marzo 31, 2010

Social Media for CEOs: It’s NOT about the ROI

social-networkIf you’re a marketing executive or agency trying to move your company or client into social media, there is a very good chance you have heard this question:

“What’s the ROI?”

In my opinion, the more important and relevant question is, “What is the cost of doing nothing?

That was my message to the John Carroll University Entrepreneurs Association (JCUEA) last week when I presented, “Social Media for CEOs.”

The Approach

After completing an advance survey of the members to determine the presentation’s content and style, we took a three-phased approach to educating and convincing the audience the value of investing time and resources in social media:

  1. What is Social Media?
  2. Why Does it Matter to Your Business?
  3. What Can You Do to Get Started?

What is Social Media?

  • Consumer-generated content. We are all the media, the publishers.
  • People trusting the opinions of their peers and collaborating online to help and support each other.
  • Consumers choosing when and where to interact with brands, and tuning out traditional, outbound marketing.
  • Social media is about listening, learning, building relationships and bringing value to the communities relevant to your organization.
  • Social media is a lifetime commitment to connecting with your audiences (e.g. customers, prospects, peers, partners) in a more authentic and personal way.
  • There are three phases: Monitor, Participate & Publish.

Social Media by The Numbers

  • 15.2 billion core searches conducted in January 2010 (comScore, Inc.)
  • U.S Internet users watched 32.4 billion videos in January 2010 (comScore, Inc.)
  • More than 133,000,000 blogs have been indexed by Technorati since 2002
  • More than 1 billion “tweets” estimated per month (Royal Pingdom)
  • LinkedIn has more than 60 million members in 200+ countries and territories around the world (LinkedIn.com)
  • More than 5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week on Facebook. And here are a few more stats from Facebook.com:
    • More than 60 million status updates daily
    • More than 1.5 million local businesses have active Pages
    • More than 20 million people become fans of Pages each day
    • Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook
    • More than 100 million active users access Facebook through their mobile devices

Why Does it Matter to Your Business?

Starting with The Facts:

  • Social media should be an essential component of every organization’s integrated marketing strategy.
  • It is irrelevant if you personally use or believe in the value. It’s what matters to your current and future customers, prospects, employees and partners.
  • Social media presents an opportunity for company leaders to build strong personal brands that directly impact the organization’s brand and success.

Social Media Goals & Benefits

  • Generate leads & build loyalty. I argue that these should be the fundamental goals of EVERY marketing dollar and activity. See the Inbound Marketing GamePlan for more on leads and loyalty.
  • Create connections and build relationships.
  • Manage your brand online.
  • Establish professionals as experts, thought leaders and innovators.
  • Grow smarter and faster than your competitors.
  • Strengthen employee recruitment and retention.
  • Reach and engage audiences, specifically younger demographics.

So What’s the ROI?

  • More important question: What is the cost of doing nothing?
  • It is NOT a direct ROI.
  • But it ismeasurable.
    • Inbound links
    • Website visitors
    • Pageviews
    • Referring sites
    • Keyword rankings
    • Reach (followers, friends, fans)
    • Leads
    • Speaking opportunities
    • Engagement

What Can You Do to Get Started?Get-Started-Button

The key is to remember that a social media strategy on its own is useless. It must be part of an integrated marketing campaign that includes: brand marketing, Website, search marketing, content marketing and PR, as well as traditional strategies, such as sponsorships, and possibly advertising.

We presented an 8-step approach in the Inbound Marketing GamePlan, which outlines how and when to integrate social media:

  • Step 1: Clearly define and differentiate your brand.
  • Step 2: Design and deploy a content-driven Website.
  • Step 3: Go beyond prospects, and consider the impact of your marketing efforts on all audiences.
  • Step 4: Establish measurable and meaningful campaign objectives designed to achieve the primary goals of leads and loyalty.
  • Step 5: Build an integrated campaign: brand, Website, search, social media, content and PR.
  • Step 6: Establish dynamic budgets that can be easily shifted based on campaign performance and analytics.
  • Step 7: Define campaign timelines with milestones, tasks and responsibilities.
  • Step 8: Measure everything, and be willing to adapt and evolve.

THINK Content & Community

Social media boils down to doing three things very well: Monitoring, Participating and Publishing. Here’s the basics of getting started:

  • MONITOR: Conduct social media searches of blogs, forums and social networks relevant to your company and expertise. Subscribe to RSS feeds & Google Alerts.
  • PARTICIPATE: Become a part of the community.
    • Secure and build profiles on key social networks
    • Integrate social media activity into customer service, marketing and HR programs
  • PUBLISH: Create a content marketing strategy and start publishing great multi-media content that’s highly relevant to your audiences.

Things to Consider

  • Personal vs. professional participation
  • HR issues
  • Corporate social media policy
  • Strength of your Website and brand
  • Measurement
  • Integration with your overall marketing strategy
  • Time commitment
  • Internal capabilities and capacity
  • Regulatory issues

Your Thoughts?

What challenges have you run into integrating social media into your company or client? How have you overcome the obstacles, and turned them into opportunities?

Related Posts

 

Paul Roetzer is founder and president of PR 20/20, a Cleveland-based inbound marketing agency and PR firm. He can be found on Twitter @PaulRoetzer

 Subscribe to receive the PR 20/20 blog by email or RSS feed.

marzo 31, 2010

10 principios de una aplicación web exitosa

Excelente charla de media hora en FOWA Miami, Fred Wilson sobre los principios que hacen exitosa a una aplicación web por sobre el resto y, pese a que más de uno va a decir “pero esto es obvio” la realidad es que muchos emprendedores que vienen del lado techie olvidan varios de los puntos.

Vale ver el video completo si te interesa y el breve resúmen traducido a la “Google Translate” está copiado y pegado acá abajo.

1. Velocidad
En primer lugar, creemos que la velocidad es más que una función. La velocidad es la característica más importante. Si su aplicación es lenta, la gente no va a usar. Veo esto más con los usuarios mainstream que con los super usuarios. Creo que los usuarios avanzados tienden a ser empáticos con los desafíos de la construcción de aplicaciones web rápidas, y quizás están dispuestos a vivir con ella, pero cuando miro a mi esposa e hijos, son mi punto de vista general de el mundo. Si algo es lento, se van!

Creemos que la aplicación tiene que ser rápida, y si no, puede ver qué pasa. Contamos con todos y cada uno de nuestros servicios de compañía de la cartera en Pingdom, y les echamos un vistazo a que todas las semanas. Cuando vemos algunas de las aplicaciones de nuestra compañía de cartera empantanarse, también notamos que no crecen tan rápidamente. Eso es evidencia empírica real que fundamente el hecho de que la velocidad es más que una función. Es un requisito.

