5 Early Wins For Mutual Fund, ETF Companies Using Social Media

I couldn’t get enough of the coverage this week of the 25th birthday of the World Wide Web, celebrated yesterday.

Originally, this post was going to be about what the Web has done for mutual fund and exchange-traded fund (ETF) communicating, with a few reminiscences.

For example, I smiled when I read this line from the inventor of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee, on a Google post Tuesday.

Thanks to the Web, Berners-Lee wrote, “You can link to any piece of information. You don’t need to ask for permission.”

Right, I’d forgotten! In the late 1990s, wirehouse account people actually asked for permission to link (their Intranets) to mutual fund company Websites. Ah, the innocence of those early days.

Instead for today, I’ve gravitated toward something fresher and, at this point, evolving more dramatically: The effect that participation in social media is having on how fund companies communicate with their many stakeholders. Let’s date the start of this to four years ago, right about when FINRA released its Regulatory Notice 10-06 in January 2010. I can think of five early wins.

1. Communicating at a higher level than product

As an example, access to Twitter came at just the right time for asset managers willing to provide a steady stream of information about municipal bond markets.

Starting in 2010 with Northern Trust’s @Fixedology account (since renamed @NTInvest) and followed by municipal-focused @RochesterFunds, @MainStayMunis and other broader asset manager accounts, 140 characters have proved sufficient space for pithy updates about markets, issue sizes, demand, etc. all clustered around the #muni hashtag or derivations.

In the last four years, what's going on with municipal bonds has been a topic that many others, and most notably the media, vitally cared about. Twitter provided asset managers an easy entrée into a conversation they could contribute to.

The notion that muni communicators could use a different communication channel to call attention to in-house insights or even just facts was new. Until 2008 or so, it was the equity funds, their stories and their management teams that typically dominated the marketing and public relations resources. And, regardless of the asset class or the timeliness of the comment, there would have been a limit imposed on the number of communications PR would have been willing to initiate—as in, "We can't reach out to a reporter on the same topic too often."

But, a Twitter account can. I’m convinced that steady, consistent communicating served the tweeting firms in good stead when, late in 2010, Meredith Whitney predicted a municipal bond "day of reckoning."

A crisis was avoided but the accounts tweet on, as shown in this random collection of information-packed Rochester Funds tweets. Note that many #muni tweets simply impart information, don't even require the reader to click a link.

Net revenue collections for FY ’14, July – Feb, in Puerto Rico are 10.2% higher than last year. Higher revenues = positive for bondholders.

— Rochester Funds (@RochesterFunds) March 5, 2014

Meeting today with some Puerto Rico creditors in NYC. We were not invited, nor will we attend. PR wasn’t invited either.

— Rochester Funds (@RochesterFunds) January 16, 2014

We agree with @Muni_Mkt_Advisor's Robert Donahue: "Puerto Rico's leaders are showing considerable courage” h/t @TheBondBuyer

— Rochester Funds (@RochesterFunds) December 26, 2013

Look for more of this social media-enabled content leadership, as the industry educates on alternative investing in particular.

2. Better customer intelligence

Some firms have a much better understanding of the financial advisors who use their mutual funds or ETFs than they did five years ago.

Because of the benefits to them of participating on social networks, advisors have been creating profiles and sharing information—all of which savvy asset managers recognize as valuable customer intelligence. (See this 2009 post for an early perspective on the opportunity.)

When third-party data providers (like Meridian-IQ to name a current-day example) first made advisors’ AUM and production data available, that was the first step in asset managers growing their customer databases with more than just the uneven data input by the wholesaling staff. APIs available from LinkedIn and other social platforms today and CRM integrations available provide real-time, qualitative information that salespeople know how to use to advance offline conversations.

At the 1:14 mark of the following Nimble video, you'll see an example of how social account information is being added to CRMs.  

Nimble Grid View and Smart Summary of Contacts from Nimble Marketing on Vimeo.

It is the rare investment company that is mining this data today. However, many firms are doing something, even if in a low-tech way, or by just adding social CRM to their roadmaps. This will provide a competitive advantage. 

