Author: NickWAllen

agilemarketing, content marketing, SEO, social media

07/07/2013

5 sources of innovation for your digital marketing

Now as a digital marketer or online marketing specialist, there’s a lot of innovations I need to keep up with. There are technical updates in the various fields of the role: SEO, SEM, social media, content marketing, PR, email marketing and mobile marketing that I need to monitor so that I’m optimising and measuring efforts…
content marketing, user experience

30/06/2013

‘Bad’ UX for the right reasons

This might be a stretched metaphor but today’s extended efforts and long stairwell down to the beach meant relative seclusion as the boys and I paddled. Hafting to work for it made it all the more special. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Nick Allen (@nickwallen) All to often we look for…
liveblog, social media, Strategy

20/06/2013

Rights, Critics, Publishers And Social Media In The Music Industry

Last night I attended my first Social Media focused event here in Auckland. Held by the Social Media Club Auckland called ‘Tweet to the Beat – When Music and Social Media Collide’ The evening had some great cider and pizza pre start and then after a short ‘shiny new thing’ segment covering the website 25mostplayed.com,…
blogging, user experience

06/06/2013

Website Accessibility Around the Globe

As I log onto our WiFi here in the hotel hopefully for the last time I’m reminded of the infrastructure required for a truly global web presence. View this post on Instagram Although my blog is hosted on WordPress I use a number of peripheral services such as Flickr, Soundcloud, YouTube and Google for hosting…
content marketing, social media

21/05/2013

Online Analytics – Measuring The Right Thing

All new online initiatives require time, resources and budgets. The more unconventional they may be, the harder it is to tie them to definitive metrics and attribute ROI. Even harder to quantify are the long term benefits of content marketing and social media – for example. One simple measure of success is qualified leads or…
content marketing, Social CRM, user experience

20/05/2013

Getting personal with Buyer Personas

Big data and understanding customer sentiment has been a buzzword for the last few years. Garnering insights and adapting your proposition to suit has been taken to a new levels as we learn to crunch big data sets. Conversely, running qualitative surveys with clients (enough to be statistically valid) can give valuable, actionable insights. The…
agilemarketing, content marketing

13/05/2013

Focus on what works, cut what doesn’t

Over the last months I’ve talked about using Agile Project Management techniques and various other tips for getting MORE content onto your website, more posts on your walls and generally more marketing everywhere. My impending move to New Zealand and the efforts we are taking to ditch what we don’t need, means doing and keeping what what matters is forefront of my…
agilemarketing, Strategy

05/05/2013

Digital Marketing Strategy and The Product Owner’s Vision

Last week I touched on brand storytelling for businesses. Conveying the ‘why’ you are in business – and how you got there – to your target audiences. This ‘why’ for many companies is core to their business internally as well. Not just in their outward facing sales/marketing/recruitment pitch. Converting that ‘why’ into strategic digital marketing…
content marketing, social media

29/04/2013

What Crazy Chef – Gordon Ramsay – Has Taught Me About Online Marketing

In the background this evening is Ramsay’s kitchen nightmares playing on the TV. For those who have not been blessed with the acne scarred, expletive derived, Michelin star holding master chef – this post is about a restaurant expert coming in to put things right. How it relates to digital marketing? You’ll see. Gordon is…
content marketing, Inspiration, social media

28/04/2013

Brand Storytelling – Part of a Marketing MIX

This week I received a copy of the book ‘Around The World in 80 Brands’. It’s a great selection of brand stories from around the world as the authoring pair travel and interview the people behind the brands. Letting readers understand what they stand for and how they have come to get where they are.…
How To

26/04/2013

How To Create Animated GIFs From Video

Well it was my first BBQ of the year earlier this week so I thought I’d take a quick clip and convert it to an animated GIF. If you’d like to do the same here’s the five steps I went through. Record the video using a tripod or leaning against something solid. I used my Samsung GSII propped up…
agilemarketing, content marketing

23/04/2013

5 ways to have the freshest marketing and sales materials

For many, finding the time, source or quality for consistent content marketing can be a problem. Your editorial calendar might be perfect and you have lined up authors to pen or record videos. Content for each of your buyer personas is scheduled weeks ahead and it is connected to the various stages of the purchase…
content marketing, SEO, social media, user experience

21/04/2013

Rich Snippets and Open Source Architecture

Theres two topics for today’s post, and both on very different streams. The first, rich snippets, is the ability to tell search engines to display text and images, that you provide, in the manner you want, on search engine result pages (SERPs). Hubspot wrote a great article on snippets earlier in the week. The article…
content marketing, SEO, social media

14/04/2013

Podcast: Sunday thoughts on online and offline cartels

Well this week I have come to the conclusion that I need more practice speaking. As this blog progresses I have begun to feel quite confident in my ability to communicate thoughts and invoke interest from colleagues online. At work I am confident that as a leader my direction and directions are understood and executed…
agilemarketing, thoughts

08/04/2013

Digital Project Management and Tuckman’s Phases

Mentoring teams for digital projects and web development can be plain sailing. No, really. The Psychologist Bruce Tuckman came up with the memorable phrase “Forming, storming, norming and performing” back in 1965 to describe the path to high-performance that most teams follow. Later, he added a fifth stage that he called “adjourning” (that others often…
content marketing, social media

02/04/2013

Social media – Deus ex machina to the digitally disrupted?

I was watching this great what to do with Twitter video this morning and it got me thinking could social media provide the Deus ex machina that many companies are looking for? Andrew Grill covered a report by Deloitte on the notion of Digital Disruption. The report covers industries that are predicted to be hardest…
content marketing, social media, Uncategorized

26/03/2013

Mobile – Our Last Chance to Ditch the Ad Fixation!

Interruption is part of our every day life. We battle constantly to find delightful interruptions to the mundane and to fast forward unwanted disruption. As Neville and I discussed this morning. Marketers KNOW we fast forward ads, have banner blindness, ignore adwords campaigns and hate popups. So fixated on the ad model, eyeballs and exposure…
agilemarketing

26/03/2013

The Locomotive Revolution and Agile Project Management

I was watching a program last night on the evolution of the train, from the first steam trains to the current Shinkansen and AGVs. It was a great story of evolutionary steps to get us to today. Yet one stood out beyond the others. Revolutionary. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Nick…
content marketing

22/03/2013

What Jenson Button’s driving taught me about consistency and marketing

Jenson Button the Formula 1 driver has a driving style that is very different to his competitors and even ex team-mate Lewis Hamilton. Contrary to what were told at pro driving schools, do your braking and accelerating in a straight line, Jenson continues breaking right until the apex and accelerating straight after. Lewis and others…
agilemarketing, B2B, content marketing

09/03/2013

Perspective and Timing

This is actually a jellyfish that floats upside down. It is not the wrong way up. Or from downunder. We only consider this jellyfish to be wrong as we’re conditioned to see them floating bell up, tentacles down. But it could be onto something, maybe it catches falling food better that way? Over the next week I…