2. Utilidad instantánea
Lo que esto significa es que el servicio sea inmediatamente útil. Si usted construye un servicio y el usuario tiene que pasar una configuración de nuestro servicio, que lo crea, la importación de contactos, haciendo un montón de entrada de datos, no creo que la gente vaya a soportarlo. El servicio tiene que ser bien útil desde la caja.

Vemos un montón de gente cometiendo este error. Hay un montón de trucos que puedes utilizar para crear la utilidad inmediata y luego salir desde allí. Un buen ejemplo de esto es si usted está construyendo un servicio de información, se puede rastrear la web para rellenar el servicio con datos iniciales, aunque a largo plazo se espera obtener los datos de otra manera. Tienes que darle a la gente algo que sea útil desde su salida.

Otro ejemplo de esto es cuando Google lanzó Google Video tal vez 4 o 5 años, casi al mismo tiempo que YouTube lanzó, si habías subido un vídeo a Google Video, después de cargado obtendría una nota que decía: “Regresa en alrededor de una semana y el vídeo se muestra.” Por supuesto, eso no funcionó muy bien. YouTube proporcionaba codificación instantánea y se podía ver el vídeo, literalmente, segundos después de que lo haya cargado. Eso es lo que estoy hablando cuando hablo acerca de la utilidad inmediata.

3. El software es un Medio
Esta es una donde tengo un montón de preguntas. Mi opinión es que el software es un medios de comunicación de hoy. En particular, software para el consumidor, cuando la usan, que se acercan a su software de la misma manera en que se enfrentarían a los medios de comunicación. Cuando digo que los medios de comunicación, estoy hablando de una revista o un periódico o un programa de televisión. Cuando piensas en el New York Times contra el Wall Street Journal, o piensa en la revista Vanity Fair en comparación con Vogue, o piensa en Fox News frente a la CNN, cada una de estas empresas de medios de comunicación tienen una voz. Tienen una actitud y un estilo, y es único. Es diferente.

Creo que el software tiene que sentirse así. Su software ha de tener una personalidad. La gente tiene que sentir que están consumiendo los medios de comunicación cuando consumen el software. Si el software es blando, y no tiene actitud, algo tan tonto como el “Fail Whale”, que se convirtió en un símbolo de la incapacidad de Twitter para mantenerse, también fue una personalidad. La gente caminaba alrededor con remeras del “Fail Whale”. Es vergonzoso para la gente de Twitter, pero sin embargo, habló del hecho de que hubo una cierta actitud y habilidad mediática detrás del servicio y una voz que la gente conectada. Eso es lo que quiero decir con voz, y yo creo que es tremendamente importante en una aplicación web.

4. Menos es Más
Y estoy convencido de ello, sobre todo al principio cuando se lanza algo. Con el tiempo, puede hacer crecer la utilidad de su servicio, y hoy en día Facebook ofrece probablemente 20 o 30 diferentes características de importancia en su servicio. Pero, cuando se puso en marcha, era realmente muy simplista. Creo que es cierto de los servicios más grandes.

Una de mis inversiones favoritas es Delicious. Lo que más me gustaba de Delicious fue su simplicidad. No había mucho que podía hacer, pero lo que podía hacer era realmente muy potente. Las personas que utilizan todos los días, horas quizá 5 o 10 por día. Los servicios, donde uno hace una cosa pequeña, pero lo hace todo el tiempo, obtiene mucha utilidad de él, y es rápido, fácil y rápido, creo que tienden a hacer muy bien y dar que en última instancia, la plataforma para crecer desde allí.

5. Hágalo programable
Hablando a un grupo de desarrolladores de aplicación web, creo que probablemente es evidente, pero creo que es importante para su aplicación ser programable, y hacer posible que otros puedan construir encima o conectarse o agregar valor a, de alguna manera , la aplicación Web. Eso significa API, y en mi opinión, API de lectura/escritura. El fundador de Delicious me dijo un par de años atrás que si no es de lectura/escritura entonces no es una API. Que se ha convertido en especie de religión dentro de nuestra empresa. Realmente creo que si es una de sólo lectura de la API, bien podría ser de RSS.

No todos los de nuestras empresas, por cierto, han lanzado API de lectura / escritura, y estamos en constante acoso a que lo hagan, pero lo importante de la programación es que cuando la gente puede agregar valor a su aplicación, son en efecto la adición de energía para tu aplicación, atraer más usuarios a su aplicación, y también trasladar datos más y más ricos para sus aplicaciones. Creemos que esto es similar a la velocidad. Esto es absolutamente esencial, y sin duda hoy, quizá no tanto 2 o 3 años atrás, pero hoy creemos muy difícil hacer una inversión en una aplicación web que no sea altamente programable.

6. Hágalo personal
Personal significa muchas cosas para muchas personas, pero en esencia, se parece mucho a la diapositiva anterior. ¿Quieres desarrolladores de terceros para infundirle energía a tu aplicación? ¿Lo mismo con los usuarios?. La mayor parte de sus datos y su personalidad y la energía que puedan contribuir a su aplicación, lo hara sentir esa aplicación como su propiedad, y los más probable es que lo defienden y se convierten, en efecto, su fuerza de comercialización. Es muy importante hacer su aplicación personal para todo el mundo. Eso podría ser permitir a las personas a cambiar sus antecedentes. Eso podría ser permitir a las personas para poner en forma de avatares, de contenido claramente generado por el usuario, o lo que sea para que la gente pueda empezar a sentirse dueño de esa aplicación web.

También es cierto que esto puede plantear problemas. Yo estaba hablando con una mujer que fue de los primeros empleados en Last.fm semana pasada, y me dijo que la comunida sentía como de su propiedad Last.fm y que estaban a cargo, y que cada vez que realiza un cambio, ellos recibe miles de mensajes en los foros. De hecho, creo que es bueno porque significa que la gente se preocupa y se preocupan profundamente por su aplicación.

Eso es cierto para un grupo de nuestras empresas, así, y es un dolor de cabeza. Cuando nuestra sociedad de cartera Meetup hizo un cambio la semana pasada a las Páginas Meetup, y hay miles de comentarios en el post anunciando que, la mayoría de ellas negativas. Usted tiene que decidir si desea o no responder a eso, o se dedican a esa o lo que sea. En gran medida, es una cosa muy buena porque la gente presta atención y muestra que han invertido tiempo y energía en su aplicación cuando se hacen personales.

7. RESTful
No sé que estoy necesariamente usar este término correctamente. Creo que la mayoría de ustedes saben que significa este término. Es algo muy concreto en un punto de vista de la arquitectura de software, pero la razón por la que ésta aquí es ligeramente diferente. Es un poco más de un mal uso de la palabra, pero voy a tratar de hacer de este sentido de todos modos.

