Colleges need to step it up. As a recent college grad, I see academia’s sluggish embrace of technological innovation as a disservice to my fellow students. Today’s job market has suffered in these tough economic times, but employers still seek workers who can gather information, assess it and act. Those in the workforce already rely on the web-based information-gathering tools daily, but if you’re currently enrolled in undergraduate college classes, you probably don’t even know they exist.
Are Students Helpless?
The three universities that surround us here at MetaSpring, the University of Michigan, Eastern Michigan University, and Washtenaw Community College, are valued assets to the Ann Arbor community. As a recent grad from the U of M, I consulted my network for a comprehensive view of the issue at hand.
An informal poll of 15 of my peers (college seniors or recent grads from assorted majors) revealed that only one was happy with their exposure to Web 2.0 tools. All reported some experience with web-based database systems in which professors and instructors could post powerpoints and class-related articles, but when it comes to utilizing Google’s research tools or implementing keyword tracking programs for crowdsourcing, most students draw a blank. (Unless those students are Computer Science majors or programming wizards.) When Web 2.0 or new media did come up in liberal arts or business classes, it was discussed by students rather than an instructor. A professional’s insight can make a big difference.
Let’s take a step back and discuss a few terms I’ve been throwing around so far.
- Web 2.0 – This term refers to the current generation of the Internet wherein websites provide applications facilitating interactive information sharing with a user-centered design. A few examples include online social networks (Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube), wikis, blogs, GoogleDocs, etc. Web 2.0 tools are those you’ll hear about in today’s offices.
- Web 3.0 – This concept is a semantic term denoting the next phase of internet programming that some are calling “the intelligent web”. Think artificial intelligence technologies.
- Crowdsourcing – Basically defined as a group problem-solving model in which a problem is broadcast to a group or online community with the hopes that a flood of ideas comes back. There are many approaches to crowdsourcing, but the ultimate goal is to consult the insights of many. Web tools are able to expedite the crowdsourcing process.
- New Media – Everyone has their own definition of “New Media”, but I like to think of it as any technology that is used in innovative and creative ways. Sure social media marketing falls in this category, but so do Apple’s thousands of apps, along with thousands of other widgets you can find online. In my definition, Web 2.0 tools are included in New Media.
Students & Professors: Divergent Viewpoints
Jason Spector, a master of crowdsourcing ideas, is in the process of authoring two works on the subject and proved to be a great consult for this topic. When I came to him with the question about Web 2.0 in the classroom, he presented a unique perspective that identified the conflict of viewpoints that bog down the Web 2.0 education.
As an example, let’s consider the typical business class at Eastern Michigan University. Students casually bump into Web 2.0 daily, yet they rarely reflect on the business principles that the various networks and applications provide. Professors and instructors on the other hand are well-versed in business, but probably not as much in social media. “It’s when they meet in the middle to collaborate where the true education begins,” explains Jason.
But Don’t Blame the Professors
Wait, so all professors are stuffy, unhip, old lecturers? Not quite. Most professors crowdsource and research like any marketing guru or investment banker. Professors at the University of Michigan and many other institutions are encouraged (required actually) to publish regularly. Clearly, staying up on new trends is pretty important. So why isn’t Web 2.0 used in the classroom more often?
For that answer I talked to Scott Moore, Associate Professor at the U of M Ross School of Business, who has put together a course called, “Web-based Information Resources”. I was invited to look over the syllabus for the class (appropriately found at HowCanIFindIt.com) and was pleasantly surprised.
After a semester with Professor Moore, students know how to use search engines at an in-depth level. They understand the exceptional value of informational technologies. They can find blogs, podcasts and email alerts. They can assemble their own applications to assess information. To borrow a phrase directly from the syllabus: “This course is about finding information on the Web and having it delivered to you with a minimum of effort.” Music to my ears.
A Matter of Missed Opportunities
So, it’s clear that a majority of students feel they are missing out when it comes to career preparation and information-gathering. This concern is important to college co-eds because they feel that their future employers will demand certain web-related capabilities. Although most students and young people are perceived as knowledgeable users of Web 2.0, their professors and instructors are not teaching them how to apply these tools with a career in mind. There are some professors forging ahead with classes exploring New Media and the internet’s business tools, but there’s more room to improve.
Where Can We Improve?
Focus Expectations On Course Selection
It’s easy to point the finger at the faculty and administrators of our universities when it comes to this dearth of Web 2.0 knowledge. I may have even cast colleges as the villain to open this post. But in many ways, the students share the blame. Students can learn about Web 2.0 in some courses, but shouldn’t expect Twitter tutelage in all of them.
