Donovan Media Thomas J. Liquori Managing Organizational Change 08/19/2011
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary .................................................................................. 3 Assessment/Diagnosis ............................................................................... 6 Analysis of the Change Strategy ............................................................... 7 Results/Outcomes .................................................................................... 10 Evaluation of Efforts ............................................................................... 14 Bibliography ............................................................................................ 16 Appendix A ............................................................................................. 17 Appendix B .............................................................................................. 18 Appendix C .............................................................................................. 19 Appendix D ............................................................................................. 20
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Executive Summary Donovan Media is a Premier business marketing firm based out of Long Island New York. The company was founded by Thomas J. Donovan in 2004 and has been the Chief Executive Officer ever since the company’s inception. Donovan Media has keen insight and a comprehensive understanding of what is needed to succeed in today’s business environment. Donovan Media’s professional team is made up of marketing professionals, project managers, graphic designers, web developers, video editors, animation experts, search engine marketing specialists, and content copywriters that all work together as one solid unified team. The team at Donovan Media has a combined experience of over three decades of working within all aspects of the business environments. Donovan Media is the parent of many subsidiary companies that are uniquely structured to empower businesses to their fullest potential. The team at Donovan Media holds their design standards to the highest of expectations to provide superb work and craftsmanship no matter what the project entails. The coding and web development workers are constantly learning the newest coding languages so they can provide the client the best and latest trends in internet technology that are cross compatible with all browsers. Donovan Media’s search engine optimization specialists use white hat techniques to get our clients ranked high on all major search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. The social media marketing workers are experts in the area of social networking sites to help provide a client reach their greatest potential in cyberspace. When properly combined and used correctly, these two aspects of search engine optimization and social media give a business a tremendous advantage over their competitors.
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Using web based technology and response advertising is a mixture that Donovan Media is well known for to yield the ultimate results for their businesses. Although Donovan Media uses a complete suite of marketing services to provide their clients the latest in innovation and technology, the company still has had its ups and downs over the past two years. While Donovan Media grows, the company is faced with overwhelming pressure to keep up with new technology and innovation as it comes their way. Gathering education and experience of new technology is time consuming and difficult, especially if the technology is brand new and is still not one hundred percent dependable. The environmental pressures that Donovan Media faces are issues that the current Chief Executive Officer seems to be resisting at the moment. Hyper competition pressure seems to be one of the biggest concerns to the company at the moment. With so many “well known� web site companies out there that offer web hosting, design packages, and more, how can Donovan Media be a contender and get their name branded into the web that will make a mark? This pressure can also be used for informal coercive pressures that the organization faces when it comes to committing to learn new technologies that are changing on a daily basis. Workers need to learn these new ways to keep up with certain changes in order to get support from the organization to see these innovations as something that they need to commit themselves to in order to gain an advantage over their competitors. Donovan Media has been planning short term goals in order to deal with the forces of change that surrounds the company. Trying to gain a competitive advantage over other companies is tricky in the field that the organization operates. Having the ability to predict and
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forecast on something that is uncertain is something that the company deals with on a daily basis. When a new big technology rolls around, Donovan Media tries to get on top of it quickly to learn all aspects of whatever the new technology may be. We can use Google Plus as an example, the company just recently started to add a +1 box on their websites, because they feel that since this new technology came from Google, it will have an impact on search engine optimization algorithms. At the moment not many companies have the same view as Donovan Media, many companies do not have these vote boxes on their site, and feel that it will not change the search engine algorithms what so ever. Since Facebook has become one of Silicon Valley’s tech giants and challenging Google’s online dominance, Google has been feeling the pressure to stand up and take notice and enter the social game in a massive way. Google’s new social networking site Google+ and the Google +1 buttons have been sprouting all over the web recently, giving users a way to recommend pages and content that people visit. Donovan Media feels that this new feature changes the way traffic is driven towards a web site; it is based on recommendations from links that people press versus just search engine listings. Social recommendations can drive new traffic to a site that normally would not be seen by a search engine result. This greater engagement from users can only bring good things for the products and the company as a whole. Donovan Media feels that these social signals like Twitter feed buttons, Facebook like buttons, and Google +1 buttons are starting to play a significant role in the way search engines use their ranking algorithms. The company can even argue that Google’s +1 button is the most significant at the moment, because it is the only one that is using this method in their ranking algorithms. Although the social media aspect of the internet is still in its infancy stage, the fact that Google has already jumped on the social media
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bandwagon is evidence of how quickly this phenomenon is going to accelerate into the future of cyberspace users.
Assessment/Diagnosis
SNS (Social Networking Sites) is an internet site that typically provides a core set of services in which users can build their own profile, while creating and maintain a circle of their closest contacts, friends and workers. Social networking sites have seen a tremendous growth and have caused a severe impact with online users globally. The realm of social media is an unexplored area since it is so new, but most social media sites have their own different characteristics about them. For example, LinkedIn is geared towards professional contacts and can recommend someone on their profile page. Social Media sites such as Facebook and MySpace have reputations for acquiring a large number of members who seek the same interests and may have the same educational backgrounds, or it could be just trying to locate someone they haven’t seen in a very long time. Other networking sites, bookmarking sites and blogs such as Friendster, Orkut, Blogger, Technorati, Delicious, Digg, Diigo, and a whole slew of others, all have an impact when it comes to using them on a regular basis for a web site. The decision was made by Donovan Media to enter the realm of social media within the past two years. Offering this type of service to their clients was a key in order to keep the business running in a successful manner. Two years ago, Donovan Media decided to enter the social realm of cyberspace. With social media having such a
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big impact of the way we use the internet in today’s society, the company had no choice but to start learning how these tools could be used for the company’s advantage.
Analysis of the Change Strategy Using John Kotter’s eight step change management tool, we can visualize the change Donovan Media underwent over the past two years. The Chief Executive Officer created a sense of urgency that a change was needed to be implemented into the organization in order to keep up with their competitors. The company faced their problem by not providing social media to their clients, and came up with the solution that they would start providing these services. The company structured a group that guided the change. The change was to be implemented by having the company’s search engine optimization specialist’s and marketing professional’s work closely together to start marking social media accounts for our clients. Once the accounts were made, the company began to start putting social media icons on all of their client’s sites; Icons such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. With this new operation embedded into the company’s daily work load, there has been a significant change in customer satisfaction and search engine rankings for almost one hundred percent of the company’s clientele. Although the company does not have a vision set in stone, the vision was communicated by the Chief Executive Officer the direction he wanted to company to move and multiple channels of communication was used to implement the new direction that the company was taking. The Chief Executive Officer used memos, emails, online chats, video, and Power Points, to help communicate his new change to the organization. The Chief Executive Officer
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empowered his staff by removing certain policies that were already in place. One policy was respecting the clients’ privacy. Once this policy was removed, certain employees were allowed to access the client’s personal information and started to create social media accounts for them, under their business’s name. The risk Donovan Media took in entering the social media world for their business has given the company numerous short term wins over the past two years. Clients are extremely happy with the service Donovan Media is providing for them and business has been growing on a steady basis. Donovan Media has embedded this social media campaign into their culture of running their business and day to day operations. Donovan Media came up with an “A to Z” strategy to enable their clients that every aspect of online marketing was taken into consideration. The first step that Donovan Media starts with is web site development, the second step is search engine optimization, and the third step is social media marketing.
Social Media Marketing Search Engine Optimization Website Development
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The company’s social media strategy has been evolving to take into consideration the latest proven tactics and methodologies that have proven to gain traction for their clients. In the recent past, many companies have jumped into the social media world without a cohesive or meaningful strategy. Donovