Michele Kiss, Director of Digital Analytics, Red Door Interactive
San Diego, February 2012

I work in Digital Analytics. We are a relatively new field (or at least, a relatively new application of analytics) and one where I sometimes feel we don’t leverage enough of what’s been done before. Rather than re-invent the wheel, I headed off to the Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit in San Diego, to learn from a wider variety of industries, and see what they were doing with predictive analytics.

Here were a few of my key takeaways:

It’s not about the tools

I honestly thought this was just an affliction of the digital analytics industry, but it turns out, this is an issue in all area of analytics.
It’s not about the tools, it’s about two things –

1. The talent. Talent matters more than the tool. The “best tool” is one that you can hire great people to use. People are what will make analytics successful, not the tool.

2.Your needs. The “best tool” is the one that suits your business needs – not the most popular, the most expensive, or even the one with the most features. (If you don’t need those features, what’s the point?)

It is about strategy, and culture …
Success with analytics isn’t driven by the tools you buy, the process you implement, or the technology you have – it’s about culture.

The creation and hoarding of data is not what will make you successful with analytics. What matters is the consumption of analytics by the organization, and allowing data to challenge beliefs and theories. It’s not about big data – it’s about using it to make big decisions.

Case in point? Improving the efficiency of a predictive model is only worth a few percentage points in your model’s accuracy. But nailing your fundamental strategy? That’s where success comes from.

… and about communication …

Analytics is also destined to fail if it’s not communicated well. This is often where hiring for analytics fails: too often, analysts are hired who can’t communicate with others in the organization. If anyone walks out of a meeting after an analytics presentation and doesn’t know the outcome or the next steps, that’s not their fault – it’s our fault.

Businesses today are in a difficult situation – we have too much data, yet too little knowledge. Analytics is critical to helping to understand what’s important, draw insight out of volumes of data, but without the right people and the right communication, you’ll never see that value.

Michele Hinojosa, Director of Digital Analytics, Red Door Interactive

I  just returned from ACCELERATE, the Web Analytics Demystified FREE conference, in San Francisco.

The next ACCELERATE conference will be held in Chicago in April 2012. If you are interested in the digital analytics industry, I seriously recommend going. It was one of the best events I attended all year. 

Given the event was centered around short, “Top 10 Tip” style sessions, I thought I would return with my Top 10 Takeaways.

Top 10 Takeaways from #ACCELERATE

1. There is no ROI in Facebook fans or Twitter followers. There’s only ROI in how you market to them once you have them. (Justin Kistner)

2. Integrate, integrate, integrate. Customer feedback data + web data + CRM data + behaviour data + testing tools … and more. (Michael Gulmann,Expedia)

3. Not the first or last time we’ll hear this – tell a story with data. (Michael Gulmann, Expedia)

4. There’s an art and science to analytics and testing, but protect the integrity of your work – don’t ever fudge numbers. It’s okay to roll out something that didn’t perform statistically better for other reasons – that’s the art. But don’t deceive. (Michael Gulmann, Expedia)

5. Mobile or die. Web traffic from mobile just continues to increase. You need to give users a choice how to engage with you – desktop, tablet, mobile devices. (And remember their choice!) (Eric Feinberg, Foresee.)

6. There are things you can do for a better relationship with your vendor. Don’t bully, communicate fully and often, and help them to help you. (Ben Gaines, formerly of Omniture.)

7. To hire a great team, prioritise your requirements, understand that you can’t have everything, and actually sell candidates on your role. (Corry Prohens, IQ Workforce.) And from Adam Greco (Web Analytics Demystified) hire the right people for what you need right now. Don’t hire a chief if you need an indian.

8. Quality is key. You should be willing to put yourself on the line, to vouch for the quality of your data. Monitor quality and continually consider the appropriateness of your implementation and reports – things do change over time! (Adam Greco, Web Analytics Demystified)

9. Your data is dirty. Deal with it. (June Dershwitz, Apollo Group.) 

10. Learn. Learn the lingo, how to cope with (and still make use of) dirty data, understand your sources of data and any acronymns. (June Dershwitz, Apollo Group.)

June 24th, 2011 – Welcome to another RDI Click! post. Click! is a weekly collection of digital news highlights from Red Door’s most inquiring minds.

