ObjectiveMarketer is not in the business of URL shorteners

ObjectiveMarketer: Helping managers execute the process of Social Media

Today, blogosphere buzzed with the news of Google’s URL shortener goo.gl and many of them had a tone similar to the one in this blog, “The Google Monster has once again inched closer to world domination with the introduction of its very own URL shortener” – this and several other discussions made ObjectiveMarketer well-wishers to write to us and ask us about our plans and the future of om.ly.

And, our answer to this, or any such service is very clear: “ObjectiveMarketer is not in the business of URL Shorteners”.

With Google starting the service of URL shortening, it has actually embraced microblogging as a business concept that is here to stay.

ObjectiveMarketer is built on the premise of offering social media professionals the following three key benefits:

1. Efficiency of use
2. Collaboration
3. Management of Processes

As can be seen, om.ly, or the URL Shortener is one such means in the big scheme of things that defines ObjectiveMarketer.

ObjectiveMarketer Integrates Web Analytics In the Social Media Campaign Management Solution

Users who interact with your post, do they also purchase? ObjectiveMarketer helps you answer.

Social Media ROI could be a reality!

With integration of Google Analytics, Omniture and Coremetrics tags, ObjectiveMarketer adds yet another dimension to their social media campaign analytics. The SAAS based campaign management service now allows users to create campaigns and associate them with web analytics tags, which can be then used to get more insights into whether the interactions on social channels actually culminate into a purchase or not. A deeper insight into the buying behavior helps companies in justifying the return from social marketing, and at the same time allows them to plan a better strategy for repeatable and increased returns.

With holiday season on its way, businesses are engaging like never before with customers on channels like Twitter, and Facebook Fan Page. With a suite of solutions integrated seamlessly, ObjectiveMarketer provides businesses a platform to strategize and execute their social media campaigns, with complete visibility into the performance. With Web Analytics integration, ObjectiveMarketer users now have the ability to attribute sales to social campaigns. Simply put, with ObjectiveMarketer, a message can be traced until the conversion / purchase made by a customer, who first clicked on the URL in the message.

ObjectiveMarketer integrates Web Analytics Tags

According to Amita Paul, founder/CEO of ObjectiveMarketer, “A large number of our customers and users asked us for this feature, and we are happy to enable it”. ObjectiveMarketer provides an easy way to manage, execute, measure and optimize campaigns on social channels like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. The patent pending landing page integration with posts provides a unique way to increase brand awareness, and drive traffic. “Our customers have benefited immensely, and they have acquired new customers through call-to-action phrases on the landing pages. With the already existing robust features, and the recent integration with Web Analytics Tags, ObjectiveMarketer provides a marketer all means to be successful on social channels”, adds Amita Paul.

About ObjectiveMarketer

ObjectiveMarketer, based in Redwood City, CA, provides a web based solution for creating, managing, and measuring social marketing campaigns. Amita Paul founded the company in 2009 to meet the growing need of marketers to tap the power of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media channels. Guy Kawasaki and Marylene Delbourg-Delphis are advisors. To sign up for 30 days free trial, visit http://app.objectivemarketer.com or send an email to info@objectivemarketer.com for more information about the product and pricing.

RT v/s Repeat?

Twitter makes for a fun reading sometimes! Recently came across this conversation between @mpetty and @guykawasaki where they go to and fro discussing whether there is a difference in Repeating a message v/s RT a message. This one from the marketing genius Guy Kawasaki should be standardized!

RT @GuyKawasaki:huge diff.It’s like dir of admissions of Harvard saying your kid is smart v/s you saying he’s smart

LinkedIn search is going crazy…

… or am I becoming Popular? In “who saw my profile” section, when I clicked at “Director at H5″ (the company I worked at earlier), it showed me on page 1 – Michael Dell (CEO Dell), Barack Obama, John Mc Caine, Prime Minister of Netherlands (really?) … oh yes, Hillary Clinton.  Seeing Chris Brogan, suddenly seems so normal Take a look … LOL!

LinkedIn - who saw my profile results

Hillary, I see you are at 1 degree separation from me .. why don’t you have a profile picture so I instantly recognize who you are It is crazy!

Answers.com’s answers on Twitter are powered by ObjectiveMarketer

Did you know what DIDASKALEINPHOBIA is? In fact, you might have had one … Not me It is the fear of going to school .. the belly aches and the usual fever right before the school bus honks. I came to know of it here: http://om.ly/VPWz.

Also, I remember birthday of many who I have not really met. But, did not realize it was Internet’s 40th until I read this – http://om.ly/VTRw And, honestly, this is one birthday we should all remember, and celebrate.

If you are wondering, whether you are in a pop quiz today, well that is true. With Answers.com, it is a fun way to ask questions, and wonder if the answer exists, and sometimes to think, is that really a valid question. Like, Happy Oatmeal day (http://om.ly/VQOT) made me ask, “Really? There is one such day?”.

