Social Media Analytics is an ever-evolving practice. Here is a quick presentation on how Raidious handles analytics on a cross platform basis for socialized media (one point we make here – social media is a misnomer, it’s all social). It’s all about understanding how to grow and engage an audience with content, regardless of the platform – social or otherwise.

If your company is asking questions like . . . how do we measure the impact of social media? What is the ROI? What metrics should I be paying attention to in which platforms?

We have some answers for you. Please contact us any time, and we’ll be happy to have one of our strategists do an analysis of your current efforts.

Raidious is hosting an open call for content correspondents. Our company continues to grow, and we need talented correspondents with broadcast journalism and social media experience.

Can you answer YES to all of these questions?

• Are you able to work independently with care?
• Are you patient and skillful with detail work?
• Fully adhering to well-defined processes to produce high quality results?
• Do you enjoy a steady pace, open environment requiring attention to detail?

If you can, then we have the position for you!

We are Raidious and we are an interactive marketing and communications company. We are purpose-built to produce content and manage dialogue for our clients brands. We have a casual, open work environment.

We have a position to join our team as a Content Correspondent. You will be responsible for delivering high quality content for Raidious clients. This content will be executed on time and on strategy at the direction of the Account Producer and Head of Publishing. This position will work out of our downtown Indianapolis, Indiana office.

Successful candidates will bring the following:

• Bachelor degree
• Minimum 1 year experience
• Strong writing skills
• Proficiency with web publishing tools
• Proficiency with image editing
• Ability to work a flexible schedule
• Ability to work independently
• Attention to detail
• Video editing a plus

Here is what you can expect in return as a Content Correspondent:

• Competitive hourly wage
• Business mileage and business expense reimbursement
• Opportunity to work for a successful, growing, casual company that rewards strong performance

If you are ready for the challenge and reward of our position, please fill out the form below.

Raidious has engaged ADVISA Hiring to identify the top candidates for this position. Per their request, please direct all communications about this position to the address above. As we will be communicating with you through this and other advisausa.com and advisahiring.com e-mail addresses, please be sure to take the necessary steps, such as adding this address to your address book, to avoid having correspondence caught in your e-mail filters.

Let’s face it… you are likely over capacity.

The online landscape has changed and so has the way we all do business today. If you are a marketer, you’re probably getting requests from the executive level DEMANDING that you get your multi-channel strategy together ASAP. To them, this is a reasonable request. But to you, the already stretched thin marketing director with a 3-4 person team, this request has just put a major kink in the marketing strategy you finalized a month ago! How do you scale your team to meet the demand?

The problem with the request is the misunderstanding of what it takes to run a multi-channel campaign. In the eyes of the “boss” it is as simple as setting up a few tools, slapping a logo on it, and letting the masses fill your pages with comments about how they love your brand….but you as a marketer know better. Oh, and by the way, there is no more budget. It’s ok though, because Facebook and Twitter are free… right?

If only it were that simple.

The questions going through your head are most likely

• Who is going to do all of this work?
• When we are at capacity, how will we scale?
• Where am I going to get all of this content?
• When will we find time to tackle this?
• What will our strategy look like?
• What will we write about?

If you are in this spot and feeling completely overwhelmed by this monstrous stack of tasks that have unknowingly been placed on your desk, you are not alone. But don’t fret, there are options. This scenario is the exact reason Raidious exists. In short, we can do all of this work for you.

We are structured and staffed to alleviate the capacity problem for your brand. Today there are many companies out there that can help you identify your strategy but few who will actually do the work for you. It sounds great in theory but it doesn’t solve the problem. You need doers. You need humans. We all know that the only resource for content is PEOPLE. But not just any people. You need professionals who understand how to write content. But it doesn’t stop there. You need people who can write content for the web, in the voice of your brand, in real time, in a way that marries your brand to your consumer, to the world. These people are not interns, junior level marketers, or friends of a friend who is good at Facebook.

It’s not rocket science. It is the simple truth. Employ the right people or partners to just “do the work” and you will look like a rock star to that executive team by growing your audience and bottom line. No sweat, no worries, just proper management…it is just that simple.

There seems to be a common misconception when it comes to the subject of analytics. Many marketers see this as “the boring stuff”. Not nearly as fun or sexy as making content and managing engagement initiatives. Unfortunately this kind of thinking can allow you to lose your audience. It’s a science experiment, folks. You have to experiment and measure results or you’ll never understand how your content is affecting your audience.

I understand that I’m one of  few individuals that actually enjoy spending the majority of my day elbow-deep in charts and graphs and spreadsheets – and as hard as it is for me to accept this, not everybody has their monthly bounce rate metric memorized. For some, analytics reports are confusing and many don’t understand how they connect to business objectives. These folks almost seem to dread analytics discussions (“Is this meeting over yet so I can get back to what I was doing?”). However, it never fails to save the conversation when I explain to them that this data is simply their audience telling them exactly what they think.