En una arquitectura REST, los recursos tienen una dirección URL y se les puede llamar a esa URL. Ese es el tipo de arquitectura de software que se describe en el enfoque REST. ¿Qué quiero decir con esto es un poco una deformación?. Lo que quiero decir es que toda la aplicación, todo en la aplicación tiene una URL, y lo ideal, muy limpia y la URL comprensible.

Si usted piensa en algo así como una lista de Twitter, que es algo que se lanzaron cerca de 3 o 4 meses, y si vas a la página de alguien en Twitter, y hacer clic en el link de “listas”, verás una dirección URL que dice algo como “twitter.com / fredwilson / lista / …” y que serán todas las listas que estoy en. La aplicación de Twitter está construida de esa manera por lo que hay realmente nada de lo que puedes hacer clic en o mirar en la aplicación de Twitter que no tiene su propia URL, que no se entiende bien a nadie como mi mamá sabe lo que URL decir. Usted puede tomar dicha URL, enviarlo por correo electrónico, o ponerla al mundo de medios sociales.

Google podrá ver dicha URL, se descubre, y así lo que en esencia permite es que la web, en general, pueda descubrirla y acceder a su solicitud de manera muy profunda. Creo que las personas que crean aplicaciones web que no permiten que tipo muy profundo y abierto de las arquitecturas comenten un gran error. Algo tan popular como LinkedIn, por ejemplo, yo diría hace un trabajo muy pobre de este. Eso es lo que quiero decir con esto, y sé que es un poco una deformación de la palabra, pero creo que es muy importante.

8. Discoverabilty
Esto es similar en algunos aspectos, a la última diapositiva. Cuando inicia una aplicación web, es una aguja en un pajar. Hay cientos de miles, si no millones de aplicaciones web que existen en la World Wide Web, y cómo es que nadie nunca va a encontrar el tuyo? En su nivel básico, para mí, esto significa la optimización de motores de búsqueda. Usted tiene que entender la optimización de motores de búsqueda y usted tiene que entender las reglas, tienes que saber cómo hacerlo. Usted tiene que construir su aplicación desde el suelo hasta ser descubierto por Google, y optimizado para Google.

Pero, también tiene que ser construido desde cero para ser descubierto, y optimizado por los medios de comunicación social. Creo que este día y edad, los medios de comunicación social es tan importante como la búsqueda, en términos de detectabilidad en general. Eso significa que viralidad. Hay una gran entrada en el blog escrito por Josh Kopelman, que es un colega mío, fundador de la Primera Ronda de Capital. La entrada en el blog se titula algo así como “Sólo necesitamos añadir algunos viralidad”. La idea era que alguien construyó una aplicación web, nadie lo estaba usando, así que le dijo a su equipo “vamos a verter un poco de viralidad en él.” No se puede hacer eso. La solicitud tiene que ser construido desde cero para ser viral. El producto se debe presionar a sí mismo en la web, en la búsqueda, y en los medios de comunicación social. Así es como se hacen detectable.

9. Limpio
Limpieza, para mí, significa que la aplicación no puede ser ocupado en la página. Usted necesita ser capaz de mirar y no ser molestado con un montón de cosas. Es el espacio en blanco, o un espacio oscuro, que en realidad no importa si es blanco o oscuro, pero mucho espacio. Creo que fuentes de mayor tamaño, no demasiada funcionalidad presentada en cualquier página. Lo hacen muy atractivo, y hacer lo que la gente sabe, de inmediato, lo que tiene que hacer.

Lo que realmente había en esta diapositiva – cuando ésta cubierta juntos, empecé con capturas de pantalla de las aplicaciones que pensé que tenía un buen trabajo de este, y luego clase de idea decidió que no era un gran. Me mudé a sólo cosas como el jabón. Pero, lo que había aquí fue el inicio de sesión Tumblr, y cuando usted va a registrar en Tumblr, son dos campos grandes, enormes, nada más en la página de nada, sólo nombre de usuario, contraseña, y realmente me gusta lo limpio que es. Es como ninguna manera a alguien no va a saber lo que tienen que hacer ahí. Creo que es realmente crítico y la gente subestima lo valioso que es para ser eficiente con la cantidad de funcionalidad en una página.

10. Divertido
Por último pero no menos importante, es juguetón. Tenemos 6 palabras que vivimos en el Union Square Ventures. Sólo uno de ellos en realidad hizo en este mazo. El 6 palabras son: móviles, social, global, lúdico, inteligente, y me estoy olvidando de lo que el último es por lo que voy a fracasar hoy en día, pero en cualquier caso, eso es algo de lo que piensa en términos de temática aplicaciones web. Sólo uno de ellos hizo en este paquete de diapositivas, y eso es “juguetón”.

Fui criticado por poner una imagen de un patio de vacío con un charco de allí, pero hay una razón por qué lo hice. Esta diapositiva es en South Park en San Francisco. Hay una pequeña zona en la parte superior de la diapositiva donde se puede pasar el rato. Aquí es donde se inventó Twitter. Un grupo de empleados de una empresa llamada Odeo tomó un descanso en medio de un buen día, la primavera, y se fue a pensar en nuevos proyectos que pudieran construir. Un grupo fue de 4 o 5 personas que se sentaron en la parte superior de esta diapositiva y, básicamente, concebido de Twitter. Es por eso que lo usé.

En cualquier caso, la posibilidad de jugar en una aplicación es realmente importante. La dinámica de juego es lo que usted puede usar para llegar a los usuarios a hacer lo que quiera. Un ejemplo me gusta usar aquí es algo que ni siquiera es una aplicación web. Si usted piensa de Weight Watchers, es un juego. Tiene algunas dinámicas de juego realmente importante. A establecer objetivos, prepárate para enfrentarte a esos objetivos, y que informe en contra de esos objetivos, y se obtiene recompensa para alcanzar esos objetivos. Esa dinámica de juego es lo que finalmente hace que el éxito de Weight Watchers para algunas personas.

Ese tipo de enfoque se debe, de alguna manera, forma o la forma, en cada aplicación. Si nos fijamos en LinkedIn, cuando se lanzó por primera vez, tenía amigos que estaban locamente tratando de acumular relaciones en LinkedIn. Usted vio que con la gente tratando de acumular seguidores en Twitter, amigos en Facebook, y que es una especie de dinámica de juego. Es evidente que hay otro tipo de dinámica de juego que hay.