Click, enjoy and learn.

We’ve done the hard work for you.

Get Satisfaction Gives Customer Service on Facebook an Upgrade - Mashable  
“Facebook is increasingly becoming a front-facing interaction point for customer service. Users expect to be able to ask questions, send suggestions or get help from a company Facebook page. The problem is, the Facebook Wall was never designed to really manage that type of interaction. Get Satisfaction is addressing that problem by making it possible for administrators and customer service agents to take data from the wall and funnel it into their existing CRM system, be it Salesforce.com, Oracle or even a separate Get Satisfaction community page.”
Read More

AmEx Expands Foursquare Pilot - MediaPost
“American Express members who link their foursquare profiles to their cards can “load” and redeem merchant specials without the need for coupons, special codes, or showing their mobile devices to cashiers. The functionality is powered by the American Express Smart Offer APIs.
The national launch kicks off with Specials from H&M, Sports Authority, and Union Square Hospitality Group, and is expected to expand rapidly to include additional national and local merchant offers in the coming weeks and months.”
Read More

Study: Within Four Years, 70 Percent Of All Mobile Ads Will Be Local  - PaidContent.org
“U.S. mobile ad spend is expected to balloon to $4 billion in 2015, up from just $790 million last year, according to the latest projections by forecaster BIA/Kelsey. One of the key drivers of the growth will be targeted local ads, which will account for $2.8 billion, or 70 percent of total spend, compared to $404 million, or 51 percent, this year.”
Read More

Google Rolls Out Behavioral Targeting - Search Engine Land  
“Google is finally rolling out the ability to target ads to users by interest — based on their previous browsing activity, or behavior — to all of its advertisers. The company first announced a beta test of this capability more than two years ago, back in 2009, and it has slowly been introducing it to larger groups over time. The company says the capabilities are available today. The announcement marks Google’s full entrance into the world of behavioral targeting in AdWords.”
Read More

Twitter Moves Toward Promotional Tweets - AdWeek
“Twitter may be one step closer to introducing advertisements on the main feature of the site, the streaming tweet timeline. The plan to place promotions in the tweet stream has been in the works for more than a year and now it looks as if the idea is gaining traction on the sidelines of the Cannes Lions event.” 
Read More

A comprehensive list of noteworthy news can be found at http://www.delicious.com/reddoorinteractive. Also, be sure to follow us on Twitter if you’d like up to the minute updates on our latest posts http://www.twitter.com/reddoor

Michele Hinojosa, Director of Digital Analytics, Red Door Interactive

Perhaps you’ve been working in digital measurement for a few years, or maybe you’re new. You keep hearing about Twitter and wondering whether you should jump on the bandwagon. Well, you’ve come to the right place.

Why should I join Twitter?

1. To learn: Step outside the sandbox of your own company, your own analytics solution, and your own challenges. Your eyes will be opened and you’ll start thinking about the bigger picture, and bring your what you learn back to your organisation.
2. To engage with others: It’s a fantastic opportunity to meet and build relationships with others in the industry. You can debate, discuss challenges, throw ideas around and form connections that may benefit you in the future.
3. Get help and help others: The web analytics community on Twitter is an amazingly generous group of people. Take @usujason or @VABeachKevin, who respond to fellow analysts’ Omniture questions on a daily basis. Oh – did I mention neither of them even work for Omniture?! Having a problem with Google Analytics? Throw it out. Others may have tackled this already and can give great advice.

Full Story>>>

On Monday 5/23 the Web Analytics Association held a fantastic event in Boston on “The Evolution of Analytics: From Site to Social to Mobile to Predictive”. The event consisted of a keynote from Tom Davenport (author of Competing on Analytics), a discussion of customer intelligence from Forrester’s Suresh Vittal and three panels of industry experts dealing with Mobile, Social and Entrepreneurship.

Detailed here is an overview of the topics discussed and the key take home points from each session.