3. Better visibility for initiatives

It can be a thrill to work for a firm with millions of shareholders or investors. However, communicating with them in print usually takes too much time and is cost-prohibitive, two challenges somewhat addressed by the advent of Websites and email. But there, too, there are reasons to take a measured approach. A firm can’t communicate “too often” for fear of fatiguing its lists, and no single initiative can consume too much of the enterprise's communication resources.

Enter Facebook, an extremely accommodating environment to discuss corporate responsibility and community initiatives and to foster engagement. Check out the John Hancock Boston Marathon posts for one timely example. 

Or, consider the single-focus opportunity that a blog affords, as Putnam demonstrates with its five blogs on five niche topics: perspectives, wealth management, advisor technology tips, retirement and absolute return.  

Putnam is also giving a master class on how to use social media to extend the value and life of research findings.

Do you remember the social media research Putnam released last October? Previously, a firm might have conducted research, prepared a whitepaper, launched a microsite, issued a press release and then its news would fade from the news cycle in about a week. Because the research was right on-point for its Advisor Tech Tips blog, Putnam continues to post additional survey-based insights, which in turn prompts sharing and new attention for the research.

4. More natural exchanges

When you talk to people only periodically, there’s a tendency to be more formal and need to say more. Four times a year-reporting means that there's always going to be a lot to have to catch people up on. Updating via social media, though, can be more conversational, even natural.

For its plain-spokenness and word economy, this @Vanguard_Group tweet (which was as a Rock The Boat Marketing 2012 content highlight) continues to be one of my all-time favorite asset manager communications.

Our Advisors app for iPad product comparison tool was too slow. We fixed it. Try it now. http://t.co/Ltoduy5r

— Vanguard | Advisors (@Vanguard_FA) November 17, 2012

We all know how this would have been approached in every other medium—a lot of background information, a mumbo-jumbo quote and a description of the app’s new capabilities. It’s hard to imagine a Web page with just these three sentences on it. The best fund companies on Twitter are keeping it real. (Also, see 2013: Time To Show Some Personality (And All That Implies).)

Theoretically, there’s no better way to project naturalness than to sit in front of a video camera and talk. Except that over the years, investment professionals and the perfectionist marketers who work with them have developed a lot of good habits that could use some relaxing to truly succeed on YouTube.

Here again, the Vanguard channel is blazing a trail toward less stilted presentations. Check out their first Google Hangout from December. There are a few rough spots but the fresh, uncanned approach has a contemporary appeal.

Vanguard, one of the first whose blogs allowed comments, is also one of the first money managers to allow Discussion on YouTube. It's inevitable: Through its interactions on Facebook, Twitter and in comments elsewhere, this business will get the knack of responding to investors and others in public.

5. Developing a fuller sense of the ecosystem

In pre-social media days, the enlightened asset managers acknowledged that their business was influenced by people not defined by AUM and sales. Hence, the gatekeeper-type field in a CRM.

But paying attention to social media conversations and interactions surfaces others—industry leaders, investment bloggers and service providers and vendors, also with no production data next to their names. These are influencers that those of us in marketing would have had no awareness of 10 years ago.

Let’s take the example of Cate Long on Twitter, writer of Reuters’ Muniland blog and very influential on the #munis subject with journalists among her top followers. She regularly tweets asset manager (and others') #munis tweets. Of course, she’s in PR’s Contact list, but marketers watching the #munis hashtag know about her, too.

This awareness should be institutionalized—if Long were to sign up for an email newsletter or call in on the 800-number, she should be recognized as someone other than a "non-advisor" in the enterprise CRM.

See where this is going? It’s silo-busting and calls for added collaboration across functions.

A systematic understanding of social networks, as some early adopting firms are starting to develop today, can lead to a fuller sense of the thinking influencing the users of investment products, and result in proactive communicating and marketing.

In what other ways do you see the business being changed by social media? Please add your thoughts below.

Do Google+ And Fund Companies Have A Future Together?

How much longer can asset managers keep their distance from Google+?

The table at right demonstrates the shallowness of fund company engagement on Google+ across the board. Of course, these companies have few followers—there’s almost nothing to follow! Vanguard stands out as an exception but more on that later.

