Tagged: marketing RSS

  • teresa 1:01 pm on January 19, 2010 Permalink
    Tags: , marketing,   

    “Earth.org has gone Google” – do you remember the video Otto made in Bali, explaining why we use Google Apps? Well, we sent that video to Google. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXqHLbpe9ic)
    Today I got an email from Vivian, who is part of Google’s Marketing team, telling me that they would like to show our video at an internal Google event to the audience. Yeah yeah yeah!!!
    I just imagine who will be sitting there watching our video… it’s the Google team! :-D

     

  • rafaelmichalczuk 6:22 am on December 12, 2009 Permalink
    Tags: marketing, ,   

    http://www.unep.org/BILLIONTREECAMPAIGN/ The official website of the UNEP and it’s billion tree campaign. Good ideas how to display trees: video podcast, “Find your trees on Google Maps”, greening the world map. Just take a look!

     

  • Rob 6:52 pm on December 9, 2009 Permalink
    Tags: , marketing   

    Dear colleagues and Earth.org friends,

    There is some important mover and shaker news to be noted from the Earth.org marketing team. I will be moving out of the marketing lead position and I am handing over to Anne for marketing management responsibilities starting 1 February 2010.

    I tell you this with great pain in my heart. Earth.org has become an important and large part of my life, but recent opportunities in my other job at NHTV University in Breda led to a situation in which I needed to make this tough decision. I surely wish that I could continue on both fronts, but due to time-constraints this is sadly not possible.

    But please note: I WILL NOT BE GONE! I mean, how could I? I will stay in the team on a volunteer basis, you’ll see me commenting on the blog, sharing travel knowledge on the website and above all supporting Anne in sales and marketing wherever I can and wherever needed.

    For the immediate future, I don’t think that we could have introduced anyone better our own Anne for taking over the marketing responsibilities. She is already deeply involved in the project, she knows all the people involved, and we know that especially from a knowledge and dedication point of view she will be a perfect match. Furthermore, her sales experience and communication skills will be a great driver for Earth.org at a time where outward communication is what we need most!

    Practically: for the coming two months, I am still here and in order to make sure that Anne knows everything she needs to know in order to take over in February, we will start to involve her in all marketing related matters immediately.

    Warm regards from Breda,
    Rob

     

    • valentin 7:38 pm on December 9, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Thanks for everything you’ve done for EDO and gald to see you’re sticking around as a volunteer!!!
      Have fun with your endeavours at NHTV! Keep rockin mate!

    • Anne 7:40 pm on December 9, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Rob, thanks for your nice words, it was cool working with you in India and remotely, good luck with everything and anyway see you next week in NL!

    • Thomas 10:34 pm on December 9, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Hey Rob, it was nice working with you and I think will be in future, too! :-) Wishing you only the best and and being glad, that you “just change status”…

    • Mathias 10:47 pm on December 9, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Hi Rob, thanks for all the time you were working with us. It was always (and STILL WILL BE) a pleasure working together with you!! All the best for your job at NHTV!!

    • david 10:41 am on December 10, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Since you wont leave, I wont say goodbye :-) All the best Rob

    • otto 10:54 am on December 10, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Can a handover be more smooth :lol: ?
      Agree with David, Rob is not gone, so there is no good bye for you, sorry ;-)
      And a big heeeeeeeeeeelllllllllllllooooooooooooooo aaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeee!

    • Cristiano 12:12 pm on December 10, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Thank you Rob for you presence and compliments Anne for the new position. It is a big responsibility to go on with the task carried on by Rob but I am sure that your skills, enthusiasm and Creativity will be your and our strength.

    • teresa 2:05 pm on December 10, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Rob, also NO good bye from my side!! Though I’d like to say thank you for EVERYTHING!! I remember so well when you (and Otto) got me into this project in 2007, as well as our time spent together in Bangalore… therefore I am very happy that you remain part of Earth.org!! I am sure you do a great job at NHTV university and I wish you all the best for your next step in life!
      So now my new boss will be Anne :-D that’s gonna be a lot of fun and new inspiration and I am looking forward to work closely with my French frie(nd) :-D

    • mareikeonearthorg 4:45 pm on December 10, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Well then… have a good start at NHTV!!! :D

