Twitter

Time and time again, we get asked for benchmark data, particularly about customer generation. Well, you may remember we recently launched our 2013 State of Inbound Marketing Research Report, and we used the mounds of research there to try to, you know, "give the people what they want." And the people want benchmark data. I broke down survey responses about customer generation through the lense of simple demographic information -- B2B versus B2C, industry, company size, and company location. If you don't see your business type or industry represented below, though, let us know -- we did our best to grab as much data as we could, but we know we can always do more! I hope this helps you get a little bit of an understanding of where others in your space are with customer generation via different inbound marketing channels. Part 1: Where do we get our customers? Notable Findings: Taking a closer look at how primary sales channel affects where we get our customers, it looks like B2C companies dominate customer acquisition -- 70% said they acquired a customer from a Facebook lead, for example. However, B2C companies do struggle to find customers through LinkedIn with only 22% responding that they did acquire a customer there. (I don't think that finding is too shocking, though it's encouraging that 22% of B2C companies do acquire customer there!) Conversely, B2B companies find a lot more customers through LinkedIn than B2C companies (53% vs. 22%). It is interesting to note that most business types had the same ability to acquire customers through a blog, around 40%-50%. Notable Findings: With respect to industry, the Retail/Wholesale/Consumer Goods industry ranks the highest for acquiring a customer through Facebook with a ‘Yes’ response rate of 73%, while the Banking/Insurance/Financial Services industry struggles the most (only 33% of respondents said they acquired a customer through Facebook). As expected, marketing agencies do a phenomenal job of using LinkedIn for customer acquisition (58% ‘yes’ response rate) whereas the Retail/Wholesale/Consumer Goods industry only had a ‘Yes’ response rate of 19% for acquiring a customer through LinkedIn. The Technology (hardware) industry dominates customer acquisition through the company blog and Twitter -- 55% said ‘Yes’ to acquiring a customer through their company blog, and 50% said ‘Yes’ to Twitter. Notable Findings: Smaller companies have greater success than medium-size companies (who have greater success than larger companies) in terms of number of customers acquired through Facebook. Following the same pattern seen in Facebook customer acquisition, small companies have the highest rates of customer acquisition via the company blog versus medium- and large-size companies. Medium-size companies do the best on LinkedIn for customer acquisition, with 47% of respondents saying they had acquired a customer through this channel. Large companies have an extremely high rate of Twitter conversion with 60% of respondents. Notable Findings: When comparing customer acquisition rates between the U.S. and the rest of the world, it appears that LinkedIn and Twitter are better channels for customer acquisition in the U.S. than abroad, whereas Facebook and Google+ are stronger conversion sources abroad than in the U.S. Part 2: What is the average cost per customer? Notable Findings: B2B has a higher cost per customer than B2C and B2B2C. The Banking/Insurance/Financial Services industry has the highest cost per customer ($303). The Retail/Wholesale/Consumer Goods industry has the lowest cost per customer ($22). Small and medium-size companies have similar costs per customer, but large companies have significantly higher costs ($425 versus $128/$150). LATAM has the lowest cost per customer ($49) whereas EMEA has the highest ($252) with the U.S. not lagging far behind ($184). Part 3: What is the average percentage of leads your company converts to sales? Notable Findings: B2B2C has a higher sal

Today’s most predictable news: Twitter has finally rolled out two-step authentication. After another recent round of high-profile hacks, apparently Twitter saw the light. And by “light,” I mean the dead-obvious value of offering users a two-step secure login that’s been available on Google, Facebook, and more platforms for months now. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

In the past few months, Twitter has introduced a range of new Twitter cards to enhance its in-stream experience. As images have taken center stage on social networks, Twitter has rolled out app cards, product cards and gallery cards to its users. This week, Twitter took things one step further with the introduction of Lead Generation Cards. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

