On Friday February 15th, 2019 I attended the full-to-overflowing “A Guide to Monetize Your Digital Footprint” featuring Steve Wallace, at the Marketers’ Community. I recently joined a locally-based, digital start-up that is revolutionizing the traditional fundraising industry, Inspire.World. In my role as Chief Marketing and Technology Officer, I felt it was critical to learn best practices regarding what we should be doing with our website, paid search efforts, social media, and plans to start a blog. Inspire.World just launched earlier this month with this announcement on our LinkedIn and Facebook pages:

We are excited to announce that Inspire.World has launched its revolutionary, online, fundraising platform. We are the only fundraising platform enabling global contributions to worthy causes through every day, online, product purchases, travel and entertainment. We offer causes a free, online platform consisting of a customized shopping website with 50% of the profits generated going to the cause. We enable fundraising 24/7/365. Learn more about us at www.inspire.world.

We also planned a blast email campaign through our CRM and a Google Ad campaign. But what else could/should we be doing? Well, I am pleased to share that I learned a lot at the session and took these points away for further reflection, discussion with my team and prioritization on what’s next.

 

Key Takeaways

 

1. Every organization has a digital footprint – even if it is not intentional. As a marketer, it is critical to get on top of what your organization’s digital footprint is and direct what you want it to be and where you want it to go

 

2. Three components make up the digital footprint:

– Owned – you control the conversation, this includes your website, blog, and any social media activity. You want to increase visibility and engagement with your clients/customers.

– Paid – paid search and advertising most commonly through Google, Facebook, and Amazon. But paid can also include many smaller players: Instagram, LinkedIn (for B2B). There is a “pay to play” mindset, if you pay to advertise with Google and/or Facebook you will show up in searches. Also, both Facebook and Amazon are beginning to compete with Google as search engines.

– Earned – harder to come by, but these are your brand enthusiasts or ambassadors for your product or brand that are talking your product on social sites or their own blog. Ideally you want to be noticed by key influencers and have them talk or blog about your brand.

All three, owned, paid and earned, combined comprise your digital footprint and working together lead to monetization.

 

3. Remember to play by Google and Facebook’s rules – both have an incredible amount of information available online. Here’s a good place to start.

 

4. It is critical for you to manage the basics of your digital footprint yourself – go outside to agencies and consultants for critical cyclical needs; but learn and manage the day-to-day within your in house marketing team.

 

5. Three components make up the digital footprint:– Owned – you control the conversation, this includes your website, blog, and any social media activity. You want to increase visibility and engagement with your clients/customers.