How important is your website? In today’s marketplace it’s everything.  Your website is your number one means of providing your brand, consistency, and message to potential customers.  We live in an Internet world, if your website isn’t first rate it will be detrimental to your business.  Is it time for your website to have a makeover?  More importantly, is it time for your website to start delivering the ROI that your products or services demand?

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The obsession with social media is obvious, especially Facebook, so it’s no surprise that the movie “Social Network” ranked #1 in box office.  According to Mark Zuckerberg, there will be over 1 billion “likes” across the web in the just first 24 hours of the “Like” button – which launched April 21^st.  OK, pick up your jaw and continue reading.

The “Like” button is now the alpha and omega of media conversions, leading to the fact that most traffic has been driven from the “Like” button, and it’s good enough to be considered a final goal in social media engagement. Quick question for you:  Do you track “Likes” and calculate how much money you spend per one “Like” or how much value one “Like” generates? If your answer is no, go to the movie theater and watch the Social Network and see what 500M friends means.

Embedding the “Like” button on your website as most of you probably have gives you the most basic connectivity with Facebook; however, if you don’t set up toolbox to track the “Likes” then you’re cheating yourself.  Facebook has announced their simple analytic tool, “Insights,” which allows you to count “Likes” in addition to the click rates of your fan page, applications, and your website outside Facebook.

As far as tracking your Facebook fan page goes, it’s already set up for you.  You can use the “Insights” menu on the left side of the fan page, but you also need to put Facebook meta tags on your web pages as well. In order to obtain the meta tag, go to http://www.facebook.com/insights and press “Insights for your domain.” Then you can bind your domain with Insights and get a meta tag such as <meta property=”fb:admins” content=”xxxx” />. Put this meta tag on your web pages’ headers, then Facebook will count “Likes” from your website.  Easier than you thought!

Although Facebook “Insights” gives your website useful statistics of social activities, it can’t be combined with your media conversions through campaign, landing page, website, email blasts, direct mail, mobile page, or mobile app by itself.

Additionally, there are two tricks to combine “Like” activities into existing analytics solutions, such as Google Analytics. The first trick is to create a script to monitor “Like” clicks.   Facebook provides a javascript SDK with an event handler object named “FB.Event.”  With “FB.Event” you can trigger every “Like” click by putting “FB.Event” subscribe(‘edge.create’, function(response) { … }); on your page.  Track away!

Another trick is to integrate Facebook Insights with Google Analytics using Facebook’s Graph API. Utilizing this solution, you can pull analytic data from Facebook Insights by time range using Graph API, and cross-reference it with Google Analytics using the Google Analytics API.  Then, you can finally merge all data into one unified report. This solution can give you significant views of which users clicked “Like” grouped by campaign, age, sex, location and etc. The only drawback to this solution is that it requires several programming techniques including Web Service, FBML, Facebook Graph API, the Google Analytics API, oAuth, and etc.   But in the end, all the sweat and tears are worth it.

Social Media, tracking, and programming is a capability and product offering of Domus Digital.  We’re here to help!

Domus is a leading edge internet marketing agency that brings its full range of classic marketing expertise to its hi-tech digital capabilities. For more information on how Domus can help you accurately analyze your internet presence and develop effective strategies to further your brand, visit us at http://www.domusinc.com.CodeProject

Last year 56.9 million people accessed the web from their cell phones.  These people aren’t just surfing the web.  They’re looking for a product or a service or a company, in their area, and they wanted it five minutes ago.  That’s an audience full of movers, shakers and buyers.  And one you can’t afford to miss out on. $1.6 billion worth of purchases were made on mobile devices last year.  That’s A LOT of spending.

If we’ve learned anything from social media, it’s that we need to be where our customers are. According to Morgan Stanley, mobile internet grows faster than any other platforms including Netscape, and AOL in history.  Customers, and more importantly, NEW customers, are on their mobile phones.

It’s clearer than ever – mobile marketing is something you simply can’t miss.  So what do phone users see when they go to your website?  There is a fundamental design difference between a regular website and a mobile website.  It’s worth grabbing your phone and taking a look. We’ll wait.

A mobile site needs to have a different content structure for viewing in palm sized screens.  It can’t have too much information in one screen. Customers can zoom in on your microscopic content, but who wants to do that?

Mobile searchers are on a mission.  They want an address or phone number, a menu, movie times, store hours, or a quick drink not only by searching keywords, but also by geography.  And they want it NOW.  A mobile site should be set up to serve up every types of information.