Topic Summary:
Using Wordle word cloud, from tweets about the event

Top Take Homes:

Customer Intelligence 
Suresh Vittal, Forrester

• Customers are no longer linear, or staying in neat “swim lanes”. We have entered the “splinternet”, where users can connect via multiple devices, and we start bringing that data together for a more comprehensive view of our customers.
• We need to move from web analytics to all-encompassing web intelligence.
• Web analytics platforms are perfectly positioned to evolve into web intelligence platforms. Almost 90% of businesses are using or piloting a web analytics platform, and many use more than one. Now, more traditional online channels (search, display, email) are regularly integrated into web analytics solutions, and emerging channels (social, mobile, apps, video) are starting to be integrated.
• Merging offline, traditional web and emerging channels will give us a  comprehensive view of our customers, and pave the way for web intelligence. (And yes, it’s complicated!)
• Be guided by a roadmap, and be sure to consider process and the personnel and skills you’ll need, in addition to the technology. Web Analysts alone will not be enough.

Mobile panel
Raj Aggarwal, CEO, Localytics, Justin Cutroni, Director, Cardinal Path, June Dershewitz, Director of Web Analytics and Customer Insight, Apollo Group, Mihael Mikek, CEO, Celtra

• Mobile is currently fragmented – apps, different operating systems, web. In a year or two, we won’t even be talking about “mobile” – everything will be connected.
• Your users don’t differentiate between a mobile and non-mobile experience, so you need to integrate your digital strategies.
• The Three A’s of Mobile: Awareness, Activation, Activity (Apollo Group, June Dershewitz)
• But these must also be tied to your overall business strategy.
• Next problem for mobile to deal with: cannibalization. Are you stealing from other channels or is this new revenue?
• Mobile apps or mobile web? Right now, mobile apps are superior because you can integrate with other features of the phone (e.g. address book, etc.) However, HTML5 will rebalance that and it is likely that browser based apps will take off vs. OS-specific applications.
• Difficulty for analysts is understanding behavior from mobile to web and other channels, as mobile data typically lives in a silo. Crucial for us to start understanding behavior of users across channels.
• We can learn lessons from the web, to speed up the learning curve.

Social media panel
John Lovett, member of WAA Board of Directors and Senior Partner, Web Analytics Demystified, Katie Paine, CEO, KD Paine & Partners, Sean Power, Founder, Author, and Consultant, Watching Websites

• Social can be many things to many people or organizations. This requires the need for custom metrics and integrations.
• However, the web analytics problem of silos is repeating itself with social. There is isolated use of social media in the depths, but not across the enterprise. (John Lovett)
• Great debate between Sean Power and John Lovett: Sean argued social media does not scale – you can’t respond to everyone without hiring people to respond one-on-one. John argued companies like Dell are tackling this by teaching their existing employees how to respond. Sean tested this by tweeting Dell while on stage at the panel, to see how quickly they respond. (19 minutes, if you’re curious.)
• Do you know what Pirate Metrics are? AARRR!  Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue: http://slidesha.re/yO8Ml
• Do we need social media standards?
   - Sean Power: “I don’t think businesses give a s*** about standards.” They care  about   making money and will do whatever they want.
  -  John Lovett: We need at least some standards – definitions of basic, common metrics, even if different tools calculate them differently.
  -  Katie Paine: We need standards so we’re not confusing others.
• What about sentiment analysis? Sentiment analysis is like web analytics – you need the best people, not the best tools. (John Lovett)
• Need context in social media. A small fly looks terrifying through a magnifying glass – which is what sentiment analysis can do. It’s important not just whether customers are saying something negative, but whether they are more negative about you than your competitors.

Tom Davenport: The New Quantitative Era – Creating Successful Business Change with Analytics

• Analytics involves moving from descriptive analytics (the “what”) to predictive and prescriptive analytics (the “so what”)
• In its most basic form, analytics is about making decisions.
• Using data to make decisions, however, requires mastering analytics, culture and more. It’s no longer sufficient to just be good at one.
• Become a student of error. Reviewing your mistakes can lead to better decision making.
• To become successful at analytics, you need to work closely with IT, business decision makers and outside ecosystem members.
• If you want to make decisions better, it’s not about the math, it’s about the relationships the analyst builds with decision makers.
• Analytics and the work done should tie to decision. When an analyst receives a request, the first question should be What decision will you make with this data?
• Skills needed to be a good analyst:
   - Tell a story with data
   - Stand firm when necessary
   - Help from the decision
   - Don’t just identify a problem, fix it
• The analytics industry has a historical opportunity right now to transform our industries and functions!

