#WifiWork session @Starbucks Saint-Lazare

Dear FMKRS, 

Today we went to a traditional Starbucks in Saint-Lazare because we craved for muffins and donuts!!

{By the way, talking about Starbucks, have a look at their "Make your own Frapuccino" website, I tried and it's funky!! Guess which flavours I chose? :-) }

Below are the platforms we discovered and talked about altogether:

• Social Bakers provides us with statistics from all the social media platforms in various categories; you should definitely have a look at it, it’s really well organized, quite complete and easy to search inside!

• Flipboard, Your Social Magazine, is a mobile application that some of us already know and use; interesting platform, where you can organize the content you want to receive, and it's easy to share any information from the app to your own social networks profiles! // Google currents is a similar mobile application - meaning you take your feeds everywhere with you!

• Veooz is useful for people wanting to know about trendy words. It could be seen as a competitor of Google Trends but the difference is that the content in Veooz directly comes from social media and networks.

• Click to tweet is a tool that I have been using for several days, it's really easy and fast! Just write your message in the big box on the main page, generate the link and send it, share it as much as you want, and when people click on it, they can directly tweet out what you wrote!

• Pay with a tweet is also a really interesting twitter derivative - brands can increase their visibility by giving documents away (songs, pictures, factsheets for hotels for example, etc.) if people just tweet that this brand enabled them to get this item for free! I'll try to embed it on my blog next time, stay tuned!

• Shift: kind of internal network for companies – we’ll have a closer look at it, but if you have already tried it, please let us know how you feel about this platform! Related to this topic, here is an article about the Top 10 Social Entreprises Tools.

• This article provides information about the use of the Facebook Want button: it says that when the want button was first thought of, the final goal was that people would buy what they “wanted”. But it’s actually not working like this – kind of The Fancy, you can fancy or want things, but people usually don’t buy it. 

And you, would you actually buy something that you "Want" on Facebook, or would you just "Want" it to build nice visual collections on your timeline?

In short: a great sunny day with the view on the beautiful Concorde Opera Paris and Saint-Lazare train station!

Stay tuned for next week wifiwork session!

@CJuppet

Content Marketing - Are you part of the 38%?

WHAT?? ONLY 38%?!?!?!

Yes, only 38% of companies have a content marketing strategy. And yes, that came as a shock for us too!

Econsultancy, the London-based community of digital marketing and ecommerce professionals, recently produced their first ever Content Marketing Report. The report is based on a survey of more than 1.300 digital marketing professionals. The upside to this survey is taht 90% of those surveyed believe content marketing will become more important over the next twelve months. 

                                                                                    But what is Content Marketing? 

Content Marketing is creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and undestood current and potential consumer bases with the objective of driving profitable customer action. Content marketing subscribes to the notion that delivering information to prospects and customers drives profitable consumer acyion. Content marketing has benefits in terms of retaining reader attention and improving brand loyalty. In easier words, is CREATE AND PUBLIC ORIGINAL CONTENT TO ENGAGE CUSTOMERS AND ENHANCE THE BRAND'S VISIBILITY. 

Why is it important to have a Content Marketing strategy?

Recent studies show buyers are spending an increasing percentage of time researching and collating informations before buying. A succesful content marketing strategy will catch the attention of the customer, engage interest and result on profit. And let's face it, that is the reason we get out of our beds in the morning.

Part of the 62%? Don't panic!

Heidi Cohen, actionable marketer (@heidicohen), lists what is essential for you to know when adding a Content Marketing to the mix:

1 - Determine your content marketing goals. What business objectives do you want your content marketing to achieve?

2 - Understand your target audience. Create marketing persona for your main market segments. Don;t overlook development of their social media persona in terms of how they act on social media networks.

3 - Select content topics. Assess your exinting content within your organization. Then collect stories across your company, employess and customers and gather prospects and customers have, Lastly, determine what information is needed and where there are holes in your offering.

4 - Build your content creation team. Encourage people across your organization to contribute to the development process. Then determine where you need additional support.

5 - Create an editorial calendar. Sequence your content across platforms and creators.

Of course this is the ideal scenario with a few people working on it, but as we all know, many companies don't have the size, money or even interest in having all this people. But if you have some multi-tasking skills we believe it can be a one man job!

If you want to get started, here are some links that might help:

- First Things First - Content Strategy Before Social Strategy

- How to get started in Content Marketing

- 21 Things Content Marketing Experts Wish they had known when they got started

By @tacioneglobe

Demand and pricing: How to strike the right balance ?

Open publication - Free publishing - More ota

Appnostic to kick-start your Social Marketing Campaigns

Understanding Sprout Social

Open publication - Free publishing - More facebook

KLOUT's Matrix for hoteliers

by Emilie Alba, Oneglobe DDIH

The 5 styles hoteliers should consider to improve their online social approach

Broadcaster : Hoteliers have to share a diversified type of information able to entertain each of their customer segment on a daily or weekly basis. Visual content linked to the hotel, tourism or any type of leisure activities is usually very engaging.

Here is an example: http://goo.gl/zoyJN (Ace Hotel)

Tastemaker : Becoming a Tastemaker is more about expressing the hotel's personality through representative design and content that match the customers' style. The turn of phrase, humor and puns will make a difference.

Here is an example: http://www.facebook.com/Thefivehotel

Feeder : It is all about providing customers with daily news, offers, photos, etc... in short, content about the hotel and what is going on around. The aim is to make potential customers want to stay at the hotel, and make acquired customers want to come back and influence their family and friends to book as well.

Here is an example: http://www.facebook.com/LeGeneral.hotel

Conversationalist: It is more about the way the hotel engages with its followers. It should match both the hotel's personality and the customers' style. The hotel should be able to post simple pieces of information (tips, ideas, local business services, hotel description, etc. ) that convey a positive atmosphere within and around the hotel.

Here is an example: https://twitter.com/Pulitzer_Paris

Socializer: Hoteliers have to be regularly active on the main social media websites by publishing posts that generate customers engagement. It also consists in managing the flow of activity by answering all type of questions and comments. A good socializer can maintain an excellent e-reputation for the hotel.

Here is an example: https://twitter.com/JDVHotels

Hoteliers should create an editorial calendar and publish diversified content covering a bit of the 5 social styles introduced above. It is also important for hoteliers to regularly spend time on hotel blogs and social networks (Facebook, Twitter, G+, Pinterest, Fancy, etc.) in order to find their own style and inspiration.

Klout is a good tool to give hoteliers an idea of their online influence and improvement in their social activities. Although the Klout score is not a relevant reference, the online evolution mentioned is a motivational element that will help hoteliers keep up the good work.