Mobile social media is also pumping up traffic to your mobile web.  I’m sure you’re not surprised to learn that Facebook has surpassed Google to become the top source for web traffic, but you should take note that the Facebook application for smartphones is ranked #1 in popularity across most smartphone platforms.  Once users “like” your page’s content or products, it needs to be displayed correctly in both desktop and mobile forms.

It’s just a simple way to make your site instantly more accessible to a mobile user.

First, revisit the existing website, evaluate what’s currently there, and more importantly, what you want to see there.  Then you can begin to plan your mobile content and information architecture.

Next, consider new user experience (UX), such as multi-touch and gesture zooming in/out or selection options, which are popular in mobile UX. Inconsistency between touch and mouse interface can block some functions of your website.  For example, a rollover menu or image will not work on mobile device at all.  Keep these portions of your website in mind when evaluating your site.  User interaction should be re-considered and re-created in all applicable areas of your website.

Also, please be aware of Flash and its drawbacks for mobile web.  Cell phones and smart phones are not compatible with Flash.  Period.  If your website uses Flash mobile users are seeing a whole lot of nothing. (Technically, Android devices do currently support Flash but practically performance is very bad).

Lastly, re-implement new analytics that can track mobile activities.  Keep in mind that you need to track not only web traffic sources, but also “app traffic sources,” which can be more tricky.  Location-based query and phone-query should be considered and counted as well.

In the March 2010 issue of Fast Company Magazine, it was noted that US Cell phone penetration was at 34% in 2000 and increased to 89% in 2010.  While those figures are impressive, they don’t point out a very critical detail of today’s cell phone: it’s not a cell phone at all, it’s a smart phone.  Phones today are used for so much more than talking and texting – they’re handheld computers and with the right features they can connect to the internet, engage in social  media, upload videos, and if your business has a functional mobile site, lead customers directly to you.  If your site is not smart phone compatible, then throw in the towel, because more than half of cell phone internet users go online daily through their mobile device and its rate is increasing.  But if you can sustain business by losing half your customers – then please, let us know how.

Domus is an interactive agency with the ability to help you transform your business into a mobile machine with 24/7 access through smart phone technology.  Let us help you.CodeProject

In an environment where traditional marketing is overshadowed by technological methods, equipping yourself with the newest and greatest digital capabilities is essential for any business to thrive.

Domus has upped the ante with the launch of Domus Digital, its leading edge digital marketing unit.  In addition to common digital capabilities, the agency can now harness scalable enterprise technologies such as cloud computing, as well as leading-edge technologies like augmented reality, computer vision and face recognition. We’re talking the latest and greatest in digital technology.

Not every Tom, Dick or Harry can pull this off.  Domus has armed itself with a team of high tech visionaries who built the digital marketing unit to provide clients with web service development, application development, technology envisioning and more.  Have you heard of computer vision?  If not, Google it.  Domus can integrate this scientific technology into client advertisements to augment reality, utilize photosynth integration, implement optical flow and face detection. It looks like sci-fi stuff, but the claims and capabilities of the technology are legit.

If you want to remain at the forefront of the marketing/communications industry, then you must adopt the newest digital capabilities available.  And if you don’t have the capabilities or you’re not looking to invest, then let us show you what going digital is all about.

Domus is an exciting marketing agency, combining classic marketing principles with state-of-the-art digital execution to continually deliver effective strategies and campaigns for our clients. For more information, visit us at http://www.domusinc.com or visit our digital and social media site at http://www.domusdigital.com.

Apple has officially announced their iAd development kit, “iAd JS”, which enables agencies to develop interactive ads for their clients. As explained in Apple’s technical documentation, it gives more interactive capabilities than any other existing interactive media, including Adobe Flash.

First, it can accept a user’s gestures, not only on the touch screen but also by motion. For example, you can create a banner ad showing a soda bottle, allowing users to shake it until it explodes. Using the kit, you can also develop ads that detect orientation.

Next, the iAd JS provides for integration with social media. When iAd is activated, the user is online; therefore, it can connect to a social network and download dynamic content to the banner. It’s also possible to update real-time status of an advertising campaign, such as competitive or ranking information.

Based on user interaction, it can also store an image generated by the banner to the iPhone’s photo gallery, so users can see ad images on their albums. For example, by utilizing social media integration, an iAd banner can create and save a user’s future baby photo with campaign copy based on a photo identified by Facebook ID.

Domus has full iAd creation capabilities and is actively involved in development projects for our clients. For more information, please visit us at http://www.domusinc.com.

