Latest Web Engagement News & Articles

 Marketing has become everything you do. Everyone in your organization is a marketer.

Soon you will be able to measure online display advertising using Facebook data and TV-style reporting. Nielsen, who knows a thing or two about ratings, is getting ready to release Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings, which is just finishing up a six-month trial.

As mobile platforms become more and more popular as tools for information sharing and social networking, businesses are also looking into the potentials of location-targeting in marketing and collaboration. Smartphones and tablet computers — including the iPhone, iPad, Android devices and others — can also take advantage of location-awareness, with which a new social networking application by BitFlx (news, site) lets users share videos that are time-bound and location-aware.

Webtrends (news, site) beefed up its analytics portfolio yet again today, this time with the acquisition of real-time analytics company Reinvigorate. Now, Webtrends will offer real-time and historical analytics for mobile, social and web channels. 

No matter your social media marketing strategy, we’ve all questioned its validity and viability. What we’re doing seems to be working, but how can we be sure? There are so many variables to track and consider that sorting it all out can make your brain hurt. While we can’t offer you a tried-and-true equation, we can offer you a few insights inspired by Argyle’s recent Data Driven Social Marketing webinar.

Why should you have to build two separate versions of your website to satisfy mobile users?

Native apps, the bouncing icons that dot your smartphone screen, have dominated the mobile computing landscape. Programmed purely for your device’s operating system, they complete highly specified tasks in an attractive manner on a less powerful device. However, there’s another way. HTML5, CSS3 and updates to JavaScript are making feature rich mobile computing available through your mobile Web browser; they’re called Web apps and you don’t download them to your phone, you access them over the Web. But the native app/web app comparison is far from one-to-one. And when deciding whether to pursue one or the other for your business, there is much to consider.

Vendors supporting the not quite approved HTML5 on mobile devices just increased by one. Customer engagement solution provider Alterian (news, site) has announced that its Content Manager Mobile solution has now includes an HTML5 Optimizer.

Australian based enterprise content management provider, Elcom (news, site), has a released a super secret (well not that secret) preview of what’s coming in its 7.5 release of CommunityManager.NET at the end of August. We couldn’t resist the urge to look.

Eqentia (news, site) added a handful of perks to its knowledge management portal this week. The bundle, candidly referred to as Eqentia+ by company founder William Mougayar, includes enhanced content and people discovery. 

Web content management provider Hippo (news, site) released version 7.6 in July, offering some love to its developers. But there's more to this open source Web CMS, as we see from the newest Ars Logica Compass Review.

Facebook has opened up a world of good with the official launch of its Marketing API Program. Previously limited to just a few companies, the new welcome mat invites all developers to create tools for campaign management and performance tracking. 

While the Leaders in Gartner's Social CRM quadrant exhibit characteristics match today's needs, it's the Visionaries that demonstrate an understanding of future market trends. Two familiar names made the cut this year:

In the midst of an exceedingly hot and volatile environment, Gartner has updated its Social CRM Magic Quadrant, naming three vendors that have managed to keep their heads above water.

As long as the iPad, iPhone, and iPod continue to dominate the mobile landscape, flash-based websites and applications will be rendered obsolete. HTML5 promises to be the future, as demonstrated by every new Apple mobile device, Mac and Safari browser that now supports its open standards. If Adobe had any hopes of partnering with, and in return, profiting from Apple, they needed to distract users away from its proprietary Flash applications and towards a new HTML5 program. Enter Adobe Edge.

This week saw the end of our July editorial focus on cross channel Customer Experience. However, our recent mobile poll results showed that the mobile web is rapidly climbing your priority lists, and staying there.

We also looked at how context can define a great online customer experience with Ian Truscott, 5 ways a Web CMS supports cross-channel marketing with Patrick Emmons and 4 ingredients for a successful social web strategy with Adam Mertz.

Along similar lines, applying social media practices to social business turns out not to work so well. Our popular article 4 Best Practices for Transitioning from Social Media to Social Business steers you over the common hurdles.

In the news the W3C updated their content internalization checker, Web CMS vendor Ektron released a significant update, and uncle Google readied Google+ for Business.

In August we'll be taking a deep dive into SharePoint in the Enterprise — taking an in-depth look at where SharePoint is strongest, where it relies on partners most and where other platforms/solutions are a better fit. Stay cool. Stay tuned.

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• Content Strategy: 5 Tips on Working with an Information Architect
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Editor's Picks

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Featured Events (all events | post an event)

• Aug 23, 2011 — UX Week 2011 - San Francisco
• Sep 12, 2011 — Semphonic X Change 2011 Web Analytics Conference
• Sep 13, 2011 – Enterprise Tomorrow Conference - San Francisco 2011
• Sep 26, 2011 – Telligent's The Big Social 2011
• Nov 08, 2011 — Sentiment Analysis Symposium San Francisco

Featured Jobs (all jobs | post a job)

• Project Manager at Ideas On Purpose
• Partner Development Manager at Whaleshark Media
• Website Manager at Symmetricom
• Communication Analyst at The Obama Campaign
• Solutions Architect at Acquia

Lately it's been all about the customer experience and customer experience management. Accordingly, this week our contributing experts focused on improving context and honing in on the customer's voice. 

Today's website success metrics rarely include the quality of the site experience as a distinct concept and according to a recent report from Forrester, that’s a big mistake: "Without dedicated customer experience metrics, companies can’t tell whether the site experience actually got better or how changes in the quality of that experience affected the site’s business performance." Here's a summary of three practices you can start to fill this gap: 

This month we polled you, our dear readers, on the importance of mobile in your Customer Experience Management strategy. The results are in and what we see is that mobile is rapidly taking a seat right next to your normal websites, and will likely soon move out in front.

Customer communication is a fundamental part of holistic customer experience management (CEM). Traditionally, the goal of CEM programs has been to turn customers into loyal brand advocates by ensuring a positive experience with the product or service. But true CEM programs are also driven by the desire to give customers the best possible experience communicating with their providers.