Zimanablog will be moving soon

Notice that it has been a moment since the last post? Fear not — Zimanablog is being moved to a different hosting site, with a new theme and a few new articles on marketing, analytics, and what-not to boot. So stayed tuned…

Learn about Google Analytics: Join me and Carmina Perez at Sinergia in New York, July 7th

From Zimana founder Pierre Debois:

Join me and SocialMediaPro Carmina Perez to learn how to use Google Analytics for your small business. On Wednesday July 7th at 6:30pm, in the Singeria center in Harlem, New York City, NY, we will cover a basic understanding that links the metrics to your business goals and decisions. Interested? Follow the link to sign up __ http://ow.ly/260I6 #nyc

Facebook Insights now includes Facebook social plug ins for analytics

Big news from Facebook, analytics fans — Insights is now improved with more Facebook-ishness. Ok, ok, no such noun, adjective, or verb. But it is improved.

With anticipation of expanded usage, Facebook now allows Insight administrators to measure social plug in usage — the plug ins being the well-known “Like” and “Share” Facebook buttons. Facebook also revised the dashboard for more drill-down capability into data and graphs.

For those who have never heard of Insight — it is a Facebook analytics tool designed to measure engagement of 3 major sets of Facebook services; Facebook Applications, Facebook Fanpages, and Facebook Ads (You can read more about how to use these Facebook services at the AllBusiness.com article I wrote). With Facebook’s popularity among internet users (and marketers), it would be inevitable that an analytics solution would be created.

For more on the new features, check out the official Facebook developer page, as well as the Mashable article based on the developer page.

Taste of Technology Small Business series kicks off its sessions with cloud computing

Steve Greenwood demonstrates Drop IO

Raymon Ray of Smallbiztechnology introduces John Conklin of Microsoft

Taste Of Technology Panelists

This week in New York I had the pleasure of sitting in one of several Taste of Technology session. Held at the Samsung Experience retail store in the Time Warner building and hosted by Small Biz Technology editor Ramon Ray, the Taste of Technology sessions are meant to showcase new tools to help small business and the discussions based on those tools.

The May session panel consisted of Jonathan Rochelle, Group Product Manager for Google; John Conklin, Business Productivity Solutions Specialist for Microsoft; and Steve Greenwood, Head of Products for start up DropIO.
Each covers how their products rely on the cloud to deliver quality service. Highlights included a review of Google Apps, discussion on the upcoming SkyDrive for Office Live (my personal favorite, it is additional storage and free features with Office 2010), and an explanation of DropIO, a new online storage service in which uploaded files & video which can be shared regardless of file format. Given the Apple-Adobe battle over Flash (A reminder was announced today as NBC and TBS declined to place their content on the iPad: see the Marketwatch article), DropIO gives a means to share video without concern about the format available to the user, although DropIO is used privately and meant for a few user,  as opposed to video sharing sites like YouTube.

Much of the discussion turned to browser usage, with many questions from the audience regarding reverse compatibility and how much that reverse compatibility — browser, internet capability — may hold back some segment of internet users.  Security of course came up as well.

There are other Taste of Technology Small Business sessions planned through the year, in New York City and soon to be announced locations. For more information, take a look at the Smallbiztechnology site for details.  Ramon is a great guy and excellent host, having attended the Small Biz Technology Summit earlier this year, which featured Seth Godin and a wide range of speakers.

How to determine your most valuable customers: Customer Lifetime Value, inferred from analytics data spots the best segments for profits

Avinash Kaushik has always been a great evangelist for the Google Analytics solution, with useful tips at the Occam’s Razor blog, along with having written two books on the business of web analytics (see the Small Business Trends’ book review on his book Web Analytics 2.0). There are great examples of how to extract value from analytics data. This post on customer lifetime value shows the influence of analytics data to determine your most profitable customer segment.

Explained by David Hughes of E-mail academy , the concept answers three questions regarding the value of an acquired customer base:

• Did you pay enough to acquire customers from each marketing channel?
• Did you acquire the best kind of customers?
• How much could you spend on keeping them sweet with email and social media?

This concept, along with inference of the analytics data, can guide businesses to understand which segments of website traffic are worth the marketing effort.  Remember, your analytics data is more than just examining keywords.  You can examine your online presence, and infer some answers, as well as guidance for others.  I love this post from Avinash because it gets into the meat and potatoes of value.  This is not entirely new; Annastatia Holdren  gave great comments during her Adwords training about monitoring the value of your keywords so that you are not paying more for traffic (you can read more on the value of clicks here)

Key takeaways relevant for business owners looking to review their analytics.