On April 30th, Apple released their first draft of the iAd framework reference document. Although this document is written for developers and not advertisers, it gave some insight into how advertisers will be able to use the iAd program.

Below are some key points -

1. Developers will be able to embed ads in their apps using the AdBannerView object. After developers embed ads in their apps, they will start earning revenue.
2. iAd will use an ad network. When adding iAd to an app, developers will choose to display their apps among different segments available in the ad network.
3. iAd includes standard ad sizes including 320×50 for portrait banner ads and 480×32 for landscape banner ads. The ads are shown in the background of an app.
4. The iAd program can be enabled and disabled. App developers can recognize if iAd is loaded by bannerLoaded property while cancelBannerViewAction allows applications to cancel displaying iAd.
5. Because developers can shutdown iAd at any time, revenue wouldn’t be calculated by PPC or PPV but instead a new way that is to be determined by Apple. Apple mentions that revenue can be lower if developers let apps close iAd frequently.
6. Lastly, this technical document only covers the iPhone and iPod touch but not yet the iPad.

We are eagerly awaiting more details on iAd as they become available.

Microsoft might well have hit a home run with its Windows Mobile 7 announcement this past week at Windows Mobile Conference, and well into the 9th inning at that.(Nice baseball references with Spring Training just a couple of weeks away…) Although the first phones based on the platform won’t be out until the fourth quarter, they seem worth waiting for. The user interface looks sleek and fluid, similar to the Zune’s. Strong support for social media, photos, music, and videos is built in. Even some XBox Live integration is included. And for business users, the phones will support mobile versions of Office, including OneNote and SharePoint.

Moreover, Microsoft has not yet announced everything. At next month’s MIX10 event in Las Vegas, they will probably announce Silverlight 4 support for Windows Mobile 7. More specifically, they’ll probably announce that Silverlight will be the native platform for Windows Mobile 7 application development. That unleashes a huge army of .NET Windows developers onto the market, and it also means that Windows Mobile 7 phones will have full rich media web capabilities.

Coming into 2010, it seemed like the Apple recently announced iPad was going to be the year’s technological game changer, but the real game changer might be Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 7 phones . It will be a long wait for the fourth quarter, but an interesting one.

Domus is a full-service marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia. For more information, visit us at http://www.domusinc.com.

Google just recently introduced their new Google Toolbar-based Sidewiki feature. This allows anyone with the Google Toolbar installed (which is a large percentage of internet users) to add his own side comments to ANY web site on the internet. And those comments are then visible to any other Sidewiki users who later visit that site.

Prior to Google Sidewiki, marketers at least had a little control over their own web site, even if they had effectively lost control over references to them on social networking sites, blogs, etc. Now, however, even your home page is an accessible target for web surfers, whether or not their comments are accurate or even relevant. And you have little or not control over what is written, other than adding your own comments to the mix.

Moreover, as of right now, those comments are not visible outside of Sidewiki – they don’t show up in any search engine searches – so unless you have Sidewiki yourself, you’ll never know what people are writing about you on your own web site. Therefore, like it or not, as of today, marketers should have at least one machine on which they have installed Sidewiki, and should regularly visit their own site to see if any side notes are added by others.

Domus is a Philadelphia advertising, public relations, and internet marketing agency. We’re a dynamic agency, different than most you’ve probably experienced. In fact, maybe we should be called the “un-agency.” Please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com for more.

Microsoft’s Silverlight platform has been gaining ground as a rich internet platform. The installed base of Silverlight has been consistently growing, reaching over 30% of computers this summer. Moreover, Microsoft recently released version 3.0, which adds many new features for developers and media providers. For example, Silverlight 3 (and Microsoft’s Media Services 3.0) supports streaming video in high definition (1080p). And in 2010, Microsoft will enhance digital rights management (DRM) capabilities, making it easy for content providers to distribute their media digitally. Moreover, Microsoft is pushing Silverlight along many other fronts. It is now supported on the Xbox and on a number of Nokia phones. It will also be supported on all Windows 7.0 mobile phones (2010).

Silverlight is fast becoming a great cross-platform development platform. And Microsoft is making it easier for legions of individuals and small businesses to develop Silverlight applications by giving away development tools under its WebSpark program.

The next 18 months should prove very interesting in the number and type of applications being developed and delivered using Silverlight. The possibilities available to marketers should be just as interesting.

Domus, Inc. is a marketing communications company based in Philadelphia, with a development network that includes expertise in a number of areas, including Silverlight. Please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.