One might say that fear rules the global stock exchanges. Britain was and still is a great country and a leading economic indicator (not being a mere follower) of what we know as western Europe. For countries that cannot compete in terms of GDP, labor population, or sheer magnitude of the economic girth of first world nations; the concept of sharing labor pools (along with labor law restrictions), trade, and distributed wealth (in terms of country-to-country financial loans) seems like a really good idea...that is if the demand for products and services produced by your home country can keep up with all the other countries within that trading region.
In 1998, I took my first trip outside the US; specifically to visit a few countries along the western Caribbean. While food was ridiculously cheap on the eastern coast of Mexico, the same could not be said for the island nations that were still on the British standard of currency. A conch sandwich and a small bowl of turtle soup costed £16 (more than $25 US).
The single biggest benefit to Americans is the rising strength of the US dollar against the British pound and the Euro; effectively making European goods/services cheaper to acquire. The closer we get to a 1:1 ratio, the cheaper it is for Americans to travel to the UK and Britain-managed territories. This isn't limited to travel. Foreign car imports will also be cheaper than they are now. Our domestic automotive dealerships benefit from the weakening Euro in this regard. However, it is still ridiculously expensive to travel from the US to Europe with air fares at more than $1,500/pp one-way.
Something else to consider are the other wealthy European countries that were never part of the EU and continue to flourish such as Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Turkey, and others.
At the time I wrote this, the currency exchange rate was::
$10 USD = £ 7.57 = € 9.08
In 1998, $10 USD = £ 6.50
In 2008, $10 USD = € 6.50
If you are an infrequent international traveler, you might think to yourself: Meh, what's the big deal with paying a little bit more for the experience, for goods/services that are only available in the visited country, etc.
Microsoft doesn't just acquire companies
$26.2 B looks reasonable for the patents and trademarks that Microsoft is acquiring with its latest purchase. Why build software yourself when you can buy it cheaper from someone else? Besides, this is an acquisition war for enterprise software and LinkedIn is not just a software platform for recruiters and job seekers. A stockpile of cash doesn't do anyone any good if it just sits around collecting interest. $26.2 is a price that no one being acquired would complain about. You might even consider this purchase a waste if you were writing for Forbes. But, that is not the case. Here's what Microsoft also gets with that deal.
CXO talent:
LinkedIn's acquisitions (source):
The other cake trimmings:
CXO talent:
- Jeff Weiner is retained as CEO of subsidiary LinkedIn (ranks at #5 on Glassdoor's Highest Rated CEOs in 2016) - how does that saying go? Employees quit leaders, not companies (via TalentCulture). This is a retention tactic used by Warren Buffett, who often lets senior management stay at the acquired company if that company is managed well.
LinkedIn's acquisitions (source):
- 15 Digg patents (purchased for a mere $4 M)
- mspoke
- ChoiceVendor
- CardMunch
- Connected
- IndexTank
- Rapportive
- SlideShare
- Pulse
- Bright
- Newsle
- Bizo
- Careerify
- Refresh.io
- Lynda.com
- Fliptop
- Connectifier
The other cake trimmings:
- This is the primary feature that sets LinkedIn apart: it allows online services to be marketed to users within a network. Many companies struggle with this concept and network-wide implementation.
- LinkedIn's app portfolio - mobile authentication, user feature that allows attachments from mobile phones, user feature that effortlessly allows users of any status (basic, premium) to connect with any user on LinkedIn's primary platform. Apps include:
- LinkedIn - a lite version of the LinkedIn website for users, a basic user lookup tool
- LinkedIn Lookup - a bio-hacker for professionals for skills and experience
- Lynda.com - eLearning on the go
- LinkedIn SlideShare - shareable presentations
- LinkedIn Groups - professional and industry interest networking
- LinkedIn Pulse - business news
- (premium) LinkedIn Recruiter
- (premium) LinkedIn Sales Naviator - the sales lead engine for selling on LinkedIn
- (premium) LinkedIn Elevate - reputation building by content sharing
- The LinkedIn Brand - the web/mobile properties under the LinkedIn umbrella have mostly been well managed, both from an integration and public relations perspective; nothing bad can happen from adding this to the Microsoft portfolio, unless the integration between the subsidiary and the parent fails to mesh
The acquisition makes sense. Who else could have purchased LinkedIn? Any of the top 50 companies amassing stockpiles of cash.
And as for LinkedIn's 9,200 employees? I expect nearly all of them to get laid off at some point as Microsoft sheds dead weight from overlapping operations it wasn't keen on picking up with this purchase.
Finally, a real bilingual In-Video Ad
A month before Fox.com's interactive video ad player tried to show bilingual ad for Walgreens, except it was bilingual in ad text only. This new ad from JcPenney had an actual link to view the video in Spanish. The core ad still targets minority women in their 20s and 30s with children, then translated to Spanish. Overall, a good execution strategy for JcPenney.
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| Fox.com JcPenney bilingual video ad |
Managing a Social Feed
I started a Twitter feed when I was working at OpenSesame as its marketing automation manager and used it to keep track of elearning and online training articles. At first, it was fun getting other users in the elearning industry to follow me back and I even won a really fancy box of donuts for my workplace for participating in a social media promotion for promoting a company's webinar.
That aside, I've taken a more hardline approach to managing this feed. I've gone beyond the simple follow and unfollow.