Require Courses for Graduation
To expedite this adoption of Web 2.0 technologies, I’d like to see web-related courses become mandatory for graduation. Classes like Professor Moore’s will prove to be invaluable in the workplace, so why not require students to fill three credit hours of Web 2.0 instruction in order to graduate. This will also help faculty and administrators become familiar with Web 2.0 and it’s academic worth, sweeping in a relevancy many students yearn for.
Introduce Timely Material
One of the most common exclamations heard after students walk out of an exam is, “When am I ever going to need that stuff?!” It’s time to add timely issues to curriculum. Merely knowing about Twitter and Facebook is not enough. I contend that exposure to Web 2.0 and web development stimulates the creative process. Classes exploring web-based tools should be thought of as a career prep.
Tomorrow’s leaders and thinkers must be aware of the big picture when making decisions. An important part of this picture is how to harness the Internet with answers to questions like, “How does a website work?” or “How can we best market this launch?” Web development is racing ahead these days and before we know it, Web 3.0 will be here. Students attend college to receive preparation for future endeavors. Traditionally, this preparation has included topics like algebra or economics, but an understanding of Web 2.0 tools has become just as critical.
Additional Reading
If you’re looking for a few ways to enact change in your classroom, here’s a helpful chat transcript from Poynter.com: How to make changes in curriculum.
So, where do you stand? Did you have the opportunity to learn about Web 2.0 tools in your collegiate curriculum? Was it enough? Let us know in the comments!
Welcome to the first ever MetaSpring Blog Carnival! Over the last few weeks, we asked our readers to submit their favorite blog posts for inclusion in our new monthly Blog Carnival and we received a ton of great submissions - much thanks to everyone who participated!
For our first Carnival, we thought we’d keep it varied, so the following batch of posts span across the topics of link building, web design and development, social media and search engine optimization. We’ve already started to receive submissions for next month’s carnival (which will focus on web design) - so make sure to submit your post soon!
Design and Development
All the way from Northern Ireland, freelance web designer, Lee Munroe, shares some neat CSS 3 tricks and explains why he thinks Internet Explorer Users Don’t Care About Rounded Corners. It’s a bold statement, but somebody had to say it!
Steve Hamilton of Ann Arbor’s own, Nology Design, sent in a bit of advice for those seeking to build a website in his post, I Need a Website, What Do I Do Now?. Steve stresses the need for in-depth planning and scope definition and provides some noteworthy advice on ROI expectations.
Next up, John Laugherton presents his Top 50 Web Design Resource Blogs. I know - a list of recommended blogs within a list of recommended blogs - how very meta of us!
Another great post from Lee Munroe highlights 21 iPhone integrated websites to get your creative momentum flowing - Web Design Trends: iPhones.
Social Media
Our friend Jason Spector sends in this post entitled, The Twitter Elevator Pitch: Rethinking Your Social Bio. Jason explains how elevator pitches falls short in this world of social media and how your social bio can represent your elevator pitch, personal brand, and more.
Our friends over at Simply Zesty, a social media marketing company in Ireland, discuss the concept of Virtually Dressing for Success. Could avatar dress codes be in our near future?
Jody Fransch broke down the statistics from the September “Did You Know?” video in her post, The Media World Is Changing Fast! The “Did You Know?” series reveals eye-opening internet and tech-related factoids in a short, quirky format.
Writing Effectively
Evan Gould’s cleverly titled post, Five Ways to Write Blog Posts without Writing, offers a few tools and techniques to get you started on that next blog post. That old writer’s block excuse isn’t going to work after reading this.
In the last few years, we’ve heard it over and over - “content is king,” but Larry Brooks, guest author for CopyBlogger thinks that king is dead and a new one has taken the thrown. Why Content is No Longer King (And Who’s Taking His Place) offers insight as to how context usurped the crown.
Patricia F. Anderson, another Ann Arborite, was kind enough to share this post urging you to Consider Your Content. She runs down the why, where, when, who, and how of generating content for social media profiles and other forums around the web.
Link Building
Here’s a vlog from Welly Mulia titled, “Backlink Analysis Using Free Tools“. Welly has documented a few practices to save you time and money when it comes to analyzing your domain’s backlinks. The video is a tad long, but I’ve got some bookmarks for you - he covers the Yahoo! backlink tool from 5:00-13:00, and the SEO Quake Firefox plugin is covered from 13:00-24:00.
Posting guides on eHow is a great way to build links back to your site in a natural, and helpful way - and you can even make a little money in the process. Brian shares his tricks in his guide: Increase SERP Rank on eHow.