Many fund companies have Google+ pages only because a Google+ account is required to establish a YouTube channel. Fourteen of the 24 names on the list have never posted an update.

From most of the other firms, there are relatively few public posts, almost zero sharing and, as you can see, followers in the low double digits. Engagement data for all the accounts can be found on AllMyPlus.com. It’s mostly goose eggs.

Fidelity Investments, the Mikey of the investment industry (Fidelity will usually try anything), has a page but it doesn’t have any branding, let alone any activity. I, and its 61 other followers, think this is its official page. Two titans on other networks, PIMCO and iShares, are distant also-rans on Google+.

Why is there such indifference to Google+? I can think of a few reasons. If you have other ideas, please add them in the comments below.

Not enough people, not worth the time

Since its launch in June 2011, Google+ has had its doubters. Critics continue to contend that the site is no more than a ghost town where accounts are created and then abandoned.

Google is steadily fighting back on two fronts. For one, it’s increasingly integrating Google properties. In addition to yoking YouTube channel creation to Google+, Google now requires commenters on YouTube to have Google+ accounts.

Google is also steadily enhancing the network’s features (e.g., post embedding, image handling and Google Hangouts—which I've loved for this business from Day 1), all of which help drive usage. In October 2013, Google reported that 540 million people were active across Google each month, and that 300 million people were active in the Google+ stream. 

With its growth trajectory, sharing on Google+ is on track to overtake Facebook sharing in two years, according to Searchmetrics projections.

Not enough relevant discussion

When you consider the composition of Google+ users, it could be tempting to conclude that investment topics would be out of place. According to a third quarter 2013 study by Global WebIndex, almost one-third of users are IT workers (and lots of them employed by Google, it’s believed). Since Day 1, it was reported that techies had found a new haunt.

And, not shown here but reported elsewhere, photographers and others in the visual arts gravitate to Google+ because of the gorgeous way it displays images.

Look at the chart of the bottom 10 types of people who use Google+ and you’ll see two groups that make up a significant percentage of investment firm clients—those in the 45-54 and 55-64 age groups.

Even top financial services accounts on other networks have relatively poor showings on Google+. One of the leading financial services Twitter accounts, Bank of America, has fewer than 23,000 followers on Google+.

Except…then there’s Vanguard. Vanguard’s Google+ page has attracted 770,000-some followers and 928,000 who have +1ed the page. Vanguard has six times the number of followers it has on Twitter.

Props to Vanguard for doing its typical outstanding job in consistently publishing engaging content, appropriate to the network. According to AllMyPlus.com, Vanguard’s single most popular posts have attracted 49 +1s, 18 comments and nine reshares.

Admittedly, this is nowhere near the same kinds of engagement numbers that some consumer brands rack up. For now, Google+ isn't where the home runs are being hit, just singles and doubles.

Vanguard’s success is unique, even among the largest brokerage accounts Charles Schwab (1,200 Google+ followers) and TD Ameritrade (963 Google+ followers).

But, presumably, Vanguard’s followers are people who are interested in investment-type content and could conceivably follow other investment-related accounts.

And get this: While Barron’s has no more than 100 Google+ followers and Yahoo! Finance fewer than 8,000 followers (maybe they’re not trying too hard on Google’s property), the Wall Street Journal has been circled by more than 3 million accounts. (Note the presence of senior decision makers in the top 10 users table above.)

With more than 6 million followers, The Economist account is #10 on the Google+ most followed accounts leaderboard, according to GPlus.com. The numbers lag what's reported on the Google+page but this line chart is a compelling argument against the ghost town claims.

Here’s one of The Economist's recent popular G+ posts. How is this content different from what your firm might share? Note that it attracted 644 +1s and 323 shares.

Not available to regulated firms

With LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook access, technology enablement was the first hurdle for most asset managers contemplating a presence on a site that wasn’t their own. Firms couldn’t make any plans unless they were certain they’d have a reliable way of archiving what they posted.

I doubt this has been the primary inhibitor to Google+ participation. But the ability to archive Google+ content has been slow in coming, confirms my buddy Blane Warrene, founder of Arkovi and most recently of RegEd. 