Most companies would kill to be able to ask every single customer and potential customer what they want. Analytics is simply a window into that world. Looking at audience data month over month, year over year can paint a rich, detailed picture of what content connects with an audience, when they are most receptive to that content, how much content they want from different sources, and even how long they want to spend reading it. It’s all there.

All web analytics is the study of the effectiveness of content. Let me repeat that a different way:

Every online measurement is a measurement of how effective your content is – not how effective your platform is.

Without content there is no reason to engage, and thus no audience to analyze. However – content without analysis is like driving blind. Sure, you’re moving forward, but wouldn’t it be nice to know where you’re going, and how to get there? And if anyone else is coming along?

Spending just a little time each month with your analytics can allow you to fully grasp the effect of your content on your audience, and to be able to hear what your audience is telling you through their browsers. Despite all the technical jargon, it’s not any more complicated than that. Take a look. Who knows, maybe you’ll get as excited about declining bounce rates as much as I do!

Raidious can help with analytics for social media, email, websites, and more – contact us today and we’ll tell you exactly what your audience wants you to know.

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Most likely you’ve seem them.  QR is short for “quick response,” and they’re those little black and white squares full of black “modules” arranged in a square patterns on a white background often displayed in magazine ads, on signs, buildings, business cards, or on most objects about which a person might be seeking more information.  QR codes were developed in Japan in 1994, but the western world has been a little slow on the uptake.  With the spread of smartphones and scanner applications, they’re catching on like wildfire.

What they do:

QR Codes are a great way to connect the print world to the online world.  QR codes, once scanned, can display text information, add contact infomation to your smartphone, take you to a website or YouTube video for more information.

Requirements:

To utilize a QR code, you’ll need a QR or barcode scanner app downloaded on your smartphone.  Using QR codes, at least at this point in time, puts a lot of faith in your target audience.  Many users likely have no idea yet what QR codes are or how to use/read them when they see them.  The learning curve is still in progress.

Effective use of a QR code:

• Using a QR code to share quick and simple text-based information or instructions with a user can be an effective use. Many advertisements take you to a YouTube video that will give more information on whatever topic or product the ad is pushing.  This is also a more effective use of a QR delivering information to a smartphone user.  Better print ads have a small description of what the QR codes is and exactly how to use it.
• Offering a special or bonus deal in an advertisement with a QR code can be a great way to further engage with users.
• Sign up for our mailing list!  Engage your user with a great ad and use a QR code to link them to an easy online sign-up so you can further market to them.
• Ordering products or selling tickets to an event – great use, just make sure you are connecting the user to an app/site where purchasing through a smartphone is easy.  Nothing will be more frustrating to the user than to take them to their goal and it be difficult or unattainable.

Ineffective use of a QR code:

Cassidy/Turley commercial real estate is putting huge QR codes physically on their downtown buildings, hoping potential renters will notice and scan them while walking or driving by.  These codes will take the user to a website listing.  Creative, yes.  However, no explanation is provided on the code or building.  If these QR code linked the user to a video tour of the property, with contact information at the end of the video, they might be moving in a more effective direction.

Know your audience and demographic.  Anything targeting Baby Boomers or Seniors is likely not yet an effective use of QR codes, but people are starting to catch on. What are you hoping your target audience will do once they scan the QR code? Make sure they can do it, fast and easy.

If you’re in marketing, odds are good that this week’s issue of Ad Age is sitting on your desk, in your briefcase, or in your mailbox. It’s the annual Digital Issue, a special (and  widely-read) edition of Ad Age, focusing exclusively on the fast-moving world we live in every day, known as interactive / digital / web / online marketing.

Raidious put a special message in this year’s Ad Age Digital Issue: just a little reminder for all you CMOs, VPs of Marketing, Social Media Managers, eMarketing Managers, and other digital marketing junkies. Turn to page six please. Then contact us!

Thanks for visiting our new site – we have spent the last few weeks on a redesign, courtesy of our very own Brian Conradt. We changed things up a bit from our old site, because a lot of our users were telling us they had visited the site, but still were not sure exactly what we did.

It’s understandable – we are a very different company than most marketers are used to seeing. Most advertising agencies, PR firms, and digital agencies talk a lot about technology oriented stuff like email marketing, integrated campaigns, specific platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and the buzzword of the century (so far) – Social Media.

We don’t use that language because we don’t think or operate like those kinds of companies. We are a content company. We take a content-centric approach to all of those tactics. If you think about it, it’s all content. Email marketing is successful not because of the technology, but because of the content. Social media is all content (what would Twitter be without the tweets?). Websites are just places to put content. Every analytics measurement you make in online marketing is a measurement of the success of the content. Technology doesn’t integrate with offline campaigns – the content does.

So why is everybody else so focused on all the technology?

It’s glamorous. It’s sexy. It’s the new-new thing. I totally understand – everyone at Raidious has a pretty high geek factor. We love this stuff, too. But none of it works without content.