• Focus on discovering the actions of a segment, not just an individual – analytics is about understanding a group of given traffic.
• Being at the top of a given SERP may be costly in some instances.  There are many ways to drive customers to your site without going head to head on a keyword which may be expensive to use in an Adword or CPC campaign.  That expense becomes particularly costly if there are few visitors converting from use of that keyword.
• Even if your business attempt to gain a SERP advantage via a focus on keywords, an overfocus on certain keywords can eliminate choices of other keywords and phrase which has lower traffic volume but potentially better odds of conversion – more sales, more sign ups, etc.
• Business owners should be open for other means for customers to discover their site — even a well constructed print ad that links to a great landing page can general the right traffic if the ad is exposed to the right audience.  Foursquare, Twitter, Yelp, and social networking sites have provided new means of discovery.

To read the full explanation of the Customer Lifetime Value process, see the post at Occam’s Razor.

How to create a video resume by IQ Workforce

[tweetmeme source=zimanablog]

IQ Workforce operates a great recruiting site for analytics consultants and companies looking for analytics practitioners.  Companies can post job openings for analytics and related digital marketing positions, while analytics employees and independent contractors can post their resume and web video resume to show their skills and strengthens.  It is a significant and welcome development in the web analytics community, as its niche focus on WA practitioners offers increased visibility to analytics positions while augmenting many other sites for digital marketing related posting.  Established in 2005, the company is a global partner of Web Analytics Wednesdays (a networking meetup hosted in various cities, founded by Eric Peterson of Web Analytics Demystified).  IQ Workforce also interviews web analytics practitioners regarding the industry trends.

Corry Prohens is the Managing Consultant for IQ Workforce.  He offers solid advice to all, such as great post on how to conduct a video resume, a format he has encouraged contractors to use.    You can learn more about how to conduct a web video resume at the iQ Workforce blog post.

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RT @tsode2001: Yahoo! Web Analytics Rele

RT @tsode2001: Yahoo! Web Analytics Releases Quick Reference Guides http://ht.ly/2elNS ► #YWA #retail

#IBM purchases #Coremetrics http://ow.ly

#IBM purchases #Coremetrics http://ow.ly/1YOxN #retail #metrics

Twitter buys an analytic company

Twitter buys an #analytics company called “Trendly”. You can learn about the purchase in the following New York Times article: http://nyti.ms/cvzQzJ

How to expand your analytics knowledge: Three books that show managers how

Need a little more information on using analytics within your organization?  There are three great books that I have had the pleasure of reviewing at Small Business Trends, an award winning small business blog started by editor Anita Campbell.  Written by the leading experts in web analytics and business intelligence, these can help develop an organization around the timely use of analytics tools.

• Web Analytics 2.0 (Avinash Kaushik) explains how organizations can implement a web analytics mindset as well as advanced analytics reporting/analysis concerns.

• Analytics At Work (Thomas Davenport, Jeanne Harris) — focuses on analytics within an organization.  Differing from their first book, Competing on Analytics, Analytics at Work is for medium sized organizations that want to incorporate business intelligence tools for operational efficiency but not as a leading advantage in a given industry.

• Yahoo Web Analytics (Dennis Mortensen) — this book is more than a how-to regarding Yahoo! Web Analytics.  It’s perfect for online merchants who are interested in Yahoo Web Analytics, but also advanced analytics practitioners who need additional ideas for Javascript code and segmentation analysis.

I have also reviewed other business books with Ivana Taylor, founder of DIY Marketers and the book editor for SBT.  We try to review business books we genuinely like and that have great use for small business owners.   A great one Ivana did  is called Success Made Simple which featured perspective from Amish small businesses

Small Business Trends covers a number of great small business subjects and tips.  Definitely a must follow for any small business owner.

What other business books have been a great aid to your business or outlook?

From @mashable: Google Chrome OS to Launch in Fall 2010

This is a retweet from @mashable: Google announces that its new Chrome OS will launch in Autumn. You can read about the new OS at the Mashable site – http://bit.ly/dsTT9K.

Complete series of Yahoo Web Analytics webinars are available

This post is a retweet from Yahoo Web Analytics and Twitter user tsode2001 — There is a complete listing of Yahoo! Web Analytics (YWA) webinars available on http://ht.ly/1SSWc.