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.

Calculating the cost of social media

money Imagine an advertising and marketing platform that reaches billions around the world, and doesn’t cost you a penny.

Free to get involved, free to share and promote content, with a massive locked-in audience who will actively promote your content for you.

Unfortunately it doesn’t exist. Social media is many things but despite several statements to the contrary, free is not one of them.

by Matt Owen 23 July 2010 09:24am 4 comments

Best defence: governing your multichannel campaigns.

Low costs, global reach, easy implementation and tracking. The benefits of multichannel digital marketing are manifold, but there's still a definite tendency by many companies to play on the safe side.

A large number of employers simply don't trust their staff to remain on message when taking their first steps into multichannel, and with social outreach at an all time high there certainly are examples that back up that age-old adage: To err is human.

by Matt Owen 22 July 2010 11:42am 1 comment

Inception: multichannel marketing that works like a dream

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.

by Matt Owen 21 July 2010 08:51am 5 comments

Ten ways to get ahead on LinkedIn

LinkedIn-button 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.

by Matt Owen 21 July 2010 11:08am 12 comments

How to improve local search rankings

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...

by Matt Owen 22 July 2010 09:04am 10 comments

Listen up! A guide to Twitter engagement

listen up 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?

by Matt Owen 20 July 2010 09:08am 3 comments

How to find a social media influencer

social-media-influencer 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...

by Matt Owen 20 July 2010 09:56am 3 comments

Ten great apps for Blackberry

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...

by Matt Owen 15 July 2010 12:22pm 10 comments

Five ways your staff can improve your multichannel marketing

Team 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.

by Matt Owen 16 July 2010 12:01pm 1 comment

How to win at Facebook in three weeks

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.