With that in mind, we built a company to solve the right problem – the problem of how to create, manage, and distribute content online for brands in a platform-agnostic manner. What happens when you invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in something like MySpace, and then Facebook comes along? If you have a MySpace strategy, you’re screwed. If you have a content strategy, congratulations – you just got a brand new platform to publish your content! When your online strategy is a content-centric strategy, technology can just evolve all over the place, and it won’t matter – because no matter what the new-new thing  is or what it becomes, it will be driven by content.

We also look at social media as a content problem (which it is). We are purpose-built not just to publish content, but to monitor and moderate the dialog around it – to leverage content that other people are producing about your brand. Most importantly, we developed a culture of optimization – we measure and optimize your content to deliver ever-increasing ROI. The longer we work with you, the better your results get.

The big question is . . .  how? How do we make the content? How do we manage the dialog? How are we so different?

The answers are all here – and if you can’t find what you’re looking for, email me, and I will be happy to help. Enjoy the new site, and be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments section!

The first wave of television commercials for Windows Phone 7 is in regular rotation, and features smartphone users with their fingers and eyes glued to their handsets. Windows Phone users look on incredulously, asking “Really?” every time they spy a competing device and its enraptured user.

Apparently this campaign is intended to imply that other smartphones are slow, plodding devices, with enslaved users who check out of their real lives in order to fiddle around with their phones.

Maybe I’m showing my bias here, or perhaps I’m just missing the point. The way I see it, iPhone users are stereotypically enamored of the coveted device due to its greatness. In my mind, the Windows Phone users asking “Really?” are in fact asking “Really, your phone can do that? It’s that good?” because Microsoft products are inferior and clunky.

And we all know how good Microsoft is at producing handheld devices. How’s that Kin holding up for you? And where can you buy a Zune, anyway?

In the commercials, you don’t actually see anyone using a Windows Phone, er, phone. You do, however, see men urinating and attractive,scantily-clad women–sort of like the average episode of the Benny Hill Show.

And as for the tagline “It’s time for a phone to save us from our phones,” that’s not cutting it for me either. So it’s an expensive device designed to make you not want to use it? Sounds like a Microsoft product.

So yes, I “really” like my iPhone. You can keep your buggy, bloated mobile crash device.

Got a great email from eMarketer this morning on one of our favorite topics:

Blending Paid, Owned and Earned Media for Branding from eMarketer.

The first concept: Owned Media. It does a really good job of explaining the difference between earned media (what ad agencies do), paid media (what PR firms do) and owned media (what Raidious does). I wrote a post on this last year, and Forrester Research has covered the subject as well.

There were a couple of other topics the eMarketer research addressed as well that are important concepts. These seem to come up regularly in “shop talk” around the office.

The second concept is the concept of paying your marketing firm to accomplish an objective, rather than paying for production deliverables, like an ad or a press release. This is how we price our services at Raidious (we call them “initiatives”, not to be confused with “campaigns”). We think it’s an idea whose time has come.

The last concept is something we run into regularly (really two concepts) – direct response vs. brand oriented mindsets on the client side.

In our experience, the client-side marketing universe is divided into two camps, neither of which really understand the other very well: The Direct Marketer, usually an eCommerce / lead-driven mindset, and The Brand Marketer, someone who is more focused on what some people would call “soft” metrics, like preference, awareness, and other measurements of hearts and minds.

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”  F. Scott Fitzgerald

We take a lot of pride in our understanding of both approaches, and our ability to deliver on objectives from either side of the equation. But, if a genie granted me three wishes, the first would be for world peace, the second for an Audi A8, and the third would be for client side marketers to reconcile these seemingly opposing points of view. They’re both valid, and valuable approaches, but as the eMarketer article points out, they work best when they work together.

Come back and visit our site in the coming weeks, we’ll be exploring all of these ideas. In the mean time, if you’d like to talk to a firm that can help with all of this (owned media, objective driven marketing, direct and brand approaches) . . . give us a call!

So you are now all set up on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Awesome! Now there is a new network joining the mix, and it has quickly become one of the big ones: Foursquare. What is it? Where is going?

Foursquare is a location-based social networking system that is starting to spread like wildfire. The platform has a ton of possibilities moving forward. Restaurants, bars, and clubs are already on board, posting coupons and incentives for customers to check in at their locations.

Ready to jump on the Foursquare train? Here are a few tips for how to get started:

Start a Foursquare account, and start checking-in on your phone. Let’s be honest, it is a fun network to play around with, and droves of people are starting to use the app in cities both large and small.

Is your business consumer based? Start offering incentives for customers to check-in at your location. I have personally utilized a few free appetizer incentives myself, and I have seen some great retail deals around the local mall. Your customers will see your special offers in a pop up on their screen when they are near your location, so the app helps drive people to your location, or at least prompt them to take a look.

If you are in charge of multiple locations, make sure you log on and claim them. As Foursquare grows, so will the number of people trying to claim businesses that do not belong to them.

Foursquare is still new. Most businesses are still trying to figure out how it can benefit them, but it is a social media tool that millions of people are joining. It can’t hurt to get involved. Like a social media campaign, take time to strategize how you want to utilize the tool, and execute.

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