The rules of Twitter feed @SerenaHsiMktg:
If you are a Social Media follower seller - you get muted, not followed
If you are tweeting in a non-English language - followed and muted
Porn stars - muted, not followed
All followers followed have retweets turned off
Lately I've noticed that a lot of users with more than 5k followers are stacking their follower numbers by following and unfollowing other users, hoping that other users are not as vigilant as they are in unfollowing. This gives the Twitter community the impression that the one with the most followers has the most reach; which, in part is very true.
Follow me, I follow you back
Follow me, I follow you, unfollow me, I unfollow and mute you
Follow me again and I unfollow and block you (because you are already muted, I can see that you are trying to stack your follower count)
There are paid add-ons that do some of these steps, but not for repeat visit follows requests. For now I'll just manage this feed monthly or whenever I get around to it. Costs me about 10 minutes--which does add up over the course of a year. Maybe I should consider using an app add-on with automated settings to manage follows and unfollows.
And all those Twitter in-app messages? I don't read any of them.
Is there a goal for this feed? Probably not. Though, I've expanded article links to include all business and technology topics that are interesting. It just is a feed of what I happen to be reading at the time.
That aside, I've taken a more hardline approach to managing this feed. I've gone beyond the simple follow and unfollow.
The rules of Twitter feed @SerenaHsiMktg:
If you are a Social Media follower seller - you get muted, not followed
If you are tweeting in a non-English language - followed and muted
Porn stars - muted, not followed
All followers followed have retweets turned off
Lately I've noticed that a lot of users with more than 5k followers are stacking their follower numbers by following and unfollowing other users, hoping that other users are not as vigilant as they are in unfollowing. This gives the Twitter community the impression that the one with the most followers has the most reach; which, in part is very true.
Follow me, I follow you back
Follow me, I follow you, unfollow me, I unfollow and mute you
Follow me again and I unfollow and block you (because you are already muted, I can see that you are trying to stack your follower count)
There are paid add-ons that do some of these steps, but not for repeat visit follows requests. For now I'll just manage this feed monthly or whenever I get around to it. Costs me about 10 minutes--which does add up over the course of a year. Maybe I should consider using an app add-on with automated settings to manage follows and unfollows.
And all those Twitter in-app messages? I don't read any of them.
Is there a goal for this feed? Probably not. Though, I've expanded article links to include all business and technology topics that are interesting. It just is a feed of what I happen to be reading at the time.
Where's Astro Now?
This Salesforce campaign is quite a bit more elaborate than the Cloak of Adventure quest. The marketing group that put this together included a lot more engaging content to help you on your way to finding Astro. The language is playful and the goal remains as simple as ever: do x achieve y.
In this case, we are learning about the ability to tag contacts with geolocation data: longitude and latitude. Once these fields are created and if you are going to import/export data, you must use the same format for longitude/latitude should you get around to using it to manage your sales territories. You can't mix and match geolocation data sets. You must use the same nomenclature and format. Just a FYI.
While I still have yet to complete building my Battle Station console (I got lost part way and I can't figure out the errors I'm getting), these later adventures that Salesforce is putting out is a fine method of helping customers retain training knowledge.. in a learn by doing series of steps.
Applying for and obtaining a Salesforce developer account is independent of being a Salesforce customer. If you didn't already know this, now you do.
I wanted an Astro sticker for completing this mission. Sadly, I'll just have to do with her picture badge.
In this case, we are learning about the ability to tag contacts with geolocation data: longitude and latitude. Once these fields are created and if you are going to import/export data, you must use the same format for longitude/latitude should you get around to using it to manage your sales territories. You can't mix and match geolocation data sets. You must use the same nomenclature and format. Just a FYI.
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| Your mission should you decide to accept it... |
Applying for and obtaining a Salesforce developer account is independent of being a Salesforce customer. If you didn't already know this, now you do.
I wanted an Astro sticker for completing this mission. Sadly, I'll just have to do with her picture badge.
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| Salesforce's Astro |
MTM Organic Traffic
Traffic to my food blog is driven mostly from organic searches on Google search. There are some outliers to that data set and I'm beginning to think that my GA dashboard is flawed, my understanding of GA metrics is flawed, or something else is flawed. Mostly, this is because I don't do any paid search, SEO, or white/black/grey hat SEM for my food blog.
Just this year I started looking at referrals from social platforms -- currently accounts for a tiny speck of traffic from Twitter and Pinterest, far less than 1% of all session traffic.
Just this year I started looking at referrals from social platforms -- currently accounts for a tiny speck of traffic from Twitter and Pinterest, far less than 1% of all session traffic.
Impact of Acquisitions on Customers
Through an exploratory interview with Endurance International, the parent company of branded website hosting services such as Domain.com, BlueHost, TypePad, and more than 50 other brands, I learned of their $1.1B acquisition of Constant Contact. This sure beats the default listserv capabilities that comes default with web hosting. Endurance manages its brand properties as independent companies; e.g., the same way Honda is Acura, Toyota is Lexus, Peet's is Stumptown Coffee and Salesforce is Pardot. The business practice of allowing each subsidiary to maintain a brand identity independent of its parent is more commonplace than you think.
The basics:
The basics:
- 650k worldwide Constant Contact customers
- 90k net new hosting subscribers per quarter
- CC acquired 5% new customers from Endurance partnership before the acquisition
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