“The Google API is improving on the Plus front. Google initially released access to the individual profiles, and in mid-2013 to the Business pages. That makes a big difference as a firm can get the data to archive. Many of the known social archivers are adopting the G+ API as it sees momentum,” Blane says.

Although publishing to Google+ from a third-party app is still limited, the posts, interactive data (links, photos, videos et al) and engagement data all are now available, he says.

Nobody we know is there

Participation on Google+ offers significant, not-available-anywhere-else SEO benefits that alone could be justification for posting to it. But, as a social network, it also offers the lift that come when others support posts by +1s and sharing.

Even if hundreds of millions of users are on Google+, it can still be a lonely place when you post and all you hear is crickets.

I continue to be intrigued with a finding in a 2013 Putnam report on social media and advisors. Almost one-third of advisors surveyed (31%) said they used Google+ in the past year for business purposes. It was second only to LinkedIn, as I noted in a post last year. 

Financial advisors today have more of a business imperative to commit to Google+. Their brands need to be discoverable in local Google searches, and Google’s integration of Google+ accounts and whatever online content the advisors author play a key role in search engine rankings.

With archiving capabilities in place for them, expect more advisors to sign up for Google+ and spend some time there, whether browsing or posting content or taking part in communities and Hangouts.

As one measure of advisor activity, I checked two Google+ accounts that might be assumed to have strong advisor interest—+Michael Kitces, a financial planning thought leader, and +Bill Winterberg, a leading commentator on technology for advisors. Both accounts get a healthy level of engagement. 

In short, there are signs of relevant life on Google+.

Should you/can you commit?

In the last year, it’s become urban legend that financial services is the second most discussed topic on Twitter, after entertainment but before sports. Most recently, this was quoted to me from someone who heard it from his Twitter sales rep. I'd still like to see some data on that, but I do believe that if you’re an investment firm, you belong on Twitter, no question.

The Google+ decision to fully participate is not so cut-and-dried. You’d have to be convinced that there’s a community there that’s sufficiently vital to follow your account and then be continually active on Google+ to see and interact with your content.

And if you’re hoping for anywhere near Vanguard-type results, you’ll have to be all-in. That includes “listening” to what’s being said and exploring what's unique to Google+. Sharing others’ content—something practically no investment-related firm does today on Google+—may be needed, too.

May I be direct? In the two-plus years since Google+ launched, we just haven’t seen the kinds of efforts from this industry that other industries have made or that firms in this space have made on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Some firms have yet to even populate the About tabs of their Google business pages. Few of the firms that are posting are doing anything more than posting their YouTube videos or blog posts. Almost none have added the badges to their Websites or include the link to their business pages in their signatures, along with their other social identities.

Hanging back was a relatively no-risk strategy that worked on Google+ in its early days when probably no one was paying attention to you or your sketchy page. It may be time to revisit the decision. Google+ offers an increasingly attractive opportunity to raise awareness and broaden the reach for investment firms willing to work for it.

It’s your prerogative to take a pass on Google+. Just make sure that you have an updated understanding of what you may be forgoing.  

Funds Celebrating Birthdays? Cheers To That

It’s silly, isn’t it, to wish a mutual fund, exchange-traded fund (ETF) or some other investment product a happy birthday?

Courtesy of Will Clayton, CC-BY

Back in the day, when I was responsible for a fund company shareholder newsletter, I used to hate it when product managers suggested that we celebrate a fund birthday. Can you say “party of one”?

But I’m not rolling my eyes so much anymore, and for two reasons.

1. Old Funds Can Be Shareholder-Friendly

There's more awareness now of the “survivorship” of funds and, in contrast, the effect that fund closings have on shareholders.

Of the mutual funds in operation in 1995, less than 40% still existed in 2013. The remaining funds were either closed or merged into other funds. This is according to a study by CFAs Daniel Kern and Gerard Cronin with Tim McCarthy, featured in a December BrightTalk presentation called “Mutual Fund Roulette: Will Your Clients Outlive Their Mutual Funds?” McCarthy’s book, The Safe Investor, was published this week and you may see mention of this study in book reviews.