Entrepreneurs Panel
David Cancel, CEO and Founder; Performable, Matt Cutler, CEO and Founder, Kibits, Eric Hansen, CEO and Founder, SiteSpect, Jonathan Mendez, CEO,Yieldbot, Dennis Mortensen, CEO and Founder, VisualRevenue

• Let the market tell you what is right.
• Everything I’ve done is based on solving customer pain. Can I give you an hour of your day back? (David Cancel)
• You want a reaction to your idea. “I love your idea”, “I hate your idea”. “Cool” or apathy is not a good thing.
• Commonly heard: “The last thing I need is another damn dashboard.” What they want is a red phone they can shout questions into.
• Great companies are bought, not sold. The minute you raise your hand, your value goes down.
• Charge immediately. From day one. The kind of feedback you get is very different the moment you ask for a dollars. (David Cancel.)

April 8th, 2011 – Welcome to another RDI Click! post. Click! is a weekly collection of digital news highlights from Red Door’s most inquiring minds.

Click, enjoy and learn.

We’ve done the hard work for you.

LinkedIn’s Answer to Facebook’s Open Graph - Read Write Web
“Professional social network LinkedIn has opened up access to a new developer platform today that should bring LinkedIn content, buttons, Twitter-esque “profile summaries” and more to websites throughout the Web. The platform, though, isn’t just for developers. LinkedIn is offering an entire suite of plugins to bring all of this content to your website. Even better, it’s making it as easy as the click of a button and it could offer some serious competition to Facebook’s Open Graph on sites that cater to the career-minded.”
Read More

Q: Email vs. Social? A: I’ll Take Both – MediaPost
“What’s more valuable, an email address in your database or a Facebook “Like?” Is it better to excel at email marketing or social-media marketing? Pick one: email or social media? Which would you rather have: a click on an email link or a Facebook Like? Questions like these, which target the role, value and future of email marketing in an evolving digital universe, are popping up regularly these days on Q&A sites such as Focus, Quora and LinkedIn. They generate the kinds of vigorous discussions that you often get over cocktails at marketing conferences.”
Read More

Marketing to the Mobile Shopper - Leo Lens
“Before long, all shoppers will be mobile shoppers. The answers about how to win with mobile shoppers are found by looking through the eyes of the mobile shopper. Shoppers are beginning to develop preferences for retailers that enable them to use their mobile phone to shop, but retailers are still playing catch-up. Research conducted by Brand Anywhere and Luth tells us 51 percent of consumers are more likely to purchase from retailers that have a mobile-specific website – but that only 4.8 percent of retailers actually have one. And web retailers who have a mobile-specific website can increase consumer engagement by 85 percent.”
Read More

Google +1: What Does it Mean for Search Marketing? - Search Engine Watch
“With Google +1, social cues will now become a core ingredient of the search experience, inching closer to the next generation of consumer data. “(Google) wants to own a primary source of data, not rely on secondary sources,” notes A.J. Kohn. “Particularly as Facebook encroaches on search and hides more web content from Google.” And that’s the bottom line: even if the Google +1 button lacks the history, the familiarity and the functionality of the Facebook Like button, even with slow adoption it won’t be long before Google’s social graph data exceeds what Facebook is sitting on.”
Read More

The Introductory Guide to Location-Based Marketing - ClickZ
“We’re now in the middle of the “initial” wave of major LBS platforms in the market, so it’s a great time to update your marketing strategies to include location services. By going ahead and taking the leap, you’ll be better positioned to quickly capitalize on the pending second wave of LBS. Rapid increase of mobile access to social networks will pave the way for a variety of new services and startups that will transition LBS into much broader location engagement, utility features, and other user centric behaviors.”
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Traditional v. Digital: What the media spend of three brands says about the future of advertising – Forbes
“So why does this chasm between where brands spend media dollars and where consumers spend their time persist? It’s hard to single out a single reason, but the proliferation of platforms and staid corporate cultures are two. Yet some brands are effectively moving out of traditional into digital, with their media spending ratios now more rationally reflecting this shift in consumer behavior. Consider footwear and apparel brand Converse.  The brand’s spending ratio today is a window into the future of advertising spending. Less than 10% of Converse’s spend is on traditional media.”
Read More

A comprehensive list of noteworthy news can be found at http://delicous.com/RedDoorInteractive. Also, be sure to follow us on Twitter if you’d like up to the minute updates on our latest posts http://twitter.com/reddoor.

