Matt Owen
Matt Owen is Head of Social Media 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, and 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 before joining Econsultancy. 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.
Read more
It’s been yet another busy week on #TheDigitals leaderboard, with over 6,000 of you tweeting and sharing some amazing content that you think is worthy of an illustrious Digital award. Thanks for all your tweets and contributions, we’re really building up a huge library of outstanding digital content.
The familiar face of @DanBarker is still sitting proudly at the top of the board for a second week, managing to clock up an astounding 210 mentions in the last week! Well done again Dan – influence in action!
So the question is: Who can knock him off the top spot and be our next Digital Superstar?
Read more...
by Matt Owen
15 February 2013 12:50pm
0 comments
Social media attribution is BIG news.
Marketers are struggling to attribute revenue to social channels, and lack of definable ROI is one of the major reasons that businesses cut back on social investment.
I spend a lot of time looking at our own social attribution, but it strikes me that in many cases, the closer I look, the less clear a picture I have.
This isn’t because the figures I have to work with aren’t clear.
It’s because, in a lot of cases, they might not be true...
Read more...
by Matt Owen
12 February 2013 11:39am
47 comments
It’s been a riotous week on #TheDigitals leaderboard, with nefarious ReTweet covenants being struck, random hashtagging explosions and even a bit of cold hard cash being thrown around as various parties try their best to scale to the dizzy heights of superstar of the week!
In the end though there can be only one, so this week we’re congratulating web and online marketing whizz (and occasional Econsultancy guest blogger) Dan Barker – Well done Dan!
Read more...
by Matt Owen
08 February 2013 11:44am
0 comments
Twitter is Econsultancy’s largest and busiest social channel. At time of writing we have about 125,000 followers there, and are growing consistently.
Keeping an eye on all the activity there and looking for useful opportunities takes up a substantial part of my day, and while there are a number of paid services that can update me and keep me supplied with reports, I also like to check in realtime throughout the day.
I thought I’d quickly run through the various searches I have in place so that you can set up an effective realtime monitoring station...
Read more...
by Matt Owen
06 February 2013 11:15am
12 comments
Congratulations to our very first #TheDigitals Super Star of the Week: @WillPScott!
In his own words, Will is a "Self confessed geek, working in online/social media" and has certainly worked his social to acheive this lofty and much-coveted position by being an all-star social sharer this week, promoting the biggest and best awards in Digital to his followers and creating genuine engagement (that means no hashtag spamming, plenty or ReTweets and genuine mentions).
Congratulations Will!
Want to be a future superstar? Read on...
Read more...
by Matt Owen
01 February 2013 10:26am
0 comments
Over the past few days, you may have noticed #TheDigitals hashtag popping up regularly on Twitter.
If you don’t know what The Digitals are then go find out now! (Don’t worry, we’ll wait)
We love it when people share our stuff, but there’s more to this than just an engaged audience; We’re running a leaderboard to help spread the word about the biggest, brightest awards in digital and we want your help!
Of course, this is social media we’re talking about, so there has to be a prize right? You betcha there is...
Read more...
by Matt Owen
31 January 2013 10:42am
0 comments
Image sharing social platform Pinterest is currently testing a new look, granting access to a 'select few' users before rolling out changes to in the near future.
So far, so-so. Not a day passes without social sites tinkering with their layout or functionality, but given Pinterest's incredible performance in the realm of ecommerce referrals, this could be an important one.
Let's take a closer look...
Read more...
by Matt Owen
29 January 2013 14:44pm
3 comments
Not all Twitter followers are created equal.
Chasing large numbers for their own sake is a very dangerous game that a lot of brands still fall into, but unless you’re doing customer service there’s often no real point in following back everyone who follows you.
That isn’t to say that there’s no value in a large audience. Having a thousand people who really do like your brand and who talk about you has all sorts of benefits, from increasing lead potential to good old fashioned brand lift. Buzz really does count in many cases.
With this in mind, how do you sort the wheat from the chaff, and how do you make sure your important followers stick with you? I’ve been looking into the levels of churn on our own accounts recently, and thought it would be worth sharing my findings and start thinking about ways to address this...
Read more...
by Matt Owen
28 January 2013 11:05am
0 comments
In a surprising move, it appears LinkedIn has plans to turn off its 'Answers' Q&A section at the end of January.
The official word is that "As of Jan. 31, LinkedIn Answers will be retired from LinkedIn. We will be focusing our efforts on the development of new and more engaging ways to share and discuss professional topics across LinkedIn" (some users have received emails to this effect, although so far there's little on LinkedIn's official blog about the move).
It appears that LinkedIn will be using this change to drive more engagement around groups and pages, but is this really a good thing?
Read more...
by Matt Owen
21 January 2013 12:41pm
10 comments
Back in 2011, sentiment analysis for Twitter was just beginning to phase into mainstream business conciousness.
So, when London-based DCM Capital announced a hedge fund based on Twitter sentiment it was a bold move that ultimately didn't gain the exposure the company were looking for, and the project closed after a few short months.
The company has continued to refine its algorithms however, and recently spoke to Bloomberg about their latest project: A spread-betting platform based entirely on social media sentiment...
Read more...
by Matt Owen
14 January 2013 11:11am
2 comments