If you have a venerable old fund coming up on an anniversary—and the study results suggest that it’s a reasonably good fund to still be in existence—it wouldn't hurt to show it a little love. In the best case, you're throwing a spotlight on a fund whose age gives it a certain gravitas. At the very least, a birthday message would remind your clients (advisors and shareholders) that investors in this fund were spared a closing. 

2. The Partying Can Be Purposeful

The communication surrounding a product milestone is able to be much richer today. While all we had space for in the quarterly print newsletter was images of confetti and balloons, there's so much more that can be done online.

Let's take a look at how a few funds have been celebrated.

ETF Providers Get Nostalgic

When you consider that a mutual fund needs a three-year performance record (a Morningstar evaluation threshold) just to be taken seriously, an ETF turning five may not seem like much of an accomplishment.

But many ETFs have legitimate bragging rights when it comes to innovating and opening up access to various markets. In the coming years, you may be drafted into taking part in quite a few ETF birthday celebrations.

In April 2012, iShares wrote a blog post celebrating five years of HYG (the iShares iBoxx High Yield Fund) without overcheering. It was a proportionate remembrance of the environment when the ETF launched.

"...A number of investors were skeptical. The lack of liquidity in the high yield bond space made it an asset class no ETF had dared to enter before. A Seeking Alpha article at the time declared the fund was 'effectively an experiment that can only be judged over time.'”

Today on iShares.com, you’ll still see this quiet image, which is linked to a 2012 whitepaper that recalls the 10-year anniversary and launch of the iBoxx Investment Grade Corporate Bond Fund (LQD), and with it the beginning of fixed-income ETFs.

Demonstrating Conviction And Consistency

When the ClearBridge Aggressive Growth Fund turned 30 last year, it received a full tribute on a Web page, and related communications materials all bear a Celebrating 30 Years seal.

One of the portfolio managers appeared in a natural-seeming video and made a few points about consistency—"So, I'm the new guy on the team and I've been here 17 years...." Below is a screenshot of the video, you'd have to click on it to go to the site to see it.

Reliving The Old Moves

This year is the 25th for BlackRock Global Allocation Fund, and the firm is showing its pride in a few ways. There’s a video, embedded below.

Also take a look at this interactive chart, which displays explanations of the fund’s positioning along a timeline while at the same time adjusting its risk and return chart. Slick.

If a "Celebrate Fund XYZ" meeting pops up on your calendar, don't go with a bad attitude. The party planners will be looking to you to bring the digital fireworks.         

How About Streaming Your Podcasts?

Here’s a friendly reminder that content syndication requires continual monitoring. Opportunities that once seemed bright can dim overtime while new directions are constantly emerging.

A case in point: If you’re an investment firm that offers podcasts to be downloaded, consider making them available to also be streamed. Streaming video (e.g., Netflix) and streaming music (e.g., Pandora) get most of the attention, but faster Internet connections and wider bandwidths have also changed the access habits of podcast listeners.

The ability to forego the downloading and syncing process with a media player in favor of streaming a podcast on-demand significantly improves the podcast listening experience. I can tell you from my own experience that not having to plan ahead has resulted in my listening to even more podcasts, from more devices (desktop, iPad and smartphone) and more faithfully. I am crazy for podcasts. (And if it's data you want, see this TopRank blog post from earlier in the week.)

Stitcher!

As long as you’re going to the trouble to create podcast content, making the podcast available on a streaming service could make an incremental contribution to your listenership.

Stitcher is believed to be “the largest platform for listening on Android and second largest on iOS behind only Apple [iTunes]," according to Libysn, the leading podcast hosting platform quoted in a Stitcher press release in October 2013.

In fact, a look at the top show in Stitcher’s Business and Industry category suggests that Stitcher has listeners who may be interested in what you have to say. Note that NPR’s Planet Money podcast is on 101,000 playlists. Something to strive for.

Many of the leading investment-type podcasts on iTunes can be found on Stitcher, but few investment company podcasts are.

An exception I found is Wells Fargo Advantage Funds' "On The Trading Desk" podcast whose screenshot from an Android phone is to the right.