April 1st, 2011 – Welcome to another RDI Click! post. Click! is a weekly collection of digital news highlights from Red Door’s most inquiring minds.

Click, enjoy and learn.

We’ve done the hard work for you.

Convert Your Facebook Profile into a Business or Fan Page - PCWorld
“Though it hasn’t been formally announced, you can now convert your Facebook profile into a Facebook page–and convert all of your “friends” into “fans.” The process is pretty simple, it seems–using the “Profile to Business Migration Tool,” users can move their Facebook profiles into Facebook page territory. At the moment, only a user’s profile pictures and friends will be migrated to their new page, so if you plan on using this tool it would be wise to back-up your Facebook data. The user’s friends will automatically be converted into fans, or people who “like” the page.”
Read More

Practical Tactics for Cross-Channel Email Acquisition - ClickZ
“What are your top three marketing goals for 2011? I predict that “list growth” is there in some shape or form. Generating a net increase in the number of email addresses on your email list should be a vital component of every email marketing strategy. However, growing an engaged email list is not easy and does not happen overnight. Focus on quality over quantity. Small improvements across all strategies will drive long-term list growth.”
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Designing For The Future Web – Smashing Magazine
“Designing for the future Web. That’s a big subject. Where do we start when we’re talking about something that isn’t here yet? In this article, we’ll look at what the future Web might look like and how we can adapt our current skills to this new environment, as well as how to create fluid websites that are built around a consistent core and that adapt to the limitations and features of the device on which they are viewed. We’ll also look at how our conceptual approach to designing websites should evolve: designing from the simplest design upwards, and not from the richest website down. But before we get to that, let’s start with a question. What do we mean by the “future Web”?”
Read More

Mobile Touted As Major Revenue Driver - MediaPost
“Advertisers will spend 17.8% of online ad budgets for local this year — up from 14.9%, or $13.5 billion, according to a report by Borrell Associates. The Benchmarking Local Online Media: 2010 Revenue Survey points to mobile as the catalyst driving growth. While local advertising reached $90.4 billion across all media in 2010, mobile will drive local advertising through 2015. Borrell estimates that within five years, two-thirds of the $24 billion in local online advertising — up from $18 billion in 2012 — will arrive on mobile devices such as tablets, smartphones, and GPS-enabled laptops.”
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Measuring QR codes back to your site - Web Analysis
“QR codes have started to pop-up in lot of places such as store display, business cards, online ads, postcards etc. Whether QR codes are here to stay or not but from the measurement perspective they do present a huge opportunity in measuring advertising’s (particularly offline) effectiveness. If you are one of those marketers who have embraced QR code or are thinking about it or just curious to know how QR code measurement works then this post is for you.”
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The Value of Being LinkedIn [INFOGRAPHIC] - Online MBA
“LinkedIn has become an essential networking tool for professionals across all demographics. While the comparisons to Facebook are inevitable, the way people use LinkedIn to connect to others reach a different market. Here’s a look at the service they’re providing… and how successful they are.”
Read More

A comprehensive list of noteworthy news can be found at http://delicous.com/RedDoorInteractive. Also, be sure to follow us on Twitter if you’d like up to the minute updates on our latest posts http://twitter.com/reddoor.

March 18th, 2011 – Welcome to another RDI Click! post. Click! is a weekly collection of digital news highlights from Red Door’s most inquiring minds.

Click, enjoy and learn.

We’ve done the hard work for you.

