Working in Digital Media requires constant creativity. However, sometimes you may find yourself staring at a blank notebook page or an empty screen, wondering what to do. How do you keep the fresh ideas flowing from day to day? The folks over at Mashable have provided some suggestions:

• Take a Break From the Web – Occasionally, you need to erase your mental chalkboard. Clear your head for a few minutes by walking away from your desk, turning off your phone or doing something completely unrelated to your work. Taking the time to clear your mind will give you some room for new material.

• Expose Yourself to New Ideas and People – Striking up a conversation with someone you don’t know will force you out of whatever mindset you’re in. Surrounding yourself with people who have expertise in different areas will open your mind to different ideas.

• Find an Easy Way In – You may think that tackling the most difficult part of a situation first is best, but sometimes the opposite is true. Focusing on a task that interests you can help you approach the situation from a different, and possibly easier, angle.

• Avoid Brainstorming in Large Groups – Talking in groups of four or more can actually limit productivity and creativity, because everyone wants to get a word in. The discussion may start to head in a direction different from where you’re trying to go. Working with one other person usually yields better results. In advertising, there’s been a long history of two-person teams, going back-and-forth with ideas. If a larger group is necessary, try working digitally – chat rooms or discussion boards may function as a more welcoming workplace.

• Revisit an “Old Favorite” – Looking back on something that inspired you in the past may bring out new ideas. Books, movies, artwork and places that were motivational before are worth taking a second (or third) look.

• Use the “Jerry Seinfeld” Trick – Seinfeld came up with a system called “Don’t Break the Chain.” With this system, mark an X on your calendar every day a creative goal is achieved, whether it’s new work or just an idea. Continue to do so each day, making sure not to “break the chain.”

• Use the “Ernest Hemingway” Trick – To avoid facing a blank sheet of paper the next morning, Hemingway used to write the first paragraph of his next scene and then sign off for the day. Using this system will give you something with which to start upon arriving to your desk.

The next time you find yourself in a creative slump, step back for a moment and follow one or more of these suggestions. You’ll find yourself feeling much better once you return.

You can read the full article here.

New Year’s resolutions are part of many a person’s life. A time to reminisce on the good (and bad) happenings of the past 365 days, and to look towards the future with a hopeful eye. The same should be done with your digital media strategy.

ClickZ provides four suggestions to consider when planning for the next year of digital media:

Build Out Your Editorial Calendar

Plan out all content that will go out with upcoming articles, newsletters and emails. If you can’t plan for the entire year at once, strive to do this on a monthly basis and you will save yourself some valuable time over the long run.

Review Past Results

Take a look at analytics from the past year, then summarize and highlight your findings. Look for things like:

• Audience Behaviors

• Channel Preferences

• Highs and Lows (representative of successes and failures on different channels)

• Past Political, Environmental and Industry Changes

Keeping track of these indicators will make it easy to compare results in the coming months.

Reaffirm Business and Channel Goals

Review your goals for 2012, or create them if you have yet to do so. Spread out your goals to cover the entire year – this will also aid in the creation of your editorial calendar.

Double-Check Your Tool Sets

Review your existing tools, but also keep an eye out for new and exciting possibilities. Install the newest versions of each service, and test out new platforms to see what works with your audience.

Following these four steps will put you on the right path to digital success in 2012.

SOURCE: ClickZ, NOISE

[Via Social Times]

Does your company have a blog? A blog is a great way to let your customers know about anything new or fun happening with your business. Not sure a blog would work on your website? Tumblr is a great alternative.

This microblogging social network now has over 120 million users with more than 15 BILLION page views each month. Get some of those eyes on your content!

Read the full article here.

[Via Engadget]
Google+ is a great network for people and businesses – and now the White House, which plans to host Hangout video chat sessions. The White House says it will regularly have administration officials and policy experts take part in the conversation.

What better way to reach your customers than with a personal video chat?

You can read the full article here.

Well, a new study by Summus Limited makes a pretty strong case for the fact that “time on site” may fast becoming a fact of the past. The reason? The rise of mobile devices.

According to the research, mobile users access the web and apps far differently than via laptops. Rather than settling in for a leisurely online experience, mobile users tend to visit websites or brand apps approximately 12 times a day — but generally in increments of five minutes or less.

Not only does this fact alone reduce time on site average, a slow-loading mobile website — or even a cumbersome brand app — can cause impatient or hurried visitors to bail, and bail fast. And a bad user experience is one not likely to be repeated.

What should we take away from this? First, when analyzing your analytics, measure any time on site data with mobile device usage before determining any trends. Second, make darn sure your mobile website or mobile app is as fast loading, intuitively obvious and user friendly as possible. And third, continue to follow Trnedspottings for more great insights like this, every month.

SOURCE: SmartBrief, NOISE

How much greener? Among organizations offering both web- and social-based sales channels, according to a recent study by technology marketer Demandbase in partnership with online network Focus, websites remain a whopping 700% more powerful in generating inquiries and actuating income than alternative social platforms.

What should that mean to you? Well, NOISE would suggest that should mean you remain about seven times more focused on the success of your website, making certain it’s:

• Spot-on branded;
• Strategic, intuitive, obvious, simple and fast;
• Enjoyable and rewarding;
• Interactively engaging with video, imagery, social networking, sharing and more;
• Incredibly search engine optimized;
• An awesome user experience that consumers will want to return to and repeat, again and again.