Cuadrangular sería un ejemplo de tomar elementos de juego muy parecido estado, insignias y cosas así, y utilizarlo como una manera de potenciar el desarrollo de lo que es, efectivamente, un servicio de información local. Usted no tiene que ser lo más flagrante de ello como Cuadrangular es, pero creo que las solicitudes deben ser juguetón. Hará que los usuarios tienen más divertidas con su aplicación, y porque se puede incentivar el tipo de comportamiento que desea crear en su aplicación.

Les recomiendo leer la transcripción (en inglés) de la sesión y las preguntas y respuestas en Carsonified :)


(CC) mariano for Denken Über, 2010. |
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marzo 31, 2010

How to Monitor Your Sites When You Don’t Have Time

It can be difficult to keep track of what's happening on our websites if we don't have the time to log into our analytics all the time and take a look around. Let's face it, we're all busy people, and from time to time, we might not find out about a spike or a drop on a site for a few days (or longer) because we haven't found the time to see what the little blue line in Google Analytics is doing this week.

And this can be an especially big problem when you're monitoring multiple sites, possibly for multiple clients. How do you monitor them all, knowing what's happening on all your sites when you've got lots of other things to do?

Last October, Google announced Google Analytics Intelligence and Custom Alerts. This awesome feature can monitor your site for you and let you know when something unusual is happening. But what's interesting to this Google Analytics geek is that very few people seem to know about it, and even fewer people seem to be using it. You're missing out!

Google Intelligence & Custom Alerts

Here's how it works: You log into Google Analytics and click on the "Intelligence" link in the menu (note: if you have it). Here you can set up alerts that will email you when something unusual is happening on your website. This is a powerful tool that can free you from having to log in all the time to make sure you're on top of things.

And one thing we all probably want to do is monitor a website to see if there are any sudden traffic spikes.

Google Analytics Intelligence Linki

Let's say that something on your site is linked to from a major newspaper or blog, but you don't notice it because it doesn't show up in your monitoring tools. It would be great to be able to respond quickly, but you can't, because you don't log into Google Analytics every day for all of the 3 dozen or so sites you manage. You might find out next week, or if you're busy, next month, but by then it's far, far too late to do anything meaningfully responsive.

That's where Custom Alerts can make you more efficient, when you use it to set up an alert to email you when your traffic spikes.

How to Set up a Google Analytics Custom Alert

In the Google Intelligence dashboard, click on + Create a Custom Alert to set this up. Let's call the Alert "Traffic Spike", so you'll know what it is later. Leave the period to measure set to "Day", and check the box Email me when this alert is triggered.

In the Alert Conditions, leave All Traffic as the default setting for which traffic this alert should apply to.

Now, let's tell Google Analytics under what conditions we'd like to get an email. Change the Alert me when blue dropdown to Visits, and change the Condition to % increases by more than. Change the Compared to to Same day in the previous week.

Now all we have to do is decide how much of an increase in traffic means a spike for you. For most sites, somewhere between a 10% to 20% increase in traffic could mean a spike, but it depends on how much variability there usually is in the traffic, and also how much traffic the site usually gets.

For a site getting 200 visits per day, a 15% increase represents only 30 extra visits, so you might consider a spike for this site to be closer to a 30% increase in traffic.

For a site that gets 150,000 visitors a day, the amount of traffic needed to trigger a 15% increase alert is 22,500 extra visitors in a single day, so you might want to consider something closer to a 3-5% increase to trigger an alert.

Once you've decided what your threshold is for getting a Google Analytics alert, enter it into the box, and click Create Alert. Google Analytics will now email you whenever your traffic hits this amount in one day, so you know you need to go and investigate.

Voila! By setting these up (and changing the threshold for alerts appropriately), you can now pro-actively monitor several dozen sites and know when something unusual is happening.

How to Set Up a Custom Alert

Now the caveat

Google Analytics does not monitor in real time yet (it was never designed that way). So don't expect it to send you an alert when you're suddenly trending on twitter for an hour – it will be several hours behind, and these reports are designed to be daily, not hourly. If you need something more powerful, you'll have to look elsewhere, for now.

Introduction to Google Analytics Custom Alerts

Missed the original announcement? Not to worry, you can still see Google's official introduction to Custom Alerts here:

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

How to Monitor Your Sites When You Don't Have Time

marzo 30, 2010

Top 10 Most Popular Foursquare Badges [Infographic]

Foursquare-Infographic

Foursquare is a popular location-based social network that keeps track of users’ whereabouts. People “check-in” at various locations, letting their friends know where they are and allowing them to find you or recommend places to go nearby. People can check-in at cafes, bars, restaurants, parks, offices, etc.

When users check-in using Foursquare, they can unlock interesting badges based on the places and frequency of their visits. You can unlock the “Gym Rat” badge if you hit the gym 3+ times per week, the “Explorer” badge if you checked into 25 different venues, or even the “Crunked” badge if you stop by 4+ places in one night!

Foursquare Grader measures your "Foursquare mojo" by analyzing your usage and giving you a grade and rank based on your comparison to other Foursquare users. The Top 10 Badges are presented above using Foursquare Grader data.

 

Live Webinar: Social Media Optimization Is The New SEO With Brian Solis

Social Media Optimization Is The New SEO

New Media thought leader, Brian Solis, will share how to implement and manage a Social Media Optimization (SMO) program.

Date and time: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 at 12:30pm EST 

Reserve your spot now to increas your visibility in social media!

Connect with HubSpot:

HubSpot on Twitter HubSpot on Facebook HubSpot on LinkedIn HubSpot on Google Buzz 

 

marzo 29, 2010

Top 80 Essential Blogs!

I’m excited to announce that MarketingBlog.NET has been listed by OnlineColleges.net, as one of the 80 essential blogs for the modern day marketing student.  Click here to find where we sit in list below. We’re specifically listed under Online Marketing where they instruct students to “follow these blogs to learn about the latest in online marketing”.

Feel free to browse the list below or read the original article here.


80 Essential Blogs for the Modern-Day Marketing Student

These days, marketing has changed by leaps and bounds. If you can’t keep up with learning the latest strategies, you simply can’t keep up. Check out these blogs to stay on top of the essentials in modern day marketing.

General

These blogs offer a broad look at marketing.