    • rafaelmichalczuk 11:27 am on December 11, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Hey Rob, most important that you will be with us! Hope that you will also enjoy your work as Earth.org Ambassador of Breda! :)

  • Rob 10:32 am on November 24, 2009 Permalink
    Tags: marketing, ,   

    Just spoke to Rafael. We're adopting a … 

    Just spoke to Rafael. We’re adopting a Social Media suggestion from Cat to launch a 2nd twitter channel focussed only on travel: http://www.twitter.com/opentravelguide The main idea is to get ambassadors to post their best content once a week. This way we get a constant stream of best content of Earth.org going on Twitter. Additionally we can post any travel related blogposts there as well, or maybe responsible travel companies we find interesting to share with the tweetosphere :)

    http://www.twitter.com/earth_dot_org
    So now we have our corporate twitter channel on which we post team updates, product news, open positions in the team, remote work stuff and so on (basically what we’ve been doing the past months).

    http://www.twitter.com/opentravelguide
    This is now our Earth.org travel channel on Twitter -> come and follow us!

     

    • steve 1:01 pm on November 24, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      i noticed earth_dot_org had 1,500+ followers, so i guess it’s not only our team.
      if you switch travel news to the other channel you loose a big chunk of audience, right? maybe better use the new channel for team news n stuff?

      • Rob 2:24 pm on November 24, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Hi Steve, we’ve been only tweeting about corporate stuff on the “old” twitter-line for the past months. It will not make a big difference. And if they decide to switch over, that is fine too.

        • Rafael 6:06 am on November 25, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          @Steve, @Rob – I think we should think over the process, because there are reasonable arguments to change our strategy a bit and to find something like a “automatical” solution as a RSS feed of the blog posts tagged as “Earth.org Ambassadors” send to Twitter. I will be in touch with you both and we can discuss it together.

          • Rob 9:58 pm on November 25, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

            I agree that we need to think about the process, getting all ambassadors involved might be a step to far. But asking them to share excellent content with us and with the tweeple interested hardly seems a stretch. Anyway – if they wrote something great, they are likely to be proud of it, more that willing to share. Am I wrong?

            Also, I don’t like automated processes – they are bordering too closely on SPAM.

    • cat 4:55 pm on November 24, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Yey! Glad to see my work being put to good use :-)

      • valentin 11:24 pm on November 25, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        you can add that account to the friend feed account too so both pop up in the stream on the right.

    • danwtmoon 11:47 am on November 26, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      :S couple of comments:

      a) everyone knows Twitter is 140 characters? having a nice long name like opentravelguide is a barrier for RT which are very powerful medium for engagement

      b) the stumbleupon link for announcing the new account means anyone on a mobile device / app will have a poor experience and have to jump through a few hoops to follow the new account because of the limited twitter.com functionality – we really should be just referencing the direct @ account

      c) it’s interesting on twitter the travel guide has a different naming convention than the website… this doesn’t seem to be in line with having a simple consistent brand naming covention for users to easily understand

      d) 100% pure automated updates are of course spammy but having updates come through automatically from other content areas such as fbook, ffeed, digg etc is an excellent way of building the account and so we should be adding feeds to the account

      e) i agree with @steve switching the content displaces any trust / expectation already built up with existing followers

      I think it would be good if EDO organised an open invite call for EDO team members to contribute to executions such as this as there’s opportunity for improvement IMHO… If no one joins in then they’re happy with how things are.. If people join in then more useful feedback is gained…

      Hope this feedback helps, thanks

      Dan

      • Rob 8:17 pm on November 26, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Hi Dan, Steve, Rafael, Otto,

        Thanks for the feedback.

        a) 140 characters…
        We are aware of that yes. Weighed pros cons / using our claim + explaining the content that is to be expected outweighed diluting the brand and using 2nd grade domains.

        b) the stumbleupon link ….
        Good point, do you have suggestions for a twitter client that gives similar stats on click throughs? I’d be happy to switch.

        c) naming convention…
        Where are we not complying? With: opentravelguide? As we’re already using earth_dot_org, why is using our main claim (see logo) so bad? Or did I miss something?

        d) 100% pure automated updates are of course spammy but having updates come through automatically from…
        fBook, ffeed at the moment is only syndicating some blogposts and the Twitter account, it makes no sense at all to automatically pull in our own tweets. For sure we can add such a feed later, when more effort can be put into creating some added value on those platforms.

        e) switching the content displaces any trust / expectation….
        Please read what I wrote in my other comment, for the past 3 months the twitter channel has not been about travel. It has mostly been about remote work, HR, product news, team mutations etc. And before that it was about travel, sure, but not so much about Earth.org travel – our twitter was filled with only stuff from other websites. Which is not a bad thing, don’t get me wrong – it was just not about Earth.org at all.

