Matt Owen
Matt Owen is Head of Social at Econsultancy. He looks after Econsultancy’s global social media strategy and architecture, where he has led community engagement and growth since 2010.
Matt has a background in music, film and television in addition to marketing. Prior to joining Econsultancy, he was instrumental in building the UK's largest entertainment blog network before moving into dedicated social management and strategy for one of the world's largest business schools. He has a particular interest in social measurement and organizational integration.
In addition, he works with a community of 200,000+ digital marketers daily across a variety of social channels and has written best practice guides for popular social platforms. He contributes regularly to the Econsultancy blog, industry titles and makes regular appearances at events and conferences.
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Instigating a truly multichannel campaign can be a
daunting one. You know your business better than anybody, but it's
still always helpful to have a few pointers in the right direction at
the beginning.
So which industries can we look at to provide a solid
example of a truly successful and joined up multichannel campaign that leads
customers across channels and encourages them to interact more fully
with a brand?
Fortunately there are several places to look, but one of
the more obvious can currently be found shoring up your local multiplex:
Inception.
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by Matt Owen
21 July 2010 08:51am
5 comments
Recently LinkedIn has undergone some dramatic changes that have
transformed it from a business contacts site into a viable networking
and promotion tool.
The site now gives you direct access not only to your
customer base, but also to fellow professionals, meaning LinkedIn has
forum capabilities sorely lacking from sites like Facebook.
LinkedIn’s
profiles are directly aimed at the business market, they are likely to
be open and honest, giving you great information on your allies (and
occasionally rivals) in a complicated marketplace.
If you’re setting up a business empire then you need to be in touch with
the movers and shakers out there and LinkedIn is a great way to do it. Despite this, a huge number of new users still primarily use it as a job search and employment site.
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by Matt Owen
21 July 2010 11:08am
12 comments
Remember when the world was young and finding a copy of your book on Fly
Fishing meant hours crawling through the local yellow pages or trusting
to luck that ‘Six Gun’ Tex McCain was really a reliable plumber?
Thankfully these days we have the magic of the internet, where anyone
can have a fully functional, great looking site for their local business.
Unfortunately this does leave smaller business or individual users
with a problem: How are you going to market your site?
There’s a mountain of marketing guides out there, but there is a
tendency to assume you’re trying to build a multinational media empire.
If you’re just trying to get a few extra people through the door of your
cake shop then a lot of this advice really isn’t going to be suitable.
Having a great LinkedIn network is fine, but are those international
jet-setters really going to stop at your small Hardware Shop?
If you’re trying to raise localised traffic it can be hard to know where
to start, and let’s be honest, if your site isn’t in the top ten when
someone Googles ‘Launderette, Stevenage‘ then there’s no point in having
a site. So let’s see what you can do to get yourself a decent search
ranking...
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by Matt Owen
22 July 2010 09:04am
10 comments
While many companies are now seeing the social light and jumping on
board with Twitter, Facebook et al, there’s still a temptation to set up
your account and start pumping out updates straight away.
While there
is a need for some of this as you grow an initial audience,
the thing that will really make a social media presence successful is
your ability to listen and take on board what people are saying about
your brand.
In order to do this properly you’ll need to set aside time
for detailed monitoring. Unfortunately one of social media’s biggest bonuses is immediacy, something which can make knowing how and what to monitor confusing.
There’s an awful lot
of electronic chatter out there so how do you listen?
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by Matt Owen
20 July 2010 09:08am
3 comments
When you’re embarking on a social media campaign, one of the most
important goals is finding influencers. If you can get respected and well known market voices behind, then you can give your campaign an
invaluable leg-up.
The only problem here of course, is that influencers
themselves are elusive figures. How are you going to hunt them down, and do
you even know where to start looking?
In order to do so, we need to
clearly define influence...
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by Matt Owen
20 July 2010 09:56am
3 comments
Despite spending more time online than the inhabitants of Tron, I never
quite caught the Apple bug, and it seems I’m not entirely alone. Face it
fanboys, some of us don’t want smooth touchscreens, we like our clunky
buttons; we enjoy waiting aaaages for a single page to open.
Ok, so
that’s rubbish, but the fact is that while it’s been overshadowed by
iPhone and Android handsets recently, there’s still a lot of
Blackberries out there and they’re a popular choice for business.
Sometimes though, you need more than just email, and while the range isn't as extensive as those offered by other fruitily monikered handsets there's still a solid range of useful (and not so useful) apps available for Blackberry.
Let's check out some of the best...
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by Matt Owen
15 July 2010 12:22pm
10 comments
With the continuing increase in online audiences, the need to cross-purpose your marketing has never been more important.
Multichannel marketing represents revenue for all industries, so the importance of correctly mapping customer behaviour is critical.
However, while web analytics can help you as you attempt to create a better online service, a simple shift in organisational structure may give you access to an ideas pool you’ve haven’t previously utilised. Your staff.
Here’s five quick ways you can get the best out of an integrated approach to improvement, by combining your employees ideas and talents with solid metrics to create a better service.
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by Matt Owen
16 July 2010 12:01pm
1 comment
Hi! I’m your boss! You can tell I’m important because I smoke cigars and
seem to know very little about what it is you actually do down in
marketing, or wherever it is you work.
However, according to my niece, Facebook is
the hip place where all the cool kidz is at, and I’d like a slice of
that tasty social pie. Now.
You have three weeks to put together
an impressive Facebook presence. Surely no social media manager on
Earth could accomplish such a feat?
C’mon, let’s go win at Facebook…
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by Matt Owen
19 July 2010 11:43am
19 comments
In today’s Start Me Up we hear from Heikki Haldre, CEO of Fits.me, a
unique company utilising biorobotics to help transform the online
clothing retail market.
If you run a B2C focussed start-up and would like to be featured in a future Start Me Up, then please let me know: matt.owen@econsultancy.com
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by Matt Owen
14 July 2010 11:30am
2 comments
There are hundreds of statistical guides
showing the beneficial effects of having a presence on Facebook,
Twitter, LinkedIn and any number of other networks, but the despite all
the buzz there still seems to be a lag in adoption, with a large amount
of small to mid-level businesses choosing to opt out of the social
sphere.
It’s easy to assume this is down to a lack of knowledge
regarding the benefits, but are there legitimate obstacles which are
making companies decide that social media isn’t for them?
I decided to look at some of the more common issues facing groups deciding whether or not they need a social media presence:
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by Matt Owen
14 July 2010 10:21am
16 comments