Like on iTunes, if your podcast isn’t in Stitcher’s top 100, most of the optimization and promotion is up to you. However, see the Discover tab in the screenshot—here’s where a listener to the Wells Fargo podcast might be introduced to yours. As is, the referrals today are to The Dave Ramsey Show, the Suze Orman Show and other media properties.

Next

If I were you, I would:

• Make sure all internally are OK with the idea. Previously, some podcasters have balked at the thought that advertising would be displayed adjacent to their podcasts (see the ad at the bottom of the Wells Fargo image). There's no question that Stitcher has more of a commercial feel than downloading a file via iTunes. But, is this any different from posting content to Facebook or LinkedIn, which also place ads near your content? 

• Review the application process to be accepted as a Stitcher content provider, it’s not much of a hurdle. 

• Blow the dust off all that “download and add to your MP3 player” language on your Website and update it with the explanation that your content can be streamed and added to playlists, too. That will mean that you or someone on your team will have to experience Stitcher in order to write the copy. My bet is you’ll love it.

• Throw a little promotional support behind your podcast when you get the word that your content has been added to Stitcher.

In the investment management space, podcasting has a tired vibe. But elsewhere Internet radio has taken off, and with the demographics that investment firms seek. Below is a screenshot from "The New Mainstream 2013," a study of Internet radio usage and adoption conducted by Edison Research, in partnership with Pandora, Spotify and TuneIn. And, even more on-point, Stitcher says the average podcast listener stays connected for an average of 22 minutes. Wouldn't you want in on that?

22 Content Highlights To Remember From 2013

“And, the audience sprang to its feet and cheered…”

If you’re in the online content business, such physical signs of positive reinforcement are hard to come by. But, know that what you do is appreciated and often celebrated.

The following list contains 22 pieces of content. I cheered these gems when I learned about them at one point or another in 2013 and they've stood the test of as much as 12 months' time.

As in previous Rock The Boat Marketing annual content highlights (last year’s), this is an idiosyncratic compilation across multiple digital marketing subject domains. Most of these I like for their content, some for their design, their delivery or the evolution they represent. They're presented in no particular order.

Want to play along next year? Come join me on Twitter where the majority of these highlights were surfaced by the awesome information hounds I either follow or am led to. In 2013, I also explored more content on LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest—follow me on those networks or just check in once in a while on this site's Resources page.

1. How Google Reads Minds

The results that Google presents to you the searcher are based on how it “understands” the words you type into the search engine. You know what you want but your search query may have literal meanings that you don’t intend.

This excellent Vertical Measures graphic from April details what Google has in place to read your mind, and how that's evolving. The screenshot below is just a slice of the full infographic.

2. No Money Manager Is An Island

Part of being social is taking part in the broader community. Quite a few mutual fund and exchange-traded fund (ETF) firms seemed to acknowledge that this year with how they managed their social accounts. We saw more accounts following others, more sharing of others’ content and an occasional #FF (Follow Friday) recommendation.

No less than PIMCO’s Bill Gross acknowledged that investment and economic insight takes a village—and people showed a lot of interest in who influences this influential money manager. From August, this is one of PIMCO’s all-time most favorited tweets. It would have been too much to expect him to use the Twitter handles.

Gross: Strategists/writers I follow? Dalio, Durden, Bianco, Arnott, Aitken, Santelli, Grant, Grantham, Inker, Marks, Quaintenance & Brodsky

— PIMCO (@PIMCO) August 9, 2013

3. And We Are Doing This Why?

“…The silence around the economics of content is deafening,” says Forrester analyst Ryan Skinner in this July post 16 Ways to Turn Content Marketing into Business Value. Skinner then proceeds to break down what he names as catalysts of content marketing value: brand, next click, relationship, reach, data.

Many firms aspire to be content factories today, which is all well and good. Before you plow ahead into production, read the Skinner post to make sure you’re aligning what you’re doing with what drives value.

4. While You're At It, Throw In Some Sincerity, Too

It’s a good idea to present yourself as authentic and transparent. But, um, as this Tom Fishburne cartoon from June suggests, you may need to bring that in-house.

