THIS BLOG IS NOT ABOUT MY BREAKFAST

If you prefer to read posts about breakfast choices, I suggest this delightful article.

You're still reading this article because, like me, you want to try and work this whole internet marketing thingy out.

• What is the best way to manage and implement e-Marketing campaigns?
• How do we audit our website?
• Can we learn from our internet statistics?
• What is the method in designing a usable website?

This blog will be a journal of proposed solutions and any other trivial entertainment that relates. Rather than get bogged down in technicality for my first post, I will set the scene in a way that can double as a bedtime story.

The e-Marketing Fairytale

Once upon a time, Marketing & Internet went on a date.

1. Marketing was 40 something at the time
2. Internet was roughly half Marketing's age! :0
3. After a few drinks, Marketing enticed Internet back Marketing's apartment for some .com
4. A wedding resulted and e-Marketing was born
5. Marketing, now married to a younger partner was sometimes cumbersome in the relationship and tried to remain trendy
6. Internet's spontaneity further complicated the issue
7. The couple saw many witch doctors, each proclaiming their own solutions to the relationships issues
8. The proposed solutions were so varied that Marketing and Internet were shrouded in a veil of analysis paralysis that continues to this day...

Marketing you old dog!

I want everyone to participate in these blogs. If I'm wrong, tell me. Else, send me a christmas card.

Until next time...

Source : What did I have for breakfast?

You have an advertiser on your website requesting statistics for their ads. Fair enough, they're probably paying pretty dollar and don't trust two-bit developers ;)

COMMON ANSWER FOR COMMON ADVERTISER REQUESTS

• Make the stats publicaly accessible
• Give advertiser access to the web stats account (i.e. Google Analytics)
• Installing their own code on the website

THE HOLY SOLUTION

Create a new profile to share specific page stats from your parent Google Analytics account.

Steps

1. Login to Google Analytics.
2. In the "Overview" page, click "add new profile" as displayed to the right of your chosen account.
3. Select "Add a Profile for an existing domain" and complete remainder of form as usual.
4. Select "Edit" on the recently created profile in "Overview" page.
5. Click "Add Filter".
6. Select "Custom Filter".
7. Select "Include".
8. Select "Filter Field" to be "Request URI".
9. Use the following code to filter by matching strings to the URI.
   • Example 1: show stats only for contact.html
     ^.*\b(contact)\b.*$
   • Example 2: show stats only for contact.html or about.html
     ^.*\b(contact|about)\b.*$
     
10. Use the Google Analytics Regex Filter Tester if needed.
11. Save the filter.
12. Click "Add User" in "Profile Settings" page.
13. Add user to "View reports only".
14. Have a well deserved drink and wallow in glory!
    

Benefits:

• For You:
  1. The user will be given access via a Google Analytics account. Therefore, information is not public.
  2. Access to real-time rather than batched data
  3. Use your existing tracking code
  4. No additional 3rd party code (better load times)
  5. Instant control of 3rd party's access to Google Analytics account.
• For 3rd Party:
  1. The 3rd party can generate their own stats reports.
  2. Access to real-time rather than batched data
  3. Perceived transperancy on your behalf

Disadvantages:

• For You:
  1. Solution does not show historic data, only from when the profile is created.
• For 3rd Party:
  1. This solution is only for Google Analytics. 3rd party will need to export data into other statistic packages if consolidated data is required.

Continual Development

Any suggestions for improvement are much appreciated. Let's hope in the future, Google Analytics will have similar functionality by default.

Source : Sharing Google Analytics data with 3rd Parties

RSS (Real-time Syndicated Service), is one of the most underutilised features in Internet communications. Just imagine if you could receive organised yet real-time updates on, websites, blogs, newsfeeds, Twitter/ Youtube/whatever accounts without having to visit dozens of sites.

Here are some befits for consuming information via RSS:

• Validate any information published by you and other employees across multiple websites and social media channels
• Become proactive in the competition's communications. Gain intelligence yourself rather than being told by the intern.
• A holistic view allows easier identification of communications issues. E.g. Frequency discrepancies Tone / Sentiment / Jargon / Acronym / Branding discrepancies Neglected or saturated audiences and market segments
• If you like a particular web article, subscribe to it via RSS to receive future updates.

