Marketing Communications

538 CHAPTER 15 E-COMMUNICATION

is getting the most engagement, and even attempts to calculate the ‘sentiment’ of your Twitter followers towards

your tweets.

Klout, a free external tool, uses an interesting set of criteria to determine what it refers to as a ‘Klout Score’. The

scores range from 1 to 100 with higher scores representing a wider and stronger sphere of influence. Therefore Klout

uses variables on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ to measure what it calls ‘ True Reach’ (size of your

engaged audience), ‘Amplification Probability’ (the likelihood that your messages will generate action as retweets,

@messages, likes, comments) and ‘Network Influence’ (how engaged your audience are). An overall score over

30 is considered good. If your goal is to increase virality and your posts are neither shared nor retweeted, nor get

likes or comments, you have to take action.

Google has different analytical tools that give very good insights. Next to Google Analytics, which tracks and

analyses website and social media visitors, there is Google Webmaster Tools that gives insight into how Google

indexes a site, which search terms are used to find a site, errors on a site, and more. You can get advanced metrics

on specific search terms with Google Trends, and Google Alerts can keep you informed when certain terms (e.g.

your brand, company, website name, or your book title) land high in search results.

Real-time search engines and analytical tools like Socialmention give good insights into the kind of attention that

posts and updates are getting. In addition, Socialmention shows the reach, sentiment and passion that followers

have for a name or brand. These search engines also give insights into the key terms that are typically associated

with a brand.

Next to the free services, a lot of paid social media metric services are popping up (e.g. PostRank, Radian 6,

JitterJam). When choosing one, be aware that they integrate social accounts, that they measure RSS feeds, website,

other documents, interactions across other social sites, etc.

Step 4: Stay informed, but trust your instincts

You know your business better than anyone, so be careful in following advice that does not apply to your goals.

Since the social media environment is changing so rapidly, marketers need to stay informed about the latest trends.

Summary

In large parts of Europe, the Internet reaches more than 80% of the population. Mobile and

smart-phone penetration is increasing month aft er month, and connected TV is expected to

penetrate further within a few years. As a consequence, consumers’ media attention is frag-

menting and marketers will have to follow them into the new digital media. Th ey therefore

employ a number of e-marketing tactics that all contribute to the communications objectives:

creating brand awareness, shaping brand attitudes, generating trial and sustaining loyalty.

Brand websites are essential for most brands to support brand image and communicate with

customers. Merely having a website is not enough, and other offl ine and online advertising

tools such as search engine optimisation will be required to drive traffi c to the site. Because of

the time and budget involved, more and more companies tend to create temporary mini-sites

called micro-sites to draw users and bring a new product or service to their attention. Online

advertising is on the rise in Europe with video and mobile as the segments that are increasing

the most, and new ad formats regularly see the light. Keyword buying and content sponsorship

are formats that are known to work on their strengths: namely, relevance to the target group.

Ad types that are very popular due to their customer engagement and impact are advergames

or online games. Although the cost of this kind of interactive advertising tends to be much

higher than for other ad formats, the interaction time leads to a higher brand immersion.

Related to these games are viral marketing actions, which make good use of the network

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