5. DIY Dashboard Help

Marketers need to be more analytical. That drumbeat got louder and louder as the year progressed. If you’ve ever found yourself looking for Excel training applied for marketers online, you may be happy to learn about this Excel dashboard series. Written by Annie Cushing and augmented by a video or two, it started in June on Search Engine Land and then continued on Marketing Land. 

6. Showing Signs Of Life On Google+

This November update isn’t on the list because the content is break-out. It’s a little more Facebook-y than I like for Google+.

But it’s an example of how the largest mutual fund company is not just experimenting but succeeding (relatively speaking) in engaging people on a social network that most investment companies have decided to ignore.

More than 700,000 people have circled the Vanguard account, 22 people +1ed this post, three shared it and 13 commented. And, what other social network (i.e., somebody else’s platform) provides such open real estate (no ads) for your message and yours alone?

7. A Map Can Show You Where You Need To Go

Infographics were so 2010. Still, I couldn’t resist spending several minutes of my life with this Gartner Digital Marketing Transit Map released in June.

Gartner says, "Organizations should use the map to identify the connection among business functions, applications tracks and providers. Map elements can be used to find additional research or structure questions about strategy and best practices as well as providers, products and selection criteria. It is also a useful device for mediating discussions between marketing and IT."

Show this to the people in your life who think all digital marketers do is email and the Website.

8. Right Time, Right Place

Advertising a financial advisor-only conference call? On Twitter? By Royce Funds? Yes, yes and yes. In October, Royce Funds showed its leading edge lead-generation chops by employing a Twitter card to drive sign-ups.

9. Lovely To Learn From

Design is rarely front and center for digital marketers, and yet it's especially important at a time when so many clients and prospects access information via mobile devices. You’ll take a lot from this Prophets Agency presentation published last January—and follow the account to learn when the 2014 outlook is available.

Trends in interactive design 2013

from

Prophets Agency

10. Where Do I Sign Up?

Few of us have high expectations when we go to a conference Website. Oh sure, the highest-profile events command the resources to deliver a functional, pleasant experience, but the majority of event sites lack luster.

That’s not the case with this vibrant LPL Connect 2013 site. I’d bookmarked it during the August event (which I attended by hashtag only) and hoped it would still be reachable when I returned to it for this list.

Outstanding—not only did it not go dark after the event, it’s been updated. Why would you go to a conference site afterward? Just one reason, probably. LPL lets the presentation archive dominate the home page, while most event sites require attendees to go looking. All that’s missing from my cursory review of the site is a Search capability. 

11. Sharing The Data

TD Ameritrade knew there was value in providing insights on what its investors were thinking. Previously, according to their Website, they'd satisfied media and others’ requests for information with opinion surveys.

That approach was upgraded considerably in January with the release of a quantitative, behavior-based index that reports on what retail investors are actually doing.

The Investor Movement Index, based on a sample of the firm’s 6 million accounts, is a tool that has ongoing marketing and communications utility. It raises the bar for other investment companies whose proprietary data contains insights when aggregated.

Wouldn’t it be cool (and ostensibly instructive) to someday get a full picture of what investors and 401(k) participants are doing, via a single site driven by the sampled and anonymized data from individual brokerage and investment firms?

12. Two Pictures = 1,000 Words

Nowadays, people are relying on mobile devices to share what they see around them and especially the news. We all need to plan accordingly.

Not that you needed the previous two sentences after looking at these photos comparing people anticipating a 2005 papal announcement in St. Peter's Square, Vatican City, and those in March 2013. 

If your client or boss isn't taking mobile strategy seriously, show them this picture of the Vatican crowd: pic.twitter.com/CPlrCbwrnp

— Fike (@MichaelFeldman) March 15, 2013

13. We Were Right There With You

From Google Earth to Reddit to Twitter, the Internet was focused on April’s Boston Marathon-related bombings.

From my perspective, this is the best content that came out of it. The rest of us were worried about Bostonians. In an inevitably schmaltzy way (is there any other when Neil Diamond is involved?), this video demonstrated their resilience. 

14. The Dope On SERPs

Google’s search engine results page (SERP) changed big-time in 2013. In October Moz provided a visual guide to all the variables that could possibly appear in (mostly organic) search results and why. Study the full guide (the screenshot below is just an excerpt) but don’t bother printing it—things may have changed since you started this post.  