I believe, Answers.com is an excellent site with some of the best contents. And, Twitter could be an excellent source of sharing this information – entertaining, educating, reminding us of things we take for granted… And, it feels proud to see @answersdotcom powered by ObjectiveMarketer.

Influencers and Amplifiers

Do you know who your Influencers and Amplifiers are?

In ObjectiveMarketer, we provide you with insights into who your influencers and amplifiers are. First, what are these measures? and Second, why are they important.

Defining Influencers and Amplifiers

We aggregate all Retweets by users. Every 1st level follower who retweets your message is an Influencer. The number suggests, how many times she has tried to influence.

When your influencer gets retweeted by her followers, then your message gets amplified. We promote that user to an Amplifier.

In the above example, you can see User 1 is your strongest Influencer. But, user 1 could never be promoted to an Amplifier (as none of her followers Retweeted these messages from her). On the other hand, though User 3 had  influenced only 4 times, she got 51 Retweets on them (avg of 17 per retweet). She is promoted to an Amplifier.

A business can use this information to acknowledge, and provide incentives to their amplifiers. Or with this information, can reach out to them, whenever there is an important campaign.  Consider, if User 3 Retweeted 10 times, possible number of Retweets could have been 170. And, if the number of followers for User 3 is significantly large, the exposure your tweets would have received will be very high.  From Strategy point of view, it would be worthwhile, to identify ways to promote Followers -> Influencers -> Amplifiers.

Why is this information important

One of the key metrics for measuring the success of a campaign on Twitter is the “reach” of your message. In this regard, a tactic very commonly being used is getting your message endorsed. This endorsement could be paid or unpaid, from a “twitter celebrity” or  “social media guru”, from a community or network of sorts, where there is, often, an unsaid pact that the users will retweet each other’s tweets no matter what the content is. Some, companies do this strategically – where, they engage with their followers (with the hope that these followers will carry their important messages forward).

A great example is from top blogger Jeremy Shoemaker, who has been running sponsored tweets for more than a year, being paid $200-500 per tweet from large big brand advertisers like Blockbuster, Seaworld. An unnamed search engine paid him $280 per tweet for up to four tweets a day every 4 hours ($1120.00/day). Source: Via Google Search.

However, there is a question of credibility when you pay someone to tweet on your behalf. Adam Ostrow from Mashable was once quoted to say  “Personally, I think any review – on a blog or on Twitter – is immediately de-valued if the author is being paid to write it, because the objectivity is lost.” Having said that, there is no doubt, a good practice of transparency (#tags, Disclaimers) etc can potentially increase the reach of your message by multiple times if it was tweeted by someone who has an authority on the subject.

But, no matter who you choose and what method you use to spread the word – how do you measure the impact? How do you know, it is worthwhile engaging with a user with the goal of increasing reach? These two measures of Inflencers and Amplifiers, are your answers. May be, your loyal followers would be enough, and you do not need any celebrity endorsements.

ObjectiveMarketer and NGO Ashoka’s Changemaker Partner

Ashoka's Changemaker

We are proud to welcome Ashoka’s Changemaker onboard as our customers.  We also announce with this, a discount package for NGOs and Small Businesses. To know more about this offer, please email us at info@objectivemarketer.com

Ashoka.org brings together and invests in individuals who have innovative solutions to society’s most pressing problems. These individuals are Social Entrepreneurs, who, instead of blaming the government for every problem in society, take it on them to find a solution and help government in making the society a better place to live. Ashoka.org provides a platform to these social entrepreneurs help with practical implementation of their vision of social uplift. We are a long term admirer of Ashoka.org and are very pleased to be a part of their social media campaign execution.

Press release

Social Media helps accelerate the growth of global online community of action: Ashoka’s Changemakers and Objective Marketer partner.

ObjectiveMarketer’s social media marketing platform helps Changemakers, an online community of the highly acclaimed citizen sector organization Ashoka, find, fund, and spread innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing social problems.

Redwood City, Calif., October 26, 2009 – ObjectiveMarketer, leading provider of social marketing platform, today announced addition of Ashoka’s Changemakers, the hugely influential citizen sector organization for social entrepreneurs, to their list of customers.

Ashoka’s Changemakers engages corporate and foundation partners to source innovative ideas from throughout the world. As early adopters of social media channels and with 56,000 (and growing) followers, Ashoka’s Changemakers is in Twitter’s coveted Suggested Users list. With ObjectiveMarketer, they get comprehensive analytics and user engagement platform to increase their reach by leveraging the power of social networks.

“ObjectiveMarketer’s metric system is the tool that enables us to innovate in the social media sphere,” said Noelle Chun, social media coordinator of Ashoka’s Changemakers. “Without such feedback, we’re strategizing blind.”

“We are particularly excited in joining hands with Ashoka. With ObjectiveMarketer, we believe Ashoka will find the perfect technology platform to implement their social media strategies” says Amita Paul, founder, ObjectiveMarketer.

