tools Archives - AndreaVascellari.com

Digital Crisis Management (Part 2)

>> Listen to the audio version to find out additional commentary about the topics discussed in this post!

Download the MP3 file (9.2Mb, 19:00) – Get the show on iTunes!

This is part of a series of posts that explores the “Adaptive Digital Strategy Framework” , an operative guide that I created to plan, execute and manage online strategy programs more effectively and efficiently. Each of post of this series comes with an audio podcast in which you will find the audio version of the post with additional audio commentary about the discussed topics. The name of the podcast is “FIR On Strategy with Andrea Vascellari”.

In our previous cast/post we understood how we can predict the various phenomenons that can potentially originate a crisis and how an organization can plan the responsive actions needed to face such crisis situations.

That’s great at strategic level, but what should we actually do when the crisis hits? What tactics can we use? What process should we follow to manage and possibly reduce the damage caused by a digital crisis? This is what we are going to explore in this cast/post. Continue reading “Digital Crisis Management (Part 2)”

Solution: Friends’ Circles are Handy but Painful to Manage

I’m sure you noticed how handy it is to manage friends on Facebook listing them under specific groups/lists. The problem is that the process to group the friends is pretty painful. Circlehack solves this problem turning this into a flawless experience with a simple click & drag interface – see screenshot above.

Hat tip to Leah D’Emilio for the great suggestion.

Andrea

How to Upload Files and Folders to Google Docs

Here’s how you can upload, not just files, but an entire folder from your computer to the cloud using Google Docs.

I can’t tell you how happy I am about this new feature! I’ve been waiting ages for this. It’s handy to upload data to the cloud but when you deal with a huge number of files you need a way to transfer offline archives to the cloud without then spending extra time in reordering everything once everything is online. This new Google Docs feature solves the problem.

Google Docs is an essential tool that I use on a daily basis with my team and clients. If you are not familiar with Google Docs I encourage you to have a look at it, I’m sure it will come in handy.

Andrea

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 March 30th 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.

Data: How the Advanced Corporations Spend on Social Business – A glimpse into the future.
Top 25 Best Practices for Drafting Policies and Guidelines – The rules of social media engagement.
Pepsi Innovates with Social Media Metrics – Shiv Singh, Head of Digital PepsiCo Beverages America, talked to eMarketer writer/analyst Kimberly Maul about how PepsiCo measures social media and the role Facebook plays in its social media outreach.
The PR Influencer Index: Let Your Peers Rate You – Here is the Lose Weight Exercise for you to share with your peers…
My Blackberry is not working – Fun!
Twitter isn’t very social: study – A whopping 50% of all content consumed on Twitter is generated by only 20,000 users.
Mobile internet stats round up – 84% use mobile search to look for information on local retailers, such as opening hours, address and contact details. 82% look for online retailers, 73% find a specific product or manufacturer website.
Google Page Speed Now Available as Chrome Plugin – Google has finally released an experimental Chrome extension for its popular Page Speed service. Page Speed, which is already available for Firefox, analyzes Web pages and gives developers suggestions for improving performance.
Mobile commerce: ten reasons to choose the web over apps – This doesn’t mean that apps don’t have their place, but retailers should look to mobile commerce sites before they create an app.
Mobile commerce: 25 essential tips – Mobile commerce is continuing to grow, and there are now plenty of compelling reasons why retailers should sell via mobile.
e-book sales exploded by 116% this January, totaling $69.9 million in the U.S. – Paperbacks were down 30.9% from the reporting companies, falling to $39.0 million, $30 million below the sales of e-books. Hardcover sales fell 11.3% in January.
How to Activate Facebook Insights for Your Website – Handy!
New Rules for the New Internet Bubble – We’re now in the second Internet bubble.
US Social Network Usage: 2011 Demographic and Behavioral Trends – In 2011, 63.7% of US internet users will use social networks on a regular basis, amounting to nearly 148 million people. Although the pace of growth will be less dramatic in the next few years than it was in 2009 and 2010, usage will remain strong and shows no sign of declining.
Advertising – B2B Brands Undervalue Online Display Marketing – Only 13% of B2B interactive marketers say they have increased online display budgets in 2011 relative to 2010 levels, in large part due to perceptions of ineffectiveness, according to a new report from Forrester.

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.

Communications Report for December 20th 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.