        In general, I applaud the open communication we’re having on the blog these days and I would be the last one to tell anyone to keep their opinions to themselves. I definitely appreciate your suggestions and well-founded criticism; so please keep commenting and discussing – we can all learn a lot from each other!

        But also understand that we cannot pitch every idea to the rest of the team before we act on something. Such an approach has proven to slow us down too much. I understand that the 2nd twitter channel on travel might not be something you’d have done in the exact same way. However, I will take everything to heart and decide what suggestions to use, and which to ignore. I am sure you understand that too.

        Best from Breda,
        Rob

        • danwtmoon 5:07 pm on November 27, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          a) edo? ;)

          b) http://bit.ly is generally the better solution for short URL’s with analytics (it’s he default service Twitter uses for tweets with URLs over 30 characters)

          the point was though not to link via URL but include as an @ as using URL will send app / mobile users to m.twitter.com which is an interface lacking in usability and known for not remembering you therefore when i view the tweet on a mobile I go tweet > su.pr > twitter.com > login > find tweet (m.twitter.com doesn’t have any sort of persistance) > click link > su.pr > follow

          vs

          just include the @ so it’s tweet > click @ > follow

          c) general rule of not making it complex for the customer… I’m on earth.org every day pretty much and I have genuinely never noticed the tag of open travel guide being part of the logo… what sticks is earth.org

          hence i was thinking stick to the product name and not a subname or something which could be confusing

          d) vice versa… not pulling tweets but pushing out content from other source via twitter

          e) suggest to update @earth_dot_org (can we change this finally to @earthdotorg?!) bio with ref to @opentravelguide ?

          @Rob – I think taking the comments on with the attitude you have is what will make EDO a success… You’re spot on we’d still be discussing and not doing if you hadn’t just done it… Keep just doing and keep listening the way you are as it’s all good but also tell us when we’re not helpful ;)

          PS – apparently we have over 100 new articles a day added… Seems like at least 10% can be used to update social media channels as an FYI?!

    • Imogen 5:27 pm on November 27, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Don’t understand most of this, but would like to respond to the ‘PS’ :-) In principle I agree that articles should be used as SM updaters… But am a bit nervous about doing that until content standards are 100% – quality, procedures, etc etc. Thoughts?

    • danwtmoon 6:10 pm on November 27, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      possibly not a fit for copy but at work i like the dev approach of

      “release often, release early”

      • Imogen 11:58 am on November 28, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        good point… doesn’t ease the nerves, but makes sense :-)

  • Rob 2:41 pm on November 18, 2009 Permalink
    Tags: analytics, marketing, ,   

    Earth.org new site design, 36 hours later – some amazing results 

    About 36 hours ago our new site design went live on Earth.org with tons of usability improvements. Besides positive feedback from the team and friends, we’re also seeing the results already showing up in our Google Analytics overview. Just to give you an idea of the big step we took forward I’ll share some metrics with you:
    Pageviews are up by 93%
    Time on site is up by 43%
    Pages per visit are up 48%
    Bouncerate is down by 11%
    These are some really impressive numbers which give us a fantastic view on the effects of the improvements. We have clearly chosen a right path and these numbers are great motivation to keep improving!
    Thanks again to everyone who worked so hard to get this done!

    About 36 hours ago our new site design went live on Earth.org with tons of usability improvements. Besides positive feedback from the team and friends, we’re also seeing the results already showing up in our Google Analytics overview. Just to give you an idea of the big step we took forward I’ll share some metrics with you:

    - Pageviews are up by 93%
    - Time on site is up by 43%
    - Pages per visit are up 48%
    - Bounce rate is down by 11%

    These are some really impressive numbers which give us a fantastic view on the effects of the improvements. We have clearly chosen a right path and these numbers are great motivation to keep improving!