Google Analytics Unveils A New User Experience - Search Engine Land
“Google has just announced a new version of Google Analytics, introducing a completely new user experience. The product got a significant face lift and it now looks more enterprise-like. The last time Google Analytics released such a major version was 1.5 years ago. The release included the intelligence engine, custom variables, expanded goals, expanded mobile reporting and others. The new version of Google Analytics will gradually rollout to users in phases according to Google.”
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Which is Better for Social Media Monitoring: TweetDeck or SproutSocial? - Social Media Examiner
“New social media management tools are popping up like weeds and a couple of them might end up being roses. One new such tool is SproutSocial.com. Time is money, as they say, and although TweetDeck is handy, its functionality is limited to the few things it does well. SproutSocial was launched last November and represents a big step up in terms of performance for a modest monthly fee of $9/month-a fee you may or may not be ready to pay. Among the many things I like about SproutSocial, an elegantly designed browser-based “social media management” tool, is its ability to save you time on multiple fronts.”
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Facebook “Likes” More Profitable Than Tweets [STUDY] - Mashable
“If event registration site Eventbrite’s experience is any indication, social media marketers looking for monetary returns on their efforts might get more value from Facebook than Twitter. The company announced Wednesday that an average tweet about an event drove 80 cents in ticket sales during the past six months, whereas an average Facebook Like drove $1.34. The study, which used in-house social analytics tools to track ticket sales on the site, was a continuation of a similar analysis the company released in October after analyzing data from a 12-week period.”
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Obama Administration Calls for Privacy Legislation - Ad Age Digital 
“The Wall Street Journal reported that a group of 30 online ad companies is looking to support a do-not-track tool that would work with web browsers, which is different from the About Ads program, suggesting that there’s a fair amount of jockeying going on to curry favor with government regulators and consumers. But while some bills that have recently been proposed center around a do-not-track tool, the bill that has the best chance of passing so far, according to insiders, is the draft legislation currently being circulated by Sen. John Kerry, D.-Mass., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., which, so far, does not include a call for a do-not-track provision.”
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3 SEO Myths About Information Architecture - Search Engine land
“PageRank sculpting, siloing, link-juice flowage, SEO architecture — these are keyword phrases that often make my skin crawl. The reason? I commonly hear these words come from search engine optimization (SEO) professionals in reference to a website’s information architecture (IA). Yet, when I am among my information architecture colleagues? I rarely hear these words, if at all.  No professional information architect, that I know of, determines a website’s information architecture and corresponding navigation schemes based on a math equation from Google. To help SEOs understand an information architect’s point of view, here are some of the common myths and misconceptions that search engine optimizers have about information architecture.”
Read More

A comprehensive list of noteworthy news can be found at http://delicous.com/RedDoorInteractive. Also, be sure to follow us on Twitter if you’d like up to the minute updates on our latest posts http://twitter.com/reddoor.

February 18th, 2011 – Welcome to another RDI Click! post. Click! is a weekly collection of digital news highlights from Red Door’s most inquiring minds.

Click, enjoy and learn.

We’ve done the hard work for you.

Google: Mobile Next Great Ad Frontier - MediaPost
“The next “great frontier in advertising” will put on mobile phones the quality and the creativity of TV ads. Google CEO Eric Schmidt sent that message, among others, while speaking at the Mobile World Congress Tuesday. “Historically, information was something held to the elite, the rich people, the educated people,” he says, but because of the proliferation of mobile devices, about 2 billion people will enter the conversation in the next three to four years. As Google gets better at targeting mobile ads, consumers will see more useful information through opt-in personalization features.”
Read More

Google Search Finally Going Fully Social With Shared Twitter Links And Even Quora Data - TechCrunch
“What Google is sort of downplaying as just an “update” to social search, is actually much more. Google is taking those social circle links at the bottom of the page, pumping them with social steroids, and shoving them towards the top of results pages. For the first time, social is actually going to affect Google Search in a meaningful way.We had a chance to speak with Mike Cassidy, Google’s Product Management Director of Search, about the updates yesterday. He outlined three key things Google is focusing on: blending the results, increasing the social coverage, and giving users more control.”
Read More

Your Subscribers Are Mobilizing — Is Your Email Program Ready? - MediaPost
“Mobile adoption among businesses and consumers has skyrocketed over the past few years, and it’s only going to continue to rise as smartphones deliver increasingly stellar experiences. Morgan Stanley Research predicts that
smartphones will begin to outsell computers by next year, and 33% of consumers in the U.S. and U.K. already access email on their mobile devices. What does this mean for email design? With mobile usage on the rise across subscriber demographics, the imperative for email marketers to keep up with the times continues to grow.”
Read More