15. Starting With Why

Water Investing, Calvert’s iPhone/iPad app launched in November, is different from other investment manager apps in at least four ways:

• It’s about something—the world's water crisis—as opposed to being a container of investment commentary and investment product information. The embedded video is effective at using the medium to communicate more than just words and images could.
• Its Daily Drip is an aggregation of others’ (non-Calvert) views and updates.
• It offers the tweets of not just the firm but three analysts using a #CalvertH20 hashtag.
• It includes a "Play" feature that uses the device's camera to simulate a water effect. Kinda corny but something to build on.

16. A Framework For Your Work

You could land on any blog post on Avinash Kaushik’s Occam’s Razor site and find Web analytics gold. But, make a special effort to read See-Think-Do: A Content, Marketing, Measurement Business Framework. Your entire day every day can be filled in the pursuit of digital marketing tactics. This post is a nudge to be more strategic in how you think about your work and its effectiveness.

BREAKING: Sorry, I can’t let this post fly without also mentioning a December post in which Kaushik lays out a digital marketing “ladder of awesomeness.” Another must-read. You might just want to subscribe to this site.

17. Endorse Me As Father of The Bride

A chuckle is the last thing I expect when I log into LinkedIn but, no kidding, some of the photos being used for profiles are funny. This MarketingProfs 19 More Reasons Your LinkedIn Headshot May Be an Epic Fail presentation is not exaggerating. Too bad it doesn't touch on one of the types of photos I commonly see. Men in tuxedos, really?

19 Reasons Your LinkedIn Photo Is an Epic Fail

from

MarketingProfs

18. Looking Under The Hood

Last week was all about learning an hour of code. I’m guessing most of you sat that one out. But this week, how about learning to just read the source code on your Website?

If your work has anything to do with optimizing your site for search engines, this KISSmetrics post from August provides an excellent foundation for how to confirm what's happening on your site. Bonus: Check other sites' source code to learn what they're up to. This screenshot is just the first example the post provides.

19. Out Of The Ashes

First there was the dramatic reading by James Earl Jones and Malcolm McDowell of Jenna’s Facebook for a Sprint commercial. I loved that. Moving onto the digital realm, on YouTube two actors re-enacted a YouTube comment war between two One Direction fans.

But the investment industry has nothing to do with most memes. We wouldn’t do the Blurred Lines knock-off videos, twerking is out of the question, and the President of the United States took part in a selfie before an asset manager CEO has. 

So, while I suffered along with other financial services marketers when the #AskJPM Twitterchat imploded, I have to say that a subsequent CNBC video published the next day thrilled me. Stacey Keach provides the dramatic reading. 

It didn’t go anywhere (just one tweet!) but let history show that this may have been the first stab at a meme. Thanks to my buddy Todd Donat for first sending me the link to this.

Too soon? I hope not.

20. In Another's Eyes

When one Website sneezes, do the other Websites catch a cold? Nah, the failings of healthcare.gov just inspired Slate in October to show how iconic sites Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon and Windows would have made the site over in their own image and likeness. Pretty genius. 

21. Borrowing From The Journalists

The introduction of data, including visualization, can add to the usefulness of content you’re creating.

But this is yet another competency that people in marketing positions today will have to learn on the job. Most likely, you will not be crunching the numbers, you’ll be managing the data-driven work. To be an effective partner and contributor you may have to dig in.

It was prepared for journalists and not marketers, but the Data Journalism handbook may be just the resource you need. The handbook, a version of which is also available in print, is a project of the European Journalism Centre’s Data Driven Journalism initiative.  

22. Tech To Watch Out For

The Marketing Arm’s Tom Edwards, the author of this contribution to iMedia Connection, sounds like he has one cool job as an evaluator of interactive/new media and emerging tech.

We’re the beneficiaries as he outlines—and provides plenty of examples of—six marketing technology trends. Included: collaborative commerce, curation, second screen and social TV, rich social media, crowdsourcing and social and CRM. The screenshot below shows the user interface of a social TV app.

This post will do it for me for 2013. Happy Holidays to all and see you back here in the first week of 2014!