    Thanks again to everyone who worked so hard to get this done!

     

    • Imogen 2:42 pm on November 18, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Great stats!!

    • Alfreda 3:06 pm on November 18, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      thanks for following up on this Rob. have always ‘meant’ to do it, didn’t get around to yet. i’ll make it a point to get into Analytics periodically as well. but pls let me know if you need help deciphering any numbers..

    • kalmanp 11:19 am on November 19, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Congratulations, to ALL of you! I’ve just checked the new design, and it is very impressive! I wish you can get a lot closer to your dream with this much better structured UI!

  • Rob 10:26 am on November 16, 2009 Permalink
    Tags: marketing, orange guidebook,   

    Was coordinating Orange Guidebook launch (ambassadors can start marketing the destinations now) as well as Write and Plant open sponsor search. Next on the agenda is breakfast :)

     

  • Rob 8:07 pm on November 14, 2009 Permalink
    Tags: contest, marketing, mashable, nomination, OWA, vote   

    I just nominated our blog for the Open Web Awards by Mashable. @all: please click on the banner below and vote us up, up, up! Come back every day and vote again! Oh yeah, and don’t forget to get your friends to vote as well!

     

  • Rob 5:20 pm on November 4, 2009 Permalink
    Tags: , delicious, , marketing, rateitall, , , ,   

    You are our best promoters! 

    Hi everyone!

    YOU, our team, volunteers, ambassadors, users and readers:

    You are our best promoters!

    Photo credit: altemark

    Photo credit: altemark

    You know Earth.org, you know why you LOVE it and you can best explain why other people should start loving it too!!

    So go out, communicate and talk to people about the travel guide, about our remote work, about our non-profit approach,about our blog etc. etc. etc.

    Go on and:

    • communicate on your Twitter account and link to our pages!
    • mention your hometown on Earth.org in your Facebook status updates
    • publish links to our videos on your social networks
    • Tag our pages (travel guide, blog, remote work, jobs, etc.) on your Delicious account!
    • Rate Earth.org on Rateitall!
    • Comment and rate our Youtube videos!

    And I am sure there are more options!

    Let your suggestions be heard in the comments! Share with everyone else how you used your voice to communicate the messages of Earth.org!

    Together we will make a lot of noise :)

     

    • steve 8:59 am on November 5, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      i agree with this, but maybe let’s wait we have the redesign and messaging going live so that the traffic we drive by these efforts converts into more new users from an improved web experience.

      • Rob 2:36 pm on November 5, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        No problem Steve! Everybody should start already! After redesign everyone will have a great NEW reason to shout out again :)

        Go forth and communicate thyselves!

  • otto 11:50 am on October 6, 2009 Permalink
    Tags: marketing, ,   

    9 Ways to Take Your Site from One to One Million Users – a reading recommendation from ma: http://carsonified.com/blog/web-apps/9-ways-to-take-your-site-from-one-to-one-million-users/
    I like also for Earth.org recommendation no.1:
    “….#1. Ego
    1. Ask yourself: Does this feature increase the users self-worth or stoke the ego?
    2. If a user is contributing to my system, what emotional rewards do they walk away with? What (visible) rewards will they receive?….”

     

  • catfraser 6:27 pm on October 1, 2009 Permalink
    Tags: bookmarks, , marketing, , research,   

    Good to catch up with Teresa and hear about the new website plans! Off to hunt for case studies on how marketers are using twitter and cutting through all the noise.

    if anyone has any thoughts, maybe we could add to our delicious account? There hasn’t been much posted there for awhile….http://delicious.com/tag/4edo

     

  • otto 4:51 pm on September 23, 2009 Permalink
    Tags: marketing   

    Weekly meeting with Rob!

     

  • otto 3:31 pm on September 15, 2009 Permalink
    Tags: marketing, toys   

    Visited this morning http://www.reset.to, an NGO here in Berlin. They want to expand to India – and asked me some Indian specific questions. On the run we also talked about TOYS, they are interested in integrated our travel guide content to the locations where they have social projects. Rob, something you can take forward as soon as we have TOYS in place.

     

    • Rob 10:05 pm on September 15, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Great! I’ll put them on the list with you as a entrypoint for contact :) Thanks Otto.

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