BECOME CENTRALISED:

Lets look at how I consumed my online information before I started using RSS. As you can see, I had a lot of websites to visit and several channels to visit on each. By sourcing web content like this, hours could be wasted finding relevant content!

Prior to Using RSS

Using RSS

By using RSS the information becomes centralised and directed towards you.

What does RSS look like?

An RSS feed or channel can be broken down into articles. An RSS article will look different depending on what program or online tool is used. However, and RSS article will always contain the following:

• Title
• Content
• Publish date and time

HOW TO START USING RSS?

RSS is a widespread feature in many programs and online tools. Put all the bells and whistles aside, an RSS feed is always accessed via a URL. For example, the RSS URL for Windfery's World ishttp://feeds.feedburner.com/WindferysWorld

Choosing where to read RSS from

RSS is similar to email clients as there are email programs such as Outlook and web based options like Hotmail and Gmail.

Program Options:

If you do most of your work from a single PC then you could add RSS feeds to your email client such as Outlook or Firebird. Popular tutorials are:

• Adding RSS to Outlook 2007
• Firebird
• Mozilla Firefox
• Internet Explorer

Web Based Options:

If you need something more portable then several online RSS readers are available such as Google Reader. This means you can save your favorite RSS feeds to your online reader and access them across the web.

This article from Pandia is a good start for choosing your online reader.

How to find RSS channels

Unfortunately, the method to add Social Media RSS feeds to your reader will vary depending on the source. To help you out, some I've found some popular online tutorials to make you and RSS pimp! For information on how to add RSS feeds from other websites, refer to the Firefox and Outlook tutorials.

• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube

Some browsers such as Firefox display an RSS icon in the right side of the URL if a site has an RSS feed.

FLY MY PRETTIES!

There's your crash course in the benefits of using RSS. By working smarter in the way you source information, you will remain informed on topics that appeal to you whilst using the intern as an office ottoman.

Source : http://www.windfery.com/2010/05/why-does-rss-matter-to-you.html

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Outlook 2007 overview

The following screenshot is of my Outlook 2007. Forgive the selected censorship, but I don't want to admit how many insider trading deals I currently have operating. Let's look at the major three sections we're looking at today:

1. 1.1 RSS Folders - by default all RSS feeds will appear as a sub-folder of 'RSS feeds'. As you can see, I've organised mine into sub-folders based on the my morning horoscope.
2. 1.2 RSS Feed View - the most useful pane of all, a chronological view of all 'articles' that are contained within a feed. Allows you to filter BS from gold within seconds!
3. 1.3 RSS Article - is what we're here for at the end of the day. You'll notice that some RSS articles are complete and others are teasers with links to the authors website.

2. Account Options

1. 2.2 - click on 'Tools'
2. 2.2 - select 'Account Settings...'

3. RSS Feeds

1. 3.1 - click on 'RSS Feeds' tab
2. 3.2 - select 'New...'

4. News RSS Feed

1. 4.1 - find your RSS feed
2. 4.2 - paste the Feed URL into the field

5. RSS Feed Options

1. 5.1 General - name your feed. this will typically be entered by default.
2. 5.2 Delivery Location - this feed will be added as a sub-folder of 'RSS Feeds' by default. this setting allows you to change where is feed is categorised in the section 1 from 1.1. Don't stress, we can always change locations afterward.
3. 5.3 Downloads - leave these settings off as the whole point of RSS is to decide whether we want to full articles and attachments, remember!?
4. 5.4 Update Limit - leave this setting on.

6. Oraganise yous RSS Feeds

Yay! Unless you tried to add an invalid URL, the RSS gods will be smiling and the birds singing. If you continue having issues, paste the troublesome URL into a web browser, if the page fails to load then it's definitely an invalid URL.

Remember I said we can organise our RSS folders after they've beene added? It's simple:

1. 6.1- right click on your RSS folder.
2. 6.2 - select 'New Folder...'.
3. 6.3 - rename the folder as appropriate by right-clicking on the recently created folder and selecting 'Rename'.
4. 6.4 - drag and drop feeds as desired.

Source :http://www.windfery.com/2010/05/adding-rss-to-outlook-2007.html