Search Engine Optimization – Hmmm…’juicy’ links by Chris.
More Than Half of Mobile Ads are on Smartphones, Says inMobi – Smartphone impressions are now the majority (56%) of mobile ads in the United States. inMobi says that it has increased its ad impressions by 600 million monthly (+25%) in the past 90 days, thanks to a huge (57%) increase in smartphone inventory.
Facebook Brings Facial Recognition to Photo Tagging – Facebook Photos, one of the social network’s most popular features, is getting a big and potentially controversial upgrade with a new feature that automatically suggests who users should tag in photos based on facial recognition technology.
Pepsi Refresh Project Netted 61 Million Votes – Consumers cast 61 million votes— compared to about 89 million for the 2010 U.S. general election — on refresheverything.com to make a case for their various causes, the company said. Pepsi has pledged to give away $20 million via the program. To date, the program has given about $14.6 million to fund 352 ideas. The site also got 1.6 million comments.
Young and Mobile: A Global View of Cellphones and Youth | Nielsen Wire – 16 percent of young people reported that their parents selected their mobile phone. Price was the most common consideration among youth in selecting a mobile phone, though that is true among other age groups, too. Youth aged 15 to 24 in all countries surveyed put price as the first purchase driver, with the exception of Russian youth, 21 percent of whom placed design/style first.
Social Media Success: 5 Lessons from In-House Corporate Teams – Here we are highlighting five companies that have enjoyed long term success with their own social media teams and taking a look at some of the measurable returns they have seen as the results of their programs.
Slides: Social Business Forecast: 2011 The Year of Integration (LeWeb Keynote) – Research reveals corporations to focus on integration, staffing, advertising, and measurement in 2011.
Americans Now Spend As Much Time Using Internet as TV [STATS] – The average American now spends roughly 13 hours per week using the Internet and watching TV offline.
How Much Is a Tweet Worth? $500, Says Toyota – The car manufacturer is rewarding those who purchase a new Toyota by January 3 with a $500 debit card for tweeting about it.
The Anatomy of a Perfect Landing Page – Nice & clear.

Communications Report for December 20th 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.

Search Engine Optimization – Hmmm…’juicy’ links by Chris.
More Than Half of Mobile Ads are on Smartphones, Says inMobi – Smartphone impressions are now the majority (56%) of mobile ads in the United States. inMobi says that it has increased its ad impressions by 600 million monthly (+25%) in the past 90 days, thanks to a huge (57%) increase in smartphone inventory.
Facebook Brings Facial Recognition to Photo Tagging – Facebook Photos, one of the social network’s most popular features, is getting a big and potentially controversial upgrade with a new feature that automatically suggests who users should tag in photos based on facial recognition technology.
Pepsi Refresh Project Netted 61 Million Votes – Consumers cast 61 million votes— compared to about 89 million for the 2010 U.S. general election — on refresheverything.com to make a case for their various causes, the company said. Pepsi has pledged to give away $20 million via the program. To date, the program has given about $14.6 million to fund 352 ideas. The site also got 1.6 million comments.
Young and Mobile: A Global View of Cellphones and Youth | Nielsen Wire – 16 percent of young people reported that their parents selected their mobile phone. Price was the most common consideration among youth in selecting a mobile phone, though that is true among other age groups, too. Youth aged 15 to 24 in all countries surveyed put price as the first purchase driver, with the exception of Russian youth, 21 percent of whom placed design/style first.
Social Media Success: 5 Lessons from In-House Corporate Teams – Here we are highlighting five companies that have enjoyed long term success with their own social media teams and taking a look at some of the measurable returns they have seen as the results of their programs.
Slides: Social Business Forecast: 2011 The Year of Integration (LeWeb Keynote) – Research reveals corporations to focus on integration, staffing, advertising, and measurement in 2011.
Americans Now Spend As Much Time Using Internet as TV [STATS] – The average American now spends roughly 13 hours per week using the Internet and watching TV offline.
How Much Is a Tweet Worth? $500, Says Toyota – The car manufacturer is rewarding those who purchase a new Toyota by January 3 with a $500 debit card for tweeting about it.
The Anatomy of a Perfect Landing Page – Nice & clear.

Communications Report for December 6th 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.