Next Month’s Issue: Web Design
Thanks for checking out MetaSpring’s first ever Blog Carnival - be sure to check out next month’s issue on Web Design. If you have a design post you’d like to share, submissions will be accepted through November 15.
If there is a specific theme that you’d like to see covered, email us with your request at media@metaspring.com.
Have you ever wondered what your tweets are worth? Thousands of companies all over the world have joined the social media (SM) phenomenon hoping to boost income in the process - but are they really getting anything out of it?
In this economic climate, all business decisions must have tangible benefits. Can Nike sell more shoes by maintaining a Facebook page? Can The Gap sell more jeans by posting Tweets? In the long-run, the answer to both of these questions is YES!
By building brands and attracting audiences, SM has the potential to increase a company’s return on investments (ROI). ROI formulas calculate the ratio of money gained and lost on a venture, relative to the money invested in the venture. These ROI ratios can help businesses answer the question: what is the cost of social media?
Methods of Achieving Social Media ROI
Finding the ROI of your SM campaign depends on the type of results that you seek. A few of the more commonly used SM business strategies include:
Direct Sales - Just as you’d expect, this involves the direct sales of merchandise or services through SM outlets. This is probably the easiest strategy to calculate ROI for.
Advertising & Brand Building - Alerting consumers of sales and promotions, and building strong customer relationships through various SM platforms.
Customer Support - Monitoring blogs, tweets and other networking sites in order to attend to complaints, assist with product dissatisfaction, and act as a general support source.
Direct Sales
In this strategy, the amount of capital invested in a SM venture can be easily measured against the cost of the investment.
Coffee Groundz Café of Houston, Texas, doubled their clientele when they developed an online “to go” feature for their Twitter account (@CoffeeGroundz). While Coffee Groundz employed a relatively local strategy, the direct sales method can also be implemented on a national scale.
Dell (@DellOutlet) reportedly boosted sales by $3 million due to their Twitter presence established two years ago. They were able to track which customers followed links through their Facebook and Twitter pages to calculate exactly where consumer revenue was being generated.
The costs incurred for hiring staff and infrastructure development make up the costs in the ROIs of these two SM ventures.
Advertising & Branding
The marketing characters of AMC’s Mad Men would go crazy for SM! Advertising gurus are constantly trying to increase their reach and frequency and when used correctly, SM does just that.
With the advertising and branding approach, ROI should be thought of more as a Return on Influence. Companies not interested in making sales directly through SM will often choose to use SM connections as a way to improve brand awareness and approachability. In this case, ROI is often measured with the help of various software and online programs, such as:
- Twitter Analyzer - This online tool helps uncover the topics, tweets and ideas that your followers find the most appealing. In clear visual displays, you can discover how influential your Twitter presence has become and which areas to focus on moving forward.
- Google Analytics – This highly innovative Google product (how many times have you heard that one?) collects and displays website traffic data. This information can be monitored to determine more effective advertising and marketing messages.
- StatCounter – Once added to the code of your website, this invisible web tracker will allow you to analyze and follow visitor activity in real-time, displaying valuable information for your marketing and communications department.
- Facebook Advertising – Although criticized for diminished returns, advertising on Facebook provides advantages with their “Demographics for Sale” model, as recently discussed on the SEOmozBlog.
Customer Support
In an indirect way, utilizing SM to provide customer support can increase your ROI by boosting brand satisfaction. SM is great for customer interaction and marketing, but recently - it’s become a therapeutic dumping ground where angry customers go to release their frustrations - rather than punching pillows or making angry phone calls, customers makes their issues public through blogs and tweets.
Comcast, in attempt to distance themselves from the lightening rod of patron scorn, has successfully assisted over 22,000 customers (including MetaSpring!) through their @ComcastCares Twitter account. Dell also combs the tweet-o-sphere for customers in need of assistance or looking for ways to improve their Dell products.
Although the cost of filling SM screening roles may be high in the short term, customers are, generally, extremely satisfied with the service which can lead to increased product development and a boost in ROI in the long term.
The ROI is Out There
Alright - so, what’s the worth of social media? As you can see, the answer is complex, but ultimately discernible. Regardless of the type of returns that your company is seeking (ie. increased brand awareness, revenue, or customer satisfaction), ROI can be calculated - with one tool or another.
With a little work and the right tools, social media no longer needs to be a “priceless” asset to your business…and that’s a good thing!
Hello and welcome to the third and final part of our Ultimate Ecommerce Reference Guide: Building Trust and Increasing Sales. In Part 1, we discussed maximizing your store’s usability to provide a smooth and intuitive shopping experience; in Part 2 and 2.5, we went through some of the ways to make your site more accessible to search engines and a few key techniques for generating more traffic.
