, Plans To Credit Them As News Source – Only two years ago, the Associated Press tried to stop bloggers from using their content. Threatening to charge sites that used their content and demaned that The Drudge Reports pull headlines and story briefs from their site. But now AP is singing a different song – saying this week that they will credit bloggers for any stories they break.
Google Instant – The most obvious change is that you get to the right content much faster than before because you don’t have to finish typing your full search term, or even press “search.” Another shift is that seeing results as you type helps you formulate a better search term by providing instant feedback. You can now adapt your search on the fly until the results match exactly what you want. In time, we may wonder how search ever worked in any other way.
Skype Introduces 10-Way Video Calling – Skype 5.0 beta two is already available for download; it includes 10-way video calls, automatic call recovery and a cleaner user interface. The update is also said to improve call quality and includes a number of bug fixes to make the overall experience much smoother.
frankencamera: open source digital camera on [technabob] – Here’s another example that make you understand that the future is not just about tech but especially about consumer empowerment to end users self customize their products/services. Apps are indeed playing a fundamental role.
TPB AFK | The Pirate Bay – Away From Keyboard – TPB AFK is a documentary about three computer addicts who redefined the world of media distribution with their hobby homepage The Pirate Bay.
The Pirate Bay Documentary Maker Fetches $34,000 To Bring Us TPB Story | Startup Meme – Unofficial Facebook Guide – Simon Klose headed over to Kickstarter, a startup which people can use to generate funds for their projects from the community. The intention was to raise $25,000 in a month to hire the services of an editing studio to turn his plans to reality. However Klose got luckier than he must have anticipated, raising a healthy $34,000 from numerous backers.
Kickstarter – This is a funding platform for creative projects. Projects, funded by the community, must reach or exceed their funding goal or no money changes hands. Creators keep 100% ownership. Love it.

[Communications Report] for May 18th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

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Are Blogs Dying? – The rise of streaming tools, though, is leading to a new state, where long-format blogging is being imploded, turned into content for the short-format stream, like radio was cannibalized for TV.
How to Quit Facebook Without Actually Quitting Facebook – In case you are thinking about it.
Google Promoting “Internet Stats” Site – Last September Google launched “Internet Stats” in the UK. Now Google is “launching” it in the US or perhaps, more precisely, exposing it again.
Mayors of Starbucks Now Get Discounts Nationwide with Foursquare – Starting today, mayors of individual Starbucks stores can unlock the Mayor Offer and enjoy a money-saving perk for their frequent store checkins.
Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh) – Is Social Media just a fad?
Understanding Social CRM – Good overview & stats
Openbook – Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life. Whether you want to or not. – Openbook is a utility that reveals privacy violations in the popular online social network Facebook.
A Conversational Analysis of SxSW – Insights + how information is shared during events
[infographics] The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook – Click the chart to advance, or click on a year.
Women May Welcome Targeting – 88% of US Female Internet users would like to see more targeted offers from brands they trust.
40 Tools To Spice Up Your Twitter Background | Tools – Is the default blue background of your Twitter page starting to look stale, or is it just me?
YouTube – Levis New Friends Store Social Shopping Site – Levi’s have just launched a social media shopping experience where they have added the new “like” facebook functionality to each and every product in the store. This allows customers to find and share their favourite products from Levi’s including seeing what their friends like on the same site. Essentially allowing you to socially shop with friends in real time.
Open Facebook Search – Search Facebook public timeline outside Facebook.
Starbucks Cards Can Now be Managed via Facebook – As an early adopter brand, Starbucks has reaped the rewards of social media innovation. Today the company is furthering those efforts with a Facebook application for customers to access and manage their Starbucks cards.
For Veteran Social Marketers, Twitter Is Tops – Fully 96% of marketers with years of social media experience were using Twitter, while 91% used Facebook and 89% LinkedIn. Marketers with some social media experience were also big on Twitter (92%), followed by Facebook (88%) and LinkedIn (76%). The biggest difference between the two groups was in usage of social video marketing, such as through YouTube.

[Communications Report] for April 5th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

The Collapse of Complex Business Models « Clay Shirky – Some video still has to be complex to be valuable, but the logic of the old media ecoystem, where video had to be complex simply to be video, is broken.
Report – Future of the Internet IV – In an online survey of 895 technology stakeholders’ and critics’ expectations of social, political and economic change by 2020.
Facebook Summarized In A Single Picture – The chart breaks down Facebook’s history as well as some of the most important facts and figures from the company. Included in the chart is information about the site’s user base as well as the impressive engagement levels that Facebook is able to maintain.
Study: Mobile internet traffic is set to grow 400% by 2015 – What does that mean? As smartphones become more commonplace, phone companies could start charging a lot more money to keep them up and running. But consumers may not go along willingly.

Twitter Starts Featuring Popular Tweets in Search Results – Twitter has turned on a new feature in search that lets user filter for what the microblogging service is calling “top results.” As opposed to strictly showing the most recent mentions of a given query, users now have an option to click a “top results” link that displays a few popular tweets on top of the page.
40 of the Most Useful Social Media and PR Blog Posts of Q1, 2010 (Jan – Mar) – Collection in the following categories: Tools, Social Networks, PR, Blogs / Blogging, Content, and General / Other.
3 New Studies Prove Social Media Marketing Growth – Marketers are taking note of many different social media opportunities and beginning to implement new social initiatives at a higher rate than ever before. Here are 3 new studies that show social media is still on the rise.
Americans Using TV and Internet Together 35% More Than A Year Ago | Nielsen Wire – In the last quarter of 2009, simultaneous use of the Internet while watching TV reached three and a half hours a month, up 35% from the previous quarter. Nearly 60% of TV viewers now use the Internet once a month while also watching TV.