Do-Not-Track Deserves to Be Derailed - ClickZ 
“The current debate over targeted advertising, including a push for a do-not-track mechanism, is misguided for many reasons. Let’s consider a few.Debate over behavioral targeting detracts attention from a far more serious threat: cyber crime. People are not inclined to rally against faceless, nameless hacks. Instead, it’s easier to go after Facebook, Google, and other highly visible companies with newly minted millionaires.”
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How to boost search rankings via social media - iMedia
“The lines between SEO and social media are quickly diminishing as search engines begin to use links from Twitter and Facebook in their ranking algorithms. Recently, Google and Bing both confirmed that links from Twitter and Facebook carry some weight in determining a page’s rank in regular search results. To date, the effects of links in tweets and links in Facebook posts are still relatively small. However, SEO experts agree that search engines will likely increase their use of this data over time.”
Read More

A comprehensive list of noteworthy news can be found at http://delicous.com/RedDoorInteractive. Also, be sure to follow us on Twitter if you’d like up to the minute updates on our latest posts http://twitter.com/reddoor.

January 28th, 2011 – Welcome to another RDI Click! post. Click! is a weekly collection of digital news highlights from Red Door’s most inquiring minds.

Click, enjoy and learn.

We’ve done the hard work for you.

Early Morning Email Readers Use Mobile – MediaPost
“Based on a composite cross sampling of 155.3 million emails sent across 12 industry segments in the 4th quarter of 2010, a new Knotice study finds that 13.36% of emails are opened by a mobile operating system or device, and the balance on a desktop. The report shows that the iPhone clearly dominates in terms of email interaction, even as the number of Android devices in-market surpasses iPhones in the latter part of 2010. With the recent Verizon announcement bringing iPhone 4 to their network, it will be interesting to see if this domination continues, or grows, says the report writer.”
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Checking-in on Your Local Listings Across Growing LBS Apps - SearchEngineWatch
“Checking in or tagging locations on location-based social networks like Foursquare, Facebook and Twitter is no doubt the hottest phenomenon today (besides possibly grabbing daily deals). Location-based service (LBS) sites allow consumers to share extensive detail about your business from their mobile devices and give you the opportunity to engage with and attract new customers. LBS growth continues for consumers and businesses alike as mobile search grows. Take Foursquare for example. It exploded onto the scene last year and now has 5 million registered users. Foursquare allows users to check-in to a location, share details with friends, and provide “tips” about your business.”
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Checking-in to the State of Foursquare – PR 2.0
“Whether intentional or not, Crowley and team unlocked the elusive gates that separated the last mile of engagement between local businesses and their customers and prospective patrons. The rising generation of social consumers embraced geo-location services to share physical experiences, connect with their social graph in the real world and also earn rewards for their check-ins, which is rapidly becoming a powerful form of peer-to-peer endorsements and recommendations. Crowley, quite literally gamed the system that was once solely controlled by giants such as the Yellow Pages,  Google and Yelp. The Foursquare team bridged the gap between people and places both online and offline.”
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Social Media Measurement 101 - ClickZ
“Social media marketing is a must for most marketing professionals today. Since
many of us have flocked to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media
sites, it has proven to be an alluring platform for many marketers to pursue.
However there is a challenge to find the proper way to measure performance. Many
have jumped in with little or no thought on how they are going to measure
success. Do you fall into this category? If so, read on.”
Read More

HOW TO: Ask and Answer Questions on Quora [VIDEO] – Mashable
“Quora is a new social question and answer website that’s receiving plenty of buzz. It functions on a simple premise: Ask a question (either to the community or an individual) and wait for the answers. You can also follow questions, topics, or people and read all the updates related to them on your home page. It’s simple enough, but beyond that, some of Quora’s features can get murky.”
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A comprehensive list of noteworthy news can be found at http://delicous.com/RedDoorInteractive. Also, be sure to follow us on Twitter if you’d like up to the minute updates on our latest posts http://twitter.com/reddoor.