  1. The Marketing Blog: Learn for more than 13 years of marketing experience with this blog.
  2. Influential Marketing Blog: Check out this blog about influential marketing.
  3. MarketingProfs: Get your daily fix of marketing education from MarketingProfs.
  4. KnowThis: KnowThis offers marketing tutorials, news, and more.
  5. The Big Fat Marketing Blog: Find marketing news and commentary from the Big Fat Marketing Blog.
  6. Marketing Tea Party: Ron Shevlin offers this blog on marketing.
  7. The More Clients Blog: Check out this blog for action plan marketing.
  8. Fresh Perspectives: Follow this blog for fresh perspectives on marketing.
  9. Atlanta’s Marketing Center: Atlanta’s Marketing Center is never business as usual.
  10. Duct Tape Marketing: Duct Tape Marketing will teach you about simple, effective, and affordable small business marketing.
  11. Greta’s Tourism Marketing Tips: Check out this blog for tourism marketing tips.
  12. Marketing Interactions: Study the interactions of marketing with this blog.
  13. Marketing Productivity Blog: Check out this blog about marketing productivity.
  14. Fortune Marketing: Fortune Marketing covers small business marketing tips and ideas.
  15. About: Marketing: Laura Lake’s blog shares the basics of marketing.
  16. Freaking Marketing: Find innovative strategies for marketing on this blog.
  17. Jim’s Marketing Blog: Jim’s Marketing Blog shares marketing tips and ideas for small and medium sized businesses.
  18. Marketing That’s Measurable: Check out this blog about marketing and case studies.
  19. Hot Air & Hot Ideas: Hot Air & Hot Ideas will show you how to create powerful, persuasive marketing.
  20. Strategy Speaks: Don Peppers and Martha Rogers write about business strategy on this blog.
  21. Partners in Excellence: Check out Partners in Excellence to learn how to make a difference.
  22. Management Excellence: Management Excellence offers ideas and approaches in business performance excellence.
  23. Professional Service Firm Marketing Tips & Strategies: You’ll get marketing tips and strategies from this blog.
  24. Marketing for Success: Charlie Cook will teach you how to market smarter and achieve greatness.
  25. Confessions of a Professional Services Marketer: You will learn about professional services marketing from this blog.

Branding

These blogs discuss branding strategy.

  1. Brand Autopsy: Find a discussion on marketing practices with brand autopsy.
  2. BrandFreak: Get a look into branding with BrandFreak.
  3. Brand Architect: Brand Architect features the thinking and observations of Patrick Collings.
  4. Brandeo: This resource cuts through the clutter for important marketing ideas and insights.
  5. Branding Strategy Insider: Branding Strategy focuses on helping organizations create brands that build and sustain trust.

Customers

Focus on customers through these blogs.

  1. Jaffe Juice: Jaffe Juice discusses customer service and beyond.
  2. Customer World: Get an introduction to the customer controlled economy in this blog.
  3. Customers Rock!: Customers Rock! focuses on customers and their experiences.
  4. Customer Experience Matrix: Use this blog for technologies and business issues in customer interaction.
  5. Bill Geist: Bill Geist stays on top of consumer trends.
  6. Customer Experience Matters: Customer Experience Matters will help you build loyalty through customer experience, marketing, and leadership.
  7. The Customer Knowledge Advantage: The Customer Knowledge Advantage will help you turn insight into sustainable competitive success.
  8. Church of the Customer: Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba explain why customers are so important.

Business Building

Study the business building aspect for marketing through these blogs.

  1. KwanG Venture Blog: KwanG Venture Blog shares strategic marketing management.
  2. Rocket Watcher: Rocket Watcher offers product marketing for startups.
  3. Beyond the Boardroom: Beyond the Boardroom discusses sales and management training.
  4. Jonathan Farrington’s Blog: This blog is written for dedicated business professionals.
  5. An Entrepreneur’s Life: Michael Cage’s blog covers entrepreneurship, rapid growth, and small business marketing.
  6. Planning Startups Stories: Tim Berry writes about business planning, startups, and more.
  7. Being Peter Kim: Being Peter Kim shares his knowledge about business building and marketing on this blog.
  8. How to Change the World: Guy Kawasaki’s blog will teach you how to change the world.
  9. Direct Creative Blog: Dean Rieck discusses copywriting and direct marketing on the Direct Creative Blog.

Advertising

These marketing blogs discuss the details of advertising.

  1. The Fruits of Imagination: Leo Burnett Toronto offers discussions on an advertising agency that thinks out loud.
  2. Advergirl: Advergirl offers her opinion on advertising.
  3. Adrants: Adrants offers marketing and advertising news with attitude.
  4. Adland: Adland will give you a look into the latest ad news.
  5. Ad Broad: Ad Broad offers random thoughts on the industry.
  6. Public Relations Blogger: This blog will teach you about public relations and beyond.

Online Marketing

Follow these blogs to learn about the latest in online marketing.

  1. Dosh Dosh: Dosh Dosh discusses Internet marketing and making money online.
  2. Masterful Marketing: Masterful Marketing will help you with marketing in a new media world.
  3. MarketingBlog.NET: MarketingBlog.NET shares tips, news, and more for online marketing.
  4. MarketingVOX: MarketingVOX shares the voice of online marketing.
  5. Connected Marketer: Learn about marketing genius from Connected Marketer.
  6. Memesponge: Memesponge will give you knowledge on intelligent marketing, product management, and ecommerce.
  7. High-Tech Product Launch and Online Marketing Blog: Read this blog for online product launch and business optimization strategies.

B2B

You’ll learn about business to business marketing from these blogs.

  1. Modern B2B Marketing: Check out this blog for the latest thinking in B2B marketing.
  2. B2Blog: B2Blog is a B2B and industrial marketing blog.
  3. Savvy B2B Marketing: Savvy B2B Marketing offers inspirational ideas and practical strategies.
  4. B2B Lead Generation Blog: This blog is focused on B2B lead generation, sales leads, and more.
  5. BtoB Magazine: BtoB Magazine shares marketing news and strategies for BtoB direct and Internet marketing.

Innovation & Automation

These blogs discuss innovation and automation in marketing.

  1. FutureLab: FutureLab discusses marketing strategy and innovation.
  2. Market2Lead: Market2Lead offers marketing automation and lead management learning.

Product Development

Learn about marketing for product development with these blogs.

  1. My View From the Shore: Harvey Briggs shares a daily look at the world of marketing and new product development.
  2. Mike Urbonas: Mike Urbonas shares product marketing and business intelligence on this blog.
  3. ProductMarketing: Find a discussion on product management and marketing on this blog.
  4. On Product Management: Follow this blog to learn about product management marketing.
  5. Merv’s Market Strategies for IT Supplies: Check out this blog for the IT industry and market strategy.
  6. Launch Clinic: Launch Clinic will help you define product launch success.

Career & Human Resources

Focus on marketing for your career and human resources through these blogs.

  1. HR Marketer Blog: This blog is dedicated to the human resource marketplace and beyond.
  2. Marketing Headhunter: Marketing Headhunter offers a look into human resources marketing.
  3. Marketing Climber: Marketing Climber helps young marketers with career management.

Sales

Read these blogs to see how sales and marketing come together.