No question, social media has transformed the telecommunications industry. The days of “Can you hear me now?” are over, and the telecom giants – Sprint, Verizon, Comcast, Bell – know they need to be proactive in cultivating customers via social media. Unsurprisingly, there’s a bit of a love/hate relationship between digital media and telecom. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Yesterday, I wrote this article about Twitter. Nothing particularly unusual about that, as I’ve been writing about Twitter now on a near-daily basis for more than four years. But this event did represent a benchmark of sorts, as that post was the two thousandth article that I have written and published about Twitter since February 19, 2009. Two thousand is quite a number. I think I’ve probably written more articles about Twitter than anybody else, like, ever. So what have I learned in that time? continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Social sharing drives eCommerce sales, but all shares are not created equally. Email still leads the way, and by some distance, with the average email share especially valuable as it’s almost always a one-to-one forward (from one friend directly to another), and leads to an average dollar conversation rate of eight times that of Facebook, and more than ten times that of Twitter. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Hold on to your hats, marketers, because we’ve got some exciting news that’s going to transform the way you use Twitter Ads. A little background first: back in June, Twitter rolled out Twitter Cards, their name for the multimedia you sometimes see in expanded tweets on Twitter.com, Android, and iOS applications. Fast forward to today: Twitter released the Lead Generation Card, a new type of Twitter Card that will allow marketers to collect leads directly within the tweet. Users don’t even have to fill out a form -- since their information (Name, email, and username) is already pulled into the card. They literally just have to hit "Submit" on the Card's call-to-action. For now, this is only available as a feature in Promoted Tweets -- a paid feature of Twitter Ads. Here’s what it looks like, courtesy of the Twitter Advertising Blog: So cool, right? We can think of tons of ways you could get the most out of this new feature ... but we're getting ahead of ourselves here. First, let's show you how to get Lead Generation Cards in the first place, then we'll give you some marketing takeaways. How to Create Twitter Lead Generation Cards Want to get set up a Lead Generation Card for one of your Promoted Tweets? Follow these steps: 1) Set up a CRM end point integration. The first time you want to collect information through Twitter Cards, you're going to need to set up an end point integration, which will allow you keep track of your Twitter leads from Lead Generation Cards within your CRM. Twitter has a whole list of CRMs that will work with Lead Generation Cards -- and if you're using HubSpot as a CRM, we count, too. For more information on the end point setup, check out Twitter's support article. Once you have the CRM integration set up, you're ready to start creating your Cards. Unlike creating other types of Twitter Cards, you won't need to make changes to the HTML or CSS on your website for the Lead Generation Card to appear. 2) Create a new Card. To start creating your Lead Generation Cards, you'll need to go to the Twitter Advertising Interface, located in the drop-down menu in the top right corner of your homepage screen. Once you're in the Ads Interface, click "Advertising" in the top left, then select "Cards." Once you're on that page, click the "Create New Card" button in the top right. 3) Create content for the Card. Once you're in the New Card interface, you'll need to select the content to be featured in the Lead Generation Card. Here's what you'll need: Card Image: Make sure to choose a compelling image that Twitter users can't help but click on. Keep in mind it can't be larger than 1 MB, maintains a minimum of a 4:1 aspect ratio, and is at least 600px wide. Short Description: Include a sentence here about why your offer is so great. It's just like your landing page title -- short and punchy, yet descriptive. Remember, this can be no longer than 80 characters. Call-to-Action (CTA): Here, you can specify the text on the CTA button at the bottom of the Lead Generation Card. Make sure the text is action-oriented and tailor the language to the offer. For example, if you were promoting an ebook, you'd make the CTA text: "Download Ebook Here." 4) Set Technical Settings After you've decided what the Lead Generation Card will look like, you've got to make sure it actually works the way it's supposed to in this section. Here's what you need to fill out in the section: POST/GET Dropdown: This is how the information is sent from Twitter to your CRM. Typically, POST sends information to your server, while a GET retrieves it. If you're not sure which to choose, check with your development team or a technology-fluent friend for a little guidance. Submit URL: This is the URL your leads are submitted to -- it should be the endpoint to your CRM system. Fallback URL: If users click through on a Lead Generation Twitter Card on a non-supported platform, they will be taken to this link. It's a good idea to make this a landing

Love tennis? Like to feel like you’re a part of something bigger happening online? Then you’ll probably wish we had told you about this in time for you to participate! But you can still watch someone swing a racket at tennis balls shot at him by a tweet-powered robot! That’s something, right?! Yes, we explain what the hell this means below. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Celebrities and other Twitterati can reign supreme every other day, but if you have a loved one who has served (or is serving now) in the military, Hashtags4Heroes wants to help your special someone take center stage this Memorial Day. How? All you have to do is tweet a photo of your military hero, past or present, along with the #HT4H hashtag and you’ll see his/her photo and story spotlighted on the Hashtags4Heroes wall. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Wouldn’t it be great to have a garden that was visible (or not) based on the whim of folks tweeting about it? Possibly not, as Twitter trolls might kill it with ‘unkindness.’ But one optimistic group of folks, with an apparently less-jaded view of Twitter, have put their garden out there and have stunned IRL viewers with the results, bringing home the gold from the Chelsea Flower Show. Its covering responded to live Twitter activity, changing how the garden appeared at any one time. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.