Online Advertising Sucks – How often do you hear about a traditional mass media company shifting to a “digital first” strategy? Those companies may want to take a look at this…
How the Fortune 500 Use Social Media to Grow Sales and Revenue – The truth is, there are only five different ways the Fortune 500 use social media. Seriously — just five. And once you know what they are, you can figure out which ones would be most useful for your business.
College Students Admit To “Shocking” Text Messaging Habits in Class – According to data released from Nielsen this fall, that age group sends around 1,630 texts per month – roughly three texts per hour.
Research Examines What Motivates People to Comment Online – The study examined user activity specifically to try to gauge the influence of “emotional content” on users’ behavior. Using sentiment analysis, the researchers looked at content, separating “objective” and “subjective”, and then examined users’ responses
How 10 Year Olds Explain Cloud Computing – They explain cloud computing in a simple, clear way. They don’t see limits to the cloud. They see it as infinite, accessible anywhere, any time.
Intelligently silence Gmail conversations with “Smart Mute” – If you enable “Smart Mute” from the Labs tab in Gmail Settings, muted conversations will only appear in your inbox if a new message in the conversation is addressed to you and no one else, or a new email in the conversation adds you to the “To” or “Cc” line. Once you enable Smart Mute, mute behavior will change across all versions of Gmail: web, mobile, Android, etc.
Study: Two-Thirds of Marketers Integrate Social Media and Email Marketing – Just because social media may be a new addition to your marketing mix doesn’t mean email marketing should be eliminated. In fact, social media can help to enhance your email marketing efforts.
The State of Small Business Online Marketing Budgets [REPORT] – According to the survey, 54% of respondents indicated that their businesses currently have websites. Regarding website features, the vast majority (80%) of websites include general business information, while customer service (45%), lead generation (35%) and e-commerce (30%) features trail in at a distant second, third and fourth places. A mere 13% of businesses reported having a blog.
YouTube top search term in Japan for third year running – #trends A survey by Yahoo! Japan of the most used search terms in 2010 has shown that YouTube is still the most popular search term in Japan for the third year running.
How To: Build a private collaboration site on WordPress.com in 5 minutes – #productive & #smart
Introducing the PostRank Facebook Analytics App – This new Facebook analytics application, which will help publishers solve not one, but two problems at once…
Popularity does not equal influence on Twitter: Seeking influence – only one in 318 messages containing an internet address is “retweeted” the researchers found.
Social Media Case Study: Cold Stone Creamery – The payoff goes well beyond greater customer engagement; Cold Stone’s promotions add to the bottom line by moving people from their computers to physical stores.

Communications Report for December 6th 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.

Online Advertising Sucks – How often do you hear about a traditional mass media company shifting to a “digital first” strategy? Those companies may want to take a look at this…
How the Fortune 500 Use Social Media to Grow Sales and Revenue – The truth is, there are only five different ways the Fortune 500 use social media. Seriously — just five. And once you know what they are, you can figure out which ones would be most useful for your business.
College Students Admit To “Shocking” Text Messaging Habits in Class – According to data released from Nielsen this fall, that age group sends around 1,630 texts per month – roughly three texts per hour.
Research Examines What Motivates People to Comment Online – The study examined user activity specifically to try to gauge the influence of “emotional content” on users’ behavior. Using sentiment analysis, the researchers looked at content, separating “objective” and “subjective”, and then examined users’ responses
How 10 Year Olds Explain Cloud Computing – They explain cloud computing in a simple, clear way. They don’t see limits to the cloud. They see it as infinite, accessible anywhere, any time.
Intelligently silence Gmail conversations with “Smart Mute” – If you enable “Smart Mute” from the Labs tab in Gmail Settings, muted conversations will only appear in your inbox if a new message in the conversation is addressed to you and no one else, or a new email in the conversation adds you to the “To” or “Cc” line. Once you enable Smart Mute, mute behavior will change across all versions of Gmail: web, mobile, Android, etc.
Study: Two-Thirds of Marketers Integrate Social Media and Email Marketing – Just because social media may be a new addition to your marketing mix doesn’t mean email marketing should be eliminated. In fact, social media can help to enhance your email marketing efforts.
The State of Small Business Online Marketing Budgets [REPORT] – According to the survey, 54% of respondents indicated that their businesses currently have websites. Regarding website features, the vast majority (80%) of websites include general business information, while customer service (45%), lead generation (35%) and e-commerce (30%) features trail in at a distant second, third and fourth places. A mere 13% of businesses reported having a blog.
YouTube top search term in Japan for third year running – #trends A survey by Yahoo! Japan of the most used search terms in 2010 has shown that YouTube is still the most popular search term in Japan for the third year running.
How To: Build a private collaboration site on WordPress.com in 5 minutes – #productive & #smart
Introducing the PostRank Facebook Analytics App – This new Facebook analytics application, which will help publishers solve not one, but two problems at once…
Popularity does not equal influence on Twitter: Seeking influence – only one in 318 messages containing an internet address is “retweeted” the researchers found.
Social Media Case Study: Cold Stone Creamery – The payoff goes well beyond greater customer engagement; Cold Stone’s promotions add to the bottom line by moving people from their computers to physical stores.