  1. Dave Stein’s Blog for Sales Leaders: This blog helps to foster consideration of sales leadership.
  2. Sales and Sales Management Blog: Check out this blog for sales and sales management.
  3. The Sales Leadership Coach: Steven Rosen offers sales management coaching and training.
  4. Sales & Marketing Effectiveness for Sustained Growth: Read this blog for an open discussion on sales and marketing strategy.
marzo 27, 2010

Facebook To Launch Meebo Bar Clone On Its Quest To Take Over The WebTechCrunch

In the last few days, we’ve uncovered some major new features that Facebook is going to announce at its f8 developer conference, including its plan to offer a Like button for the entire Internet and a creepy auto-Connect feature that will share your data with sites you never signed up for. Now we’ve heard from multiple sources about a third major product the company plans to unveil: a persistent Facebook toolbar that third-party sites can integrate that sounds a whole lot like the Meebo Bar.

Details on Facebook’s toolbar are still scant, but we hear that it will rest at the bottom of the browser window using AJAXy technology, the way Meebo’s Bar does (and the way the chat bar previously integrated into Facebook.com did before it). We can expect the Facebook bar to include sharing features and chat, just like the Meebo Bar. It’s unclear if Facebook will be launching its bar with advertising but we can almost certainly expect it to come eventually.

These three new features — a webwide Like button, auto-Connect, and a persistent toolbar — make it abundantly clear that Facebook is looking to extend its reach to as much of the web as possible, and it won’t be an opt-in experience.  Instead, Facebook is looking to become a ubiquitous, integrated feature of these sites — a sort of backbone for the web designed to facilitate sharing with friends. With everything leading back to Facebook.

Below, a shot of the Meebo Bar on one of its partner sites.

Information provided by CrunchBase

marzo 27, 2010

How to Improve Hiring at StartupsBoth Sides of the Table

Shared by sebasanjuan

Simple but useful recomendations

This is part of my ongoing series with Startup Advice.

job interviewOK, hiring is a loooong topic and I couldn’t do it justice in single post.  But I thought it might be useful to do a headline view of the key components and then come back and do the individual topics over time if people seem interested.  I’ve been recruiting for 20 years so I’ve learned a few things along the way.  I think this can also be a great resource for others to chip in with other suggestions since I clearly don’t corner the market on recruiting advice.

BEFORE YOU START

1. Define criteria for judging – I find that many people I know go into interviews without thinking about what is important to them first.  In fact, many people just go into interviews and “wing it.”  If that’s you then vow never to do it again.  You’ll never have a great outcome without some planning.  I recommend that you design a standardized form broken down into high level criteria such as, “Intellect, Work Experience, Personality, Attributes Required for this Job, etc.” and then sub categories underneath.  Example: Work Experience can be broken down into: has managed a team, has led direct sales efforts, has worked for a startup before, etc.  And on this form score everybody 1-10.

Once the form is created make sure to check with anybody else who is responsible for hiring or managing the person going forward before you finalize the evaluation sheet.  Make sure to denote which sub categories are the most important by making them bold, italic, shaded in yellow, whatever.  But you need to know (and agree if multiple people involved) what your most important 4-5 criteria will be.  These will form the basis of your deep dive in the interview.

2.Create a process- Create a process that you’ll use to recuit people before you start.  You’ll want to include a plan such as which databases you’ll use (or which recruiters), make sure you have a timeline of when the deadline for submission is, how people apply, when you’ll review applications, when you’ll give notice to those not selected, when you’ll interview candidates and when you hope to select somebody.  When I run the process without a recruiter I set up a gmail account specifically for the job.  I set up an auto-responder that tells people what the process is when they email us (on some occasions I did this manually).  It set up separate folders for “rejected, in process, phone call, in-person interview, finalist.”

The reason a process is so important is because if you get too far ahead on one candidate it’s hard to slow them down while you wait for more to come through the process.  Also, if people start applying and you don’t get back to them for 3 weeks while you wait for resumes to come in that pisses people off.  Communication with people is key.  On the basis that you’re not going to hire 99.9% of the people you apply – how you handle this can matter to your brand.  I’m not a big process guy, but on recruiting I become a process machine!  You have to be.

3.Have a good pipeline of candidates – I find that too many people who recruit candidates only see a couple of candidates (sometimes only one!) when they want to hire somebody.  I don’t understand this.  Yes, I know you’re in a rush and wanted the person yesterday.  You’re dying without them.  But the person you hire is hopefully going to be an important contributor to the company so making sure you’ve seen multiple candidates for each role will help you benchmark whether you’re hiring the best that you can for that job.  The only time to sole source is if it’s somebody you know from a previous job or a very trusted referral.

4. Use referrals where possible – Obviously if you knew lots of people who wanted to have the job you’re recruiting for you would have just hired them and saved yourself all the hassle.  But I mention this for two reasons: 1) referrals are often the best employees.  It’s far better to hire somebody that a trusted person has told you that they worked with in the past and they can confirm that he/she was a start than it is to hire the perfect resume + interview.  I’d take the former any day of the week.  2) the other reason I mention it is that a large part of your process ought to be outbound emails/FB/LinkedIn/Twitter messages to friends asking for their help.  Dedicate enough time to this.  Also, I think most companies should offer bounties for people who refer other employees provided they join and stay for a minimum period of time.  I’d far rather give $3,000-5,000 to an employee for a well-known referral than to pay $10-20k+ for a recruiter to go through a process.  Obviously you need rules.  But don’t be a cheap bastard.  Pay your staff to bring the best people they know to the table.

5. Pre interview testing – There are some jobs where you can test people before having to spend time with them.  An obvious example is programming.  We always used to do this and there are some good online tools for doing programming tests.  If it’s a job that requires writing you could ask them to submit a sample in advance.  I’m sure it’s true of other professions as well.  One other thing that I do.  If I’m hiring in LA, for example, and the person doesn’t live here (but they seem very qualified) I call them to understand why they’re applying here.  Sometimes you’ll find out that they have a spouse who just got accepted to med school or have family members in your town.  I do often rule people out if they have no reason for being in my town (I’m hugely against relo’s for startups with the exception of Silicon Valley).  I’ll cover that another day.

THE INTERVIEW

1. Read their freakin’ resume before the meeting – How many times have you been in an interview situation where the person is reading your resume right in front of you and clearly hasn’t read it in advance?  It’s too common.  It’s totally disrespectful of the person and a waste of your valuable interview time.  I’d far rather you go in 5 minutes late to the meeting but have read their resume in advance.  Seriously, do yourself the favor of not being this person.