In this post, we’d like to go over some of the ways in which you can utilize the concepts of the previous posts to generate increased sales and keep people coming back for more.
Allow Users to Create Wish Lists
Wish Lists have become a very popular feature of many notable ecommerce applications for several reasons - both in terms of user-convenience and sales benefits. Used along side other shopping cart abandonment tracking (more on that later!) they can be a great way to generate leads and help you follow up with your customers.
- They allow users to save items for later reference, removing the pressure to purchase immediately.
- They increase registered users and the contact information captured from these new sign ups can later be used to inform your new customers (with their permission, of course) of promotions and other news.
- Wish lists can be shared with others! Bringing more traffic to the site and increasing first-time buyer rates.
Let Users Post Product Reviews
The internet is chock-full of people who’d be happy to give their two cents about their purchase experiences, but since a lot of sites fear negative feedback and don’t allow customer product reviews - encouraging your visitors to do so can be extremely empowering. Including product reviews on your site tells customer that you’re confident in your product, but willing to take criticism and suggestions. This openness will certainly increase trust in both your brand and your products.
And not only are product reviews helpful to potential customers, but they’re also an easy way to add unique content to your product pages (which Google will love you for).
Display Customer Testimonials
The benefits of customer testimonials are similar to those of product reviews:
- They reassure potential customers that you’re a reputable organization - adding highly valuable credibility.
- They empower existing customers by allowing them to share their impressions and can even provide link juice should a link back to their site be included.
- And they provide fresh, user-generated content for your site that all parties can benefit from.
Amish Furniture Home testimonials often include user provided photos of the furniture sold.
Testimonials are a must for increasing ROI as they help to eliminate fears and doubts - making it far less stressful on the customer when considering a purchase.
Submit Your Products to Google Base
Google Base, as defined by Google is, “a place where you can easily submit all types of online and offline content, which we’ll make searchable on Google”.
In many of the modern shopping cart solutions, it’s become common to include an “Export to Google Base” feature that allows you to upload your entire catalog directly to the Google Base database. Once products have been added, they can then be searched for in Google Base and may even appear in standard Google search results based on relevance.
Start a Newsletter (or Two!)
Newsletters are another great way to increase registered users and provide customers with important information regarding promotions, new products, etc.
If you have the resources, consider starting two newsletters - one focused on specific updates relating to your business and another that relates more generally to your industry. If you were a furniture company, for example, one newsletter might focus on promotions and the other might center around interior designing tips.
Constant Contact has become an industry standard in Email Marketing with features like custom HTML templates and view tracking reports. Constant Contact is not free, however - so if you’re working on a limited budget there are many other free and open source solutions available like PHPList.
Shopping Cart Abandonment Tracking
If a customer abandons their shopping cart, it can be helpful to follow up with them to inquire about what prevented them from ordering. While some customers may not respond, you’ll at least have the opportunity to convert them. You can also use their feedback to identify usability concerns or bugs in your checkout process.
Many of the popular ecommerce solutions include some form of shopping cart abandonment tracking, however this could also be pretty easily built into a custom application - you just need to save the customer information before order completion.
Include McAfee SECURE and Trust Verification Badges
These badges are an industry standard way of ensuring site security and increasing visitor trust, as they generally mean that the site has passed rigorous safety tests. McAfee SECURE, in fact, scans sites that host their badge on a daily basis, searching for any vulnerabilities within the site structure. A few other reputable certifications include SSL and BBB Online.
Provide Easy Access to Contact and Policy Information
Finally, one of the easiest ways of increasing customer trust is by making important information - like privacy, shipping and return policies, terms of service, and contact information, easily accessible. Highlighting this information helps to ensure your customers that you’ve covered all the bases and are available for customer support.
Your contact information should include as many ways to reach you as possible, since different people prefer different contact methods. Some might wish to send a quick email, others might prefer a direct dialogue through Twitter, while there are those who still prefer the old-fashioned snail-mail approach. In any case, having these direct forms of communication will increase transparency and consumer trust as they allow for the development of personal and communicative relationships.
The Customer Comes First!
Ultimately, the way to increase sales and build customer trust is to give the customers what they want. Make their lives easier with wish lists; help them to feel at ease with product reviews and testimonials; and build one-on-one relationships whenever possible.
With eCommerce software becoming more and more robust, AND more extensible, it has become much easier for shop owners to create custom features and functionality to cater to their products and customers.
Are there any trust building or sales increasing techniques that your business couldn’t survive without? Share them in the comments!
