What is going on in Swiss minds this week. Looking at the rising searches this week.
-Ski Worldcup. (ski wm, and Lara gut)
-Google latitude (see where your friends are)
-Floricienta (see also picture)
- and of course Valentinstag.
Twitter goes mainstream says an article in The Wall Street Journal and I think it is.
Last week I noticed a few new starters and besides that you see more and more companies using and tracking twitter.
I mentioned earlier the respond on my complaints about netvibes on twitter and their active reply. You see this happening more often. Lately I had the same thing with skype while complaining about the quality.
One thing to be careful for as a company on twitter is again that you deliver value. There are a bunch of companies which just publish their rss feeds to twitter. That is not so bad. But the thing is they never respond if you send them a message. So no interaction.
About this going meanstream this seems more the case in the US. Counting Swiss Tweets look at swisstweets.chor follow swisstweet on twitter. The amount of twitter users in Switzerland is not much, but think also about the quality of its visitors.
I am not the first to mention it, but it is just to important. So I just have to mention it on this blog.
Competitive intelligence is now for everybody. And again it’s free.
Avinash Kaushik, webanalytics expert and author of the book Webanalytics an hour a day, is explaining competitive intelligence on his analytics weblog. This week he is explaining the use of Google Ad Planner to get information about your competitors audience. You get demographics and psychographics about their website visitors and you can easily compare it with your own.
He is even giving a Procter & Gamble example. So read this article.
Lately I meet more companies doing online advertising, like Google Adwords, without a good analytics in place. When you don’t measure the results of any campaign, you waste your money.
You see your traffic is growing and you think you are doing a good job. But is this traffic interested in what you offer? Do they ask for more information? Do they buy your product? If you don’t measure that, you don’t know .
In stead of using your own analytics tool you should start with implementing Google analytics. It is free, and in stead of focusing on the amount of traffic you will move forward to a ‘relevant traffic’ focus.
With analytics you get insights in all visitors but you are especially interested in the visitors who buy, subscribe on your site etc. When you follow their behaviour you know what they search for and where they came from.
With this information you don’t need to buy expensive advertisements on crowded websites anymore. You buy ads on relevant places which pay off directly.
Check out how top brands are doing in social media. Read The top Brand in Social media report 2008.
As expected: It is increasingly clear that the level of a brand’s engagement with the ever growing online community is beginning to have a direct correlation with that brand’s reputation.
And the balance of power has shifted - with control passing from the brands themselves to the consumers.
(source marketingfacts.nl)
Want to check your Brand yourself?
Looking at the report’s Methodology: You can start by measuring the number of times your brand is mentioned on Youtube, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Flickr, Digg, Twitter Del.icio.us and Board Reader. And you can do a search on Google blog search and Technorati.com. After measuring the quantity you have to start looking for the tone of voice as well…
-Want to learn more about using Social Networks.
-BTW Interbrand has an office in Nyon.
Today for our CH BrandReview I am going to look at the website of Hotel Des Bergues in Geneva. When I just arrived in Geneva and I passed by Des Bergues, it appealed to me instantly. It has a remarkable location and I think I have seen it appear in movies ones and a while.
For this reason I had high expectations of their website but I became a bit disappointed when I took a visit.
When I searched for Les Bergues in Google, Des Bergues came out properly on the top position. However Des Bergues doesn’t have its own hoteldesbergues.ch, it has only a few pages on the fourseasons.com website. The photography is good but the framework is very basic. I see some similarity with this website only this is not concerning a luxury (hotel) Brand like Four Seasons is.
However I did contact Four Seasons about this and they do not agree with me on this. As a result they did put up an online survey. So when you visit their website you can agree or disagree with me.
What I really do miss though is storytelling. I want to know more about Des Bergues. It is supposed to be the first hotel of Geneve. And it has been a landmark on the Rhône since 1834..
There must be a lot more to tell. For example is the Quai des Bergues named after the Hotel or is it the other way around.
To be continued.
Screenshot Hotel Des Bergues Geneve
(inspired by brandchannel.com)
Just back from my holidays. Wondering that most tourist information is still offline.
With the interactive marketing getting more location based cities, countries, regions etc. should consider the huge possibilities of mobile marketing, google.maps, video etc.
I, as a tourist, would like to get info on my mobile while entering a city. Especially on holidays we are in need of information for example about the weather.
I went to Nice in the South of France, lovely place. I Like this webcam so much. Got a free slogan for them (I am using it already) Have a Nice day!
Affiliate marketing can be a great way to get relevant traffic to your website. You only pay a commission when this traffic is giving some result.
I always compare affiliate marketing with offline retail. Retail is making money by selling your product and keeping a part of the revenue. For Brands it is always wise to have this distribution channel in place. But just like with offline retail you must have a strategy.
When you are for example a luxury brand. You only want to see your product sold in exclusive shops. Otherwise you harm your brand. On the Internet this issue is even more relevant.
Good affiliate networks always let you, as advertiser, review each website to decide if a website is a suitable match for your brand. But still this is not enough. We have seen examples of big brands getting in very bad places. (check German examples here).
To prevent Brand damage you should always manage your affiliate programs properly. Is there anything strange going on in your program. Affiliateblog.nl (in Dutch) comes with a lot of things you should look at. In short, ask yourself this questions :
To start with affiliate marketing in Switzerland you can start with Tradedoubler.
More basic info about affiliate marketing on wiki.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) can be found in most European countries and in various other countries of the world, even in South America. There are now attempts to launch the first Asian IAB in china.
Strange though that there still is no Swiss IAB.
Asking IAB Europe about it, they confirm that IAB Europe is in conversation with a group of people about opening an IAB here. They hope to make a formal announcement about it before June. That is in about 10 days!
Mission of IAB is accelerating the growth of e-commerce, interactive advertising and online marketing.
I have just created a Google custom search for Switzerland, CH Social Search. Searching within major social networks and websites used by Swiss people. If you need it, use it.
This custom search is open for contribution. So if you have any suggestions to make it better just send it in.
Custom search is vertical search made easy for everybody. I suggest companies should make their own custom searches serving or exploring their target audiences.
