Often where you see large budgets, you often see big spend and proportionately small positive results.
In a recent TED Talk in London, Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman of Ogilvy Group, explains how big flashy expensive fixes to big problems only obscure the better simpler answers.
What can we do to start shifting our mindset towards simpler solutions? What examples already exist?
When looking through your site statistics using Google Analytics, you may be perplexed about what “bounce rate” means.
According to Wikipedia, bounce rate “represents the percentage of initial visitors to a site who “bounce” away to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site”. (source)
This video from Google helps give an understanding of bounce rates and why they are useful:
According to the Wikipedia article about Bounce Rate, “While bounce rate is a useful tool for e-commerce sites, it is of more questionable value for sites such as news and information, where many visitors go to scan headlines and conduct research, and can find what they want immediately on the entry page. Indeed, for any kind of informational site, sophisticated users are likely to bookmark a page within the site, which then becomes their personal entry page, check it (e.g., for sports scores, etc.), then bounce right off. The page will have done its job, but might still have a bounce rate above 80%, bringing up the average for the whole site. For such sites, metrics such as returning visitors vs. new visitors might be more informative and should be used to understand the overall picture better.”
LinkedIn has been recognised as the number 1 online business networking tool. If you want to get the most out of LinkedIn, then I recommend you read some of Chris Brogan‘s excellent articles:
Some people, however, are overly keen with using LinkedIn! A client recently told me that he’s managed to accumulate 5 different LinkedIn profiles and asked for help to unify them all into one single profile. Thought I’d share my suggestions with you…
How to Unify Duplicate LinkedIn Profiles
Step 1: identify the one profile that you want to keep
I recommend you select the profile that already has the most connections and recommendations on it.
Step 2: move all connections over to your main profile
See which of the connections in the other profiles are not connected to your main profile and send them a new invite from your main profile, asking them to add you there as you will be closing down the old profiles.
Step 3: close down the redundant profiles
Log into each of your profiles, then in Settings, click on Close Your Account which is in the Personal Information section.
What you need to access each profile
In case you do not remember your login details for each of the profiles, email CustomerService@LinkedIn.com with the following:
Subject: forgotten LinkedIn login IDs
Dear LinkedIn Customer Service
I have 5 LinkedIn profiles and would like to start the process of merging all five into one, by keeping one and removing the other 4. I have forgotten the email addresses for logging into the profiles. Please send me the login email addresses for the following profiles so I can request a password for each:
When thinking about a name for your business, and when thinking about how to display it, how about calling it what it is? Driving down the A5 in Hendon on Saturday, I stopped at the lights and spotted this coffee shop. The actual name of the business is “The Upper Crust Cafe”, but what immediately [...]
My wife is a primary school teacher and she’s on Easter break. In school holidays, she looks for fun things to do. Guess what her number one request was? “Take me shopping.” That’s right, her number ONE request. Gents, you have to agree with me here – in situations like this, there’s only one thing [...]
One of the most effective ways of building your reputation is by demonstrating thought leadership about your sector which would indirectly shine a light on your services. The most effective ways of doing this is at live events, or providing education through video. Sawan Gosrani of Video Sound and Photo, shares his process for leveraging [...]
The reasons for blogging are clear. A blog is a platform for companies to make statements about who they are, what they do, and make comments about the sectors in which they operate. A corporate blog is a central resource through which to demonstrate thought-leadership and therefore attract more interest in their services. It’s also [...]
Whether you are running your business from an office with the constant interruption of colleagues, or whether you are running your business from home with the constant distractions of the family, or even if it’s just you and you can’t hold your attention on one job, the act of multi-tasking is inevitable. In the same [...]
All forms of online communication and engagement have their place. Blogging has it’s own special place and so does twitter. Social media tools such as twitter and facebook may help get the message to the right audience for now, but you can’t control whether tomorrow they will stay or whether they will go. Your self-hosted [...]
As I spend some time each day tuning into the latest developments in marketing, I was curious about what some of my closest friends and associates use to keep themselves informed about current marketing practices and trends. Here’s a selection of what I was told about: GaryVaynerchuk.com Fora.tv Scobleizer.com (Robert Scobles blog – I’ve been [...]
Suraj Dinesh Shah is based in London (UK) and advises businesses, organisations and individuals on how to align digital strategy with traditional marketing. Use the web to 'blow your trumpet' most effectively.