2. Don’t do a “world tour” of resume – Here is the biggest mistake interviewers make.  They allow the candidate to do the “world tour” of their resume for 2-30.  What a waste!  You’ll learn very little.  This is the practiced version of what this person wants to tell you.  You need to drive the interview process, not them.  I do this two ways.  Either I say, I want the resume history in under 5 minutes (I usually do this to be polite since I know they’re dying to tell me what they’ve practiced).  But I ask them to really honor the 5 minute rule.  Or I just say, “I don’t want to take this in order, do you mind if I just dig in on the key jobs that I find most relevant?”  Depends on my mood.

3. Do deep dive in key criteria areas – OK, you’ll never be as psycho as I am here but maybe you’ll feel comfortable going part way.  I like to do really deep dives around specific topics and on specific job aspects.  Example: if I’m interviewing a sales candidate I’ll ask them to name a sales campaign that they worked on.  I’ll say “name one that you remember really well.  Something you’re proud of.”

I then perform a proctology exam.  I’ll ask how they first heard about the lead.  How they first contacted the customer.  ”Did you send an email first or call?  Did you get introduced or cold call?  Who introduced you?  Who came to the first meeting?  Who were you competing against?  Why do you think you won the deal? What was your original price quote? What was your final price?  What was the name of your champion?  What was their title?”  And on, and on.  I tell them politely before that I might get a little detailed on this question. I apologize afterward for the uncomfortable exam.

The reason that the deep dive is so important is that you 1) really understand if they did what their resume says they did.  Nobody can fudge details that perfectly on a proctology exam.  and 2) it shows you much more about how they think about things.  You can ask them questions about how they approached certain situation like setbacks in the sales process or how they handled the price negotiation.  Why they lowered price by 20%.  Honestly, about 50-60% of interviewee’s do poorly on the deep dive.  It’s a great divider in my interview process.  It’s the most important part of my interview.

4. Ask  consistent questions – If you prepare in advance for an interview and know your criteria then asking consistent questions is easy.  Strange to me that so few people do this.  It’s the only real way to get apples-to-apples comparisons in how people think.  Again, sticking to my sales interview examples, I often have a sheet of questions such as, “do you prefer to call high and get passed down or stay below the radar and win pilot projects before you see more senior people?” and “How long does it take to know whether a sales employee is going to be successful or not?” and “What’s your best secret for getting past the assistant of senior executives?”  I usually have 10-12 questions like this.  It is the great equalizer to hear different perspectives on questions where there is no clear right or wrong answer.

5. Don’t do all the talking! Another really common problem in interviews is “the talker.”  Too nervous to sit there and politely interrogate the prospective employee they fall back on talking.  They find it easier to tell you about the company and their job.  I know it sounds crazy to many of you but I promise it’s not that uncommon.  Your job isn’t to socialize with the person, become their best friend or tell them your life story.  You can (and should) start the meeting with the appropriate amount of banter to build rapport.  You should leave time at the end for questions.  But the rest of the time it’s over to you to ask questions.  Not only is it the right thing to do in order to maximize your understanding of the person but it is what they expect and want also!  They didn’t come here to hear you speak.  They came to get the job.  So they’ll want as much time as possible to sell you on why they’re so great.  And they can’t do that if you don’t zip it.

6. Save time for questions – OK, so I just advised you not to do all the talking.  I usually say right before I start interviewing (e.g. after the banter) that I plan to ask question for X minutes and will save 10-15 minutes at the end so that they can ask me anything they want to.  If they don’t ask you anything don’t hire them.  I’m not saying that because they should have prepared the standard 3 questions that we were all taught after college.  I’m saying that because if they’re not curious enough to want to know anything about you, your company, the job, the role, the expectations or whatever, they’re clearly not worth hiring.  Ever.  I’m always shocked when people say, “I don’t really have any questions.  I read your website and talked to so-and-so.  I feel like I understand it pretty well.”  No.  Curiosity.  No. Job.

7. Score immediately when done – I actually try to score many meetings while it’s going.  Especially when I’m running a big process (e.g. seeing 6-8 candidates in one day).  In that situation there’s no time to write it up afterward.  If you have your scoring form you can simply leave it under their resume and take notes on it and circle the score as they speak.  They can’t see – don’t worry.  If the interviews are more spread out you can do it afterward.  This is really important.  An hour after an interview you’ve forgotten key facts.  And if you see 5 people through the process TRUST ME they’ll all start to blend together.  Get the salient facts, circle your scores.  You won’t regret it.

AFTERWARD

1. Multiple meetings with top 2 candidates – Don’t make a hiring decision from a single meeting.  When you have your final two candidates make sure you have 2-3 meetings with each.  I know it’s a big time commitment but if your a small company and this is an important hire then you owe it to yourself to be sure.  I never recommend “sole sourcing.”  If you only have 1 final candidate your in trouble.  What are you going to do if they drop out?  What if you start to have doubts? (you’ll just hire them anyways out of fear or fatigue) Keep a spare in the back pocket.  At least one of every 6-8 hires I end up with the backup candidate.

2. Thorough reference / background checks – Yes, you need to call their references.  Expect them to sing their praises.  If a person doesn’t list the most positive references to begin with then you know they’re not worth hiring.  But you have to find a way to call people not on their list.  You need to be careful and respectful of them because it’s possible that their boss doesn’t know they’re interviewing.  But you have to find a way to get some info.  Often you can find people if you learn to become a LinkedIn Ninja.  Also, I highly recommend spending a small amount of money for a background check.  You never know.  There are many cases where prominent startups have hired people with a record.  You may still hire them, but better that you’re aware of it going in.

3. Make sure good cultural fit – I said you needed multiple meetings.  I always try to make one of the last meetings social and over food.  Cultural fit matters a lot to me.  So I want to be sure that we really get along.  Obviously if you’re hiring 10 programmers on your team you can’t follow this entire process and do many meetings and lunches, but do as much as you can.  When we used to do a ton of recruiting at Accenture a lunch meeting with junior staff was always part of the process.  Not only do you learn about cultural fit but people open up a lot more when they’re in a social and non interview environment.  Funny, that.

4. Move fast – Just because you have multiple meetings doesn’t mean you should move slowly.  Changing jobs (if they already have one) is a very emotional decision.  If they’ve decided that they’re excited about a position with you, you need to capitalize on this positive momentum.  All too often candidates drop out of the process because it goes on too long.

5. Show the love – When you decide to hire somebody really show them the love.  You’re most vulnerable right after you make the offer and they accept.  Keep up the pressure and love.  Schedule a dinner.  Have everyone who spoke with them call and tell them how excited they are.  Start having calls to talk about their new role.  And, as I’ve said before, help shepherd them out of their former employer.


Simple but useful recomendations

marzo 26, 2010

Louis Vuitton VS. Google: The Importance of Online Reputation ManagementSearch Engine People Blog

After a long 7 years Google rang the victory bell over a trademark lawsuit with LMVH (responsible for the Louis Vuitton brand) this past Tuesday, March 23. Ever since this lawsuit caught my eye a while back I have been pondering why they decided to take this approach instead of doing the obvious: online reputation management.