[Communications Report] for March 4th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

Foursquare Sees Its Name in Lights in Vegas – An enormous digital display pulls checkin data via Fousquare’s API and displays the latest tips and to-dos, as well as the mall’s mayor, for all onlookers to see.
Special Report – Marketing to the Millennials – One of the most evident changes is social networking, which is embraced by 75 percent of the Millennials, compared with 50 percent of the Generation X members (ages 30 to 45) and just 30 percent of Baby Boomers (aged 46 to 64).
Getting the Most Out of Twitter, No Posting Necessary – A COMMON reason given by those who have yet to try Twitter: “I have nothing to say.”… well…
E-Commerce Sites Freshen Up to Grow Sales – Among those sites that will refresh their looks, better organization and updating of home, category and product pages are top priorities, followed by better search engine optimization.
The State of the Twittersphere 2010 – According to the report, Twitter’s user growth peaked at 13% in March 2009 falling to just 3.5% in October 2009. And while this is the most recent date for which HubSpot has access, it is revealing nonetheless.
Lady Gaga And The Death Of The Login – 9 out of 10 people creating special purpose web accounts are doing so using their social networking platforms.
How to Create a Successful Company Blog – Is it worth blogging, and if so, what they should blog about.
Facebook Drives 3X Traffic to Broadcast Than Google News – A key difference here might be that people are sharing news on Facebook that has an aspect of immediacy. When something big is happening in the world, some news is breaking, we might tend to look toward media outlets where we expect to find breaking news – broadcast media.
Study: 61% of small businesses accomplish identifying & attracting new customers via social media. – Social media usage increased to 24%, from 12% the year before.
Roadmap: Make your corporate websites relevant with social integration (via @jowyang) – Companies and orginizations are confused by the wide variety of choices that social networks offer to help them connect to their customers. Jeremiah created this menu to help them in understanding.
Social networking, phones grow as news sources – 26% of people are getting news through mobile devices.
10 Tips for Successful Twitter Fundraising – It takes more than posting multiple tweets a day to get the job done.
5 Simple Twitter Listening Tips Every Marketer Should Know – Good overview on the basic steps you need to get the best out of your Twitter searching and monitoring.
E-Book on building and sustaining brand communities – Radian6 – (direct PDF download).

[Report] for February 3rd 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

Procter and Gamble embraces Facebook – When the world’s biggest marketing firm, Procter & Gamble, says it’s making a huge marketing move with a massive online presence, you really need to sit and up and pay close attention.
Major brands sceptical of social media – Just 22% of those surveyed said that social media forms a major part of their promotional strategies. Meanwhile, many marketers are confused about the role the channel should play in their company’s plans.
2010 Nonprofit Social Media Benchmarks Study – An analysis of growth and social engagement metrics for nonprofit organizations.
Context is King: How Videos Are Found And Consumed Online – An incredibly detailed post by Ashkan Karbasfrooshan.
Rethinking the Value of Social Media to Online Shopping – This research implies that the promise of Social Media for eRetailers should be carefully balanced by logistics and understanding of what customers actually want, otherwise mutual disappointment is sure to follow.
Active Business Blogs Draw 6.9 Times More Organic Search Traffic Than Non-Bloggers – Blogging, which is equivalent to content building, helps attract more site visitors. The rationale is similar: more blog articles mean more chances to create something that grabs readers’ attention and indirectly build up a company’s reputation.
Harvard on foursquare – Harvard is the first university to use foursquare to help students explore their campus and surrounding places of interest. “…this represents a smart use of FourSquare — which still has plenty of doubters — by an organization. I’m certain organizations of different natures will find a way to leverage the service to achieve their own business goals.”
Social Media Marketing: How Pepsi Got It Right – Social media marketing campaigns are proving to be goldmines rich with customer engagement and insight that companies wouldn’t likely have otherwise. Companies like PepsiCo are going to extensive lengths to foster this type of collaboration with fans, and the payoff has been big.
National Lady Gaga Day Draws 100,000+ on Facebook – How social networks can unleash community power. Still wondering if there’s any return on social media investment? Get your “social media embassies”, now.
Themeleon – Twitter Profile Designer – Nice tool to easily customize the way Twitter looks for you and how your profile looks to others.
Baby Boomers Get Connected with Social Media – Stats: 77% of millenials, 61% of gen X, 46% of Baby boomers maintain a social network profile.
Engagement on Social Networks Top Priority for Marketers – The “2010 Digital Marketing Outlook” report found that 81% of the brand executives surveyed expected an increase in digital projects in 2010, and one-half will be moving dollars from traditional to digital budgets. Further, more than three-quarters think the current economy will push more allocations to digital.
Ikea’s Easy to Assemble video series breaks new ground in branded entertainment – “Easy to Assemble is a wacky online video series created and written by Illeana Douglas and sponsored by Ikea. According to Advertising Age, Easy to Assemble has racked in 5.1 million views since first going online last year and the numbers are still growing. Ikea had the vision to give Douglas the creative freedom to place entertainment ahead of marketing”.
Digital Marketing: Facebook Ads Not So Annoying – It turns out users find ads on social networks no more annoying than any other ads on the web.
Google – Search is getting more social – Google is pushing the feature to beta status and turning it on for all signed-in English Googlers. Google Social Search is a standard search results page add-on that displays socially relevant content from people in your online social circle, as determined by your Google Profile.
Content Curation: Why Is The Content Curator The Key Emerging Online Editorial Role Of The Future? – What is content curation and why is it so important for the future of web content publishers…the next emerging disruptive role in the content creation and distribution chain.
20 Most Important Social Media Buzzwords for 2010 – The most appropriate buzzwords to describe our curious stampede to the social media and mobile future.