M & A Rainmaker

Klout is a bit like Marmite – you either love it ( work with it ) or you hate it. My Klout was falling over the last few days despite my networks growing on Twitter, Facebook, Google + and Linkedin; despite masses of meaningful, productive engagement and despite my Kred and Peer Index scores INCREASING !!

I just checked my Klout score before writing this and suddenly it is going North ( up ) again which may ( at last ) be a reflection of what has been happening recently and a trend which Kred and Peer Index have more  accurately recorded.

While I was beginning to get annoyed with Klout’s failure to recognise what was actually happening in my networks I started seeing other people Tweeting that their Klout scores were falling ( inexplicably ) aswell.

Now, lots of people would say ” Why are you even bothered about what Klout says about you ? ” I happen to believe that some sort of
” Internet Influence ” score will be a factor going forward, especially for people who claim to be ” Social Media Experts “.  I really think that it is mainly here – in assessing the effectiveness of ” Social Media ” professionals – that Internet Influence scores matter – oh ! and also with brands effectiveness in promoting themselves via social media which is hopefully being done by social media professionals.

One of the dangers for Klout is that it is losing “Kredibility” amongst even it’s supporters. Another danger is that it is facing new competitors – for example Synthesio recently announced that it is ” Klout for Grownups ” – which is a clever pick-up on the fact that Klout is not ” professional ” enough for ” proper business “.

http://synthesio.com/corporate/2012/synthesio-news/synthesio-announces-klout-for-grownups/

The fact that Synthesio combines it’s ” Internet Influence ” measurement with ” Social listening ” is also an interesting aspect and a massive danger for Klout.

The view that Klout is ” amateur ” and ” Geeks messing about ” is widespread already.

HubSpot talks about assessing social media professionals on the basis of ” D.A.R.C. ness ” ( Do they have a Digital Network ? Can they Analyse the effectiveness of their social media campaigns? Do they have Internet ” Reach “? Do they have ” Chops “?  i.e. some nouse when it comes to social media promotion .   ). This is the basis of assessing ” Internet Influence “.

Klout has got to start taking things seriously. Stop messing with it’s algorithm. Communicate with it’s users and engage with them or it is going to have no Kred at all and be bottom of the Peer Index !!!!

Dear M.D./C.E.O./Owner/Proprietor/Boss,

In letter from Marketing No. 3 we talked about the people that ” used ” to design and run websites – programmers or creatives ( graphic designers ).

You need to be aware that while many of these people have invested time and effort in learning the new skills required to run a website of today others, quite frankly, have not. ( This also goes for some marketing companies that you might outsource to )

The people that you need ( probably in the Marketing department somewhere ) running the website, social media marketing and blogsites are a strange mixture – HubSpot Inc describes them as ” D.A.R.C. “

( For a more detailed explanation of D.A.R.C. go to download here

http://www.hubspot.com/darc-ebook-download/ )

D.A.R.C. stands for

Digital – They understand the digital/internet world. They understand, for example, how to optimise a website so that it is found ( S.E.O. ).

Analytical – They can analyse graphs and statistics to check how the website and e.g. marketing campaigns are working.

Reach – They are highly connected ( on the Internet ) already. They have Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin pages and their own blogsite and they have lots of connections.

Content – They understand how to create relevant content .

In order to function correctly your D.A.R.C. person needs to know something fundamental about your business on an ongoing basis:

They need to know ” What it is that you want to be found for?? ”

This means that they need to be plugged in to the business strategy.

Your D.A.R.C. person will do something rather strange but very necessary: they will carry around in their heads your businesses key words and phrases – the things ( products and services )  that you want to be found for and they will weave these into every element of your Internet Marketing Strategy.

These words and phrases will be in all the right places in your website and blogsite ( the titles, metatags etc ); these words will be in the content of your website and blogsite aswell: they will write blogs with these words and phrases in the back of their minds. I say at the back because they will do it subtly – a skill learned over time.

They will understand that being found for these words and phrases is only part of the process and that they must create ” Calls to action ” ( C.T.A. )  to convert website visitors to leads. These C.T.A.’s themselves must be designed in the right way to be effective – using the right incentives and requesting the right information.

They will also understand that ” being found ” by Google searches is only one part of the ” Internet Marketing Ecosystem “. They will also use e.g. Facebook pages, Twitter pages, Linkedin pages, Blogs, YouTube videos and Internet P.R. to ” drive ” traffic to the website ( where it will be converted and analysed ).

They will create a closed loop system and monitor on an ongoing basis – How many times the website was found ? How many people converted to leads ? How many converted to customers ? What was the R.O.I. ? What worked best ?

This is the  raison d’etre of your D.A.R.C. Marketer. How to use Internet Marketing to get you the most leads and sales at the least possible cost ??

http://mandarainmaker.co.uk/wordpress/2011/06/29/letter-from-marketing-no-3/

http://mandarainmaker.co.uk/wordpress/2011/06/28/letter-from-marketing-no-2/

http://mandarainmaker.co.uk/wordpress/2011/06/22/letter-from-marketing-no-1/