For most marketers, social media isn’t a highly profitable alternative to web-based sales — at least, not yet. So embrace it — like digital marketing, e-marketing and your other effective strategies and tactics — as another seed to help your web sales grow.

SOURCE: ZDNet, NOISE

Amazing? Yes. True? Yes. Easy? Well, there’s the rub.

While the thought of working with real people scares many a hearty marketer’s heart — or sounds exceedingly boring to those of you who can’t imagine an interesting face around your place — the fact is that fascinating, compelling, engaging and attractive people types are literally all around you. You simply (alright, not so simply) need to know what to look for when you look into someone’s eyes, and that’s where your agency and their talents should come in.

We were reminded of this lesson recently at a two-day, run and gun photo shoot for a NOISE client. By the end of our assignment, we had compiled a portfolio of quality, variety and style any talent agency would drool over. Plus, our client didn’t have to pay a dime in talent fees.

Lesson: don’t be afraid of turning to real people for a campaign that requires real people. More often than many marketers assume, they’re perfect for the part.

SOURCE: NOISE

News alert: there is no one way or best way to measure social media ROI. The way we see it and practice it for NOISE Social’s many clients, which is the way you should see it and practice is, is that you measure social media’s return simply against what you’re asking it to do. And as you know, social media is no one-trick pony.

So, drum roll please, as NOISE reveals the top ten ways we apply (and measure) social media return on investment:

1. Brand Ambassadorship Development: Defined by the numbers of legitimate, involved social community followers you attract.

2. Consumer Engagement: Defined by the involvement and participation of your community’s followers in your brand via interactions.

3. Brand Passion: Defined by how often and how passionately your followers recommend your brand, and share it with or refer it to others.

4. Databuilding: Defined by hard counts of actual e-data consumers your social media efforts add to your overall marketing machine.

5. Market Research: You can use social media to learn a lot about a lot of things, both consumer-based and marketing-specific; if so, what’s the level of involvement and quality of data?

6. E-commerce: Are you transacting sales within your social media platforms? If so, measure your inquiries, conversion rates, transactions and profits.

7. Secondary Sales: Social media can generate sales by driving consumers to secondary transaction points (like a reservations page, or a shopping cart). Measure your efforts vis-a-vis referrals to your sites, as well as transactions.

8. Public Relations: Done effectively and creatively, social media can create a whole bunch of ancillary buzz via public relations. Are your social media efforts being acquired and publicized by other media outlets, creating value-added buzz for you?

9. Web Traffic: Social media should generally have an end-goal, and for most brands, that end-goal should be to drive consumers to your web brand to further engage, interact and transact with you. Look at your analytics.

10. Dollar Signs. In the end, social media can specifically and emphatically deliver sales. Don’t believe us? Try creating a social-media-only sales offer, package or campaign.

Bottom line? There is no one, best way to measure social media. But social media’s bottom line can clearly be measured by how you apply strategies and tactics — and if done correctly, its impact on your branding, marketing and sales efforts can be powerful and positive.

SOURCE: NOISE

Google+ and Latitude = Success. With Google’s geo-tracking product (Latitude), it’ll be easier than ever for people to check into a location and have that information immediately shared with their “circles” of friends — enabling brands to easily execute loyalty marketing and rewarding programs.

Google+ and Translate = Success. Are you a brand with an international audience? With Google’s Translate product, multi-lingual communications to your brand page will automatically re-render in your default language — and vice versa. A simple advantage like this could literally open up new worlds to marketers.

Google+ and Sites = Success. While Facebook remains relatively limited in its ability to enable marketers to truly brand pages, Google’s Sites product is far more flexible in design, content and functionality — another plus for Google+.

Google+ and Adwords = Success. Added bones: Google’s paid search marketing program will bring far more contextual, demographic and analytic sophistication to social PPC campaigns — bringing all of us more clarity on the value of social media marketing.

Within the first month of its “launch,” Google+ has been attracted more than 15 million users, not to mention Facebook’s attention. The question now is: will Google+ be the next social media phenomenon? Only time will tell — but if you’re an innovative marketer that in any way engages a social media community, the time is now to prepare for the opportunity that Google+ is about to open to you.

SOURCE: Memeburn, NOISE

A new study from MarketingSherpa itemizes and prioritizes what savvy e-marketers should most focus on, in order of priority:

1. Clickthrough Rates. Obviously the number one indicator of your ability to motivate your audience to actions, interactions and transactions.

2. Open Rates. Important on a variety of levels, but keep in mind this is applicable only to HTML emails; consumers who block images or view your message only in preview will not metric.

3. Delivery Rates. Important not only from cost, but also as it applies to SEO today.

4. Clicks Per Email. A NOISE e-marketing best practice is to build three compelling messages into client e-campaigns; this important metric measures your ability to offer your consumers attractive content that will cause them to engage and engage again with you.

5. Post-Click Conversation Rate. Vital as you work downstream toward ROAS.

6. Revenue Per Email. The bottom line.

7. Social Sharing. Another metric that tells you the perceived value of your content among your consumers.

One of the most attractive aspects to digital marketing is its ability to be analyzed, adjusted and quantified per return. NOISE is pleased to bring you yet another way you can measure your return, better.

SOURCE: MarketingSherpa, NOISE