To demonstrate support towards social causes, ObjectiveMarketer, today, announced a special discount package to NGOs and companies that are working for social uplift. For more information on ObjectiveMarketer, visit http://objectivemarketer.com/

About ObjectiveMarketer
ObjectiveMarketer’s SAAS based marketing solutions for social media enables enterprises to reach, engage and influence their target audience using the most powerful channels available to marketers today. ObjectiveMarketer provides direct marketers the technology and support they need to continuously improve their campaign performance, lower costs and realize ROI from leveraging the power of social. Headquartered in Redwood City, CA, ObjectiveMarketer’s clients include 500 companies, NGOs and several public relations and advertizing agencies. To learn more about ObjectiveMarketer, please visit www.objectivemarketer.com or follow us online at www.twitter.com/objmarketer or www.facebook.com/Objectivemarketer .

About Ashoka
Founded in 1980, Ashoka is the world’s working community of approximately 2,000 leading social entrepreneurs. It champions the most important new social change ideas and supports the entrepreneurs behind them to start, grow, succeed, and collaborate on their ventures. As Ashoka expands its capacity to integrate and connect social and business entrepreneurs around the world, it builds an entrepreneurial infrastructure comprised of global initiatives that supports the fast-growing needs of the citizen sector. Ashoka is creating change today, for an Everyone a Changemaker™ society to become the reality of tomorrow. For more information, visit www.ashoka.org.

About Ashoka’s Changemakers
Changemakers is an initiative of Ashoka, an organization with over three decades of finding, funding, and expanding the work of social entrepreneurs across the globe. It is a global online community of action that connects people to share ideas, inspire and mentor each other, and find and support the best ideas in social innovation. The Changemakers online community builds on this history and expands the Ashoka vision by creating an “Everyone a Changemaker” world through networking, relationship-building, and the sourcing of funding opportunities.

Through its collaborative competitions and open-source process, Changemakers’ has created one of the world’s most robust laboratories for launching, refining, and scaling ideas for solving the world’s most pressing social problems. For more information, visit www.changemakers.com

MEDIA CONTACTS
Amita Paul
Email: amita@objectivemarketer.com

Demo of ObectiveMarketer to Institution of European Union

Yesterday, I presented ObjectiveMarketer to a delegate of CIOs from European Union . This group of high profile IT executives from the European Union was visiting the silicon valley to study trends of emerging technologies. They are scheduled to meet with industry spearheaders like Cisco, Oracle, Microsoft and very few startups.

It was an honor to get invited to present to this team. Thanks to the organizers at Cisco Anne Lange and Simon Willis, and my advisor Marylene-Delbourg Delphis in making this happen.  The feedback  from the team was very encouraging. In their words “ObjectiveMarketer was a very clever concept and ‘bound to succeed” product. They went on to mention that ObjectiveMarketer was the best presentation of the day. They had been to the Facebook Office before the ObjectiveMarketer presentation.

I believe, this is a great testimony from a very aware group of people. We spent the evening over a sumptuous dinner at Zizzibo in Palo Alto and discussions on politics, european markets and trends, and of course ObectiveMarketer. Some pictures from the evening -

Drafts and Notes make teamwork more efficient

The new Drafts and Notes feature of ObjectiveMarketer is poised to make it more efficient for teams to collaborate and be effective with social media campaigns. With this feature, a draft of the message to be published can be saved for review and worked upon by a team working on a campaign.

Drafts and Notes feature in ObjectiveMarketer

To use this feature, do the following:

1. Click on POST MESSAGE button in the application UI
2. OR
3. Click on the POST2OM Bookmark in your browser window
4. In the POST MESSAGE UI, select the Campaign, and in the PUBLISH WHEN section, select “Draft for Review” Option
5. To Review the draft,  go to CAMPAIGNS -> CAMPAIGN NAME -> POSTS for REVIEW
6. To Edit, click on EDIT next to the message.
7. To add a note, click on NOTE next to the message.

There are several use cases for the Drafts and Notes, some are listed below:

1. Identify few topics that you want to share. Save the draft of messages, and publish them when you have identified good articles related to the topic.
2. One team member is assigned the task to drafts all messages, and second team member reviews it before publishing
3. Collaborate and work as a team, before picking the final list to be publish
4. While, you are identifying the right channel, park the message as draft

These are just a few use cases. Possibilities are immense. If you can think of a use case, please share.

Pictures from Techcrunch50 2009

ObjectiveMarketer Logo

Amita standing in front of OM demo pit

Marylene and Amita in Icon Ultra Lounge, after party hosted by TC50

ObjectiveMarketer Booth in Demo Pit @TC50 2009

Discussing after a Photo Shoot with press

Marylene and Amita standing in front of the Booth

Demonstrating ObjectiveMarketer

After Party at Icon Ultra Lounge …

Mint, 2007 TC50 alumni, sold to Intuit for $170mn. Who cares to be present at the booth.