In case you’re not up-to-speed on the case, here’s a quick overview.

In 2003 LMVH sued Google in French courts and eventually won in 2005. This led to Google paying over $400,000 USD for trademark infringement. LMVH’s beef was with ads selling Louis Vuitton replicas being shown when someone Googled “Louis Vuitton”. They were choked that Google would be selling the Louis Vuitton trademark to third parties – specifically websites selling counterfeits.

Google then took the case to the European Union’s highest courts where the battle continued for another 5 years until the ruling was made this past Tuesday, March 23 in Google’s favor. The courts stated that Google had not infringed trademark law by allowing advertisers to purchase keywords matching competitors’ trademarks.

Will the Real LV Please Stand Up

When I search for Loius Vuitton on Google (in British Columbia, Canada), one search result is for the authentic Louis Vuitton site, one is a Wikipedia entry for Louis Vuitton, and the other 8 are selling Louis Vuitton replicas.

So why is LMVH getting their knickers in a twist over ads when the search results are clearly dominated by people selling replicas? If anything, these search results most likely have a higher clickthrough rate then any AdWords campaign.

Money Well Spent?

How much do you think LMVH has paid in legal fees these past 7 years? Wouldn't they have been better off tackling an aggressive online reputation management campaign with that money? There are professionals out there that specialize in this type of thing you know.

Yes a lot of people sell Louis Vuitton replicas. But a lot of people also sell Chanel knockoffs and they seem to be doing pretty well in the SERPs. When I Googled "Chanel" only one knockoff company showed up in the results. So it is possible for the Louis Vuitton brand to do the same thing. Yes it can be costly, but it can’t be more than they’ve paid for a 7 year battle with Google in the courts.

What They Should Do

The following are some online reputation tactics that Louis Vuitton can benefit from. Since they can not control AdWords results, they can at least try to reclaim back organic search results for their name.

Subdomains

Only two pages from a domain can rank in the search results, however, search engines treat subdomains as unique websites. By developing content on subdomains, Louis Vuitton can have multiple sites that rank for their domain name. A blog, for example, can be one example of a subdomain.

New Domains

Louis Vuitton has a couple of options for new domains they can build up through link building methods. They are involved with nautical events and hold the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series and the Louis Vuitton Cup. They also hold the Louis Vuitton Classic for automobile collectors every year. Those are two separate sites that would work well.

Then there is Espace Louis Vuitton. It produces and hosts three exhibitions per year, around the themes of travel, heritage, art and fashion. It is a popular attraction that attracts more than 10 000 visitors for each exhibition. Once again, they have another opportunity here to create a branded website.

Affiliations & Distribution

Currently only Louis Vuitton stores are authorized to sell their products. What if they follow suit with other successful luxury brands and find high-end stores to officially sell their brand?

With this method they can create landing pages on sites that distribute their products and help along with link building. Although it may take away from their exclusivity, it will also prevent them from being overtaken by replicas in search results. They have proven that they obviously care about their online presence by taking Google to court in the first place.

Social Media

Louis Vuitton can also benefit from doing a little social networking. Like creating a Twitter account (and hiring someone to run it properly), or putting some of their fashion show clips up on YouTube. Outspoken Media has a thorough Online Reputation Management Guide that covers all the angles of the social media approach.

If all of this sounds like a lot of work, it is. But it is a small price to pay for Louis Vuitton to take over search results currently dominated by fakes. It will also most likely have a better ROI then taking Google to court.

———————————————————————————————————

Stephanie Woods is an internet marketer living in Kelowna, BC with over 10 years experience with advertising and marketing. You can reach Steph at her internet marketing blog or on Twitter.

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

Louis Vuitton VS. Google: The Importance of Online Reputation Management

marzo 25, 2010

12 Great jQuery Plugins to Fully Control Styling of Your HTML Form Elements

12 Great jQuery Plugins to Fully Control Styling of Your HTML Form Elements

HTML Forms are essential for inviting visitors on a site to provide input, giving information about themselves, sharing opinions and so on. The information will on most cases be very valuable for the owner of the web site why making the forms more accessible and better drawing visitors attention is a key objective.  This post provides a list of jQuery plugins that makes it simple and allows you to cake full control of the look and feel of your HTML forms.

Uniform

Introducing Uniform, a plugin for jQuery that lets you style select, radio, and checkboxes however you desire.

jqueryforms

prettyCheckboxes

This script is for people who wants to have a consistent look for checkboxes across browser or those who simply want them to look better. By using this script you wont loose any of the regular inputs usability.

jqueryforms

How to create Skype-like buttons using jQuery

If you use Skype I am sure that you noticed that animated button for adding more people to a chat. When you click on it the icon on the left “jumps” for a few times. I love that animation. And that’s why I’m going to show you how to create the same button using jQuery and some simple CSS.

jqueryforms

Justify Elements Using jQuery and CSS – Tutorial

When creating a web form you have to make a functional and visually aligned layout. The simplest way to do this is to place elements in a table or by fixing the width of labels. But what if you don’t want to use tables and you want to align input elements according to the width of the longest label? This small jQuery tutorial shows you how.

jqueryforms

Highlight

Highlight increases usability by highlighting elements as you interact with the page. Its primary use is for forms, but it can also be used for tables, lists, or any element you specify.

jqueryforms

Custom Checkbox with jQuery

This script provides you with the ability to customize the design of checkboxes in your web forms. You can use the default skin and the Safari skin which are provided with the package.

jqueryforms

jqTransform

This plugin is a jQuery styling plugin wich allows you to skin form elements.

javascript-frameworks

jquery.Combobox

An unobtrusive way of creating a HTML type combobox from a existing HTML Select element(s), a Demo is here.

jqueryforms

Make image buttons a part of input fields

If you ever saw how products like Microsoft CRM look like you probably noticed there are input fields that have “embedded” image buttons inside them. If your clients saw that, there is a probability that they will want to have it in their applications.

Whether you agree or not, here is how you can do it easily. So easily that you will have to add just a few lines of code and enable this feature in entire application.

jqueryforms

Radio Button and Check Box Replacement

How to replace radio buttons and check boxes with jQuery.

jqueryforms

mcDropdown

mcDropdown allow users to select from a complex hierarchical tree of options.

jquery-form-enhancements

Geogoer VChecks

Avery user friendly way to show checkboxes.

javascript-frameworks

Related posts:

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marzo 25, 2010

5 Ways Marketers Can Use Google’s New Bookmark ListsHubSpot’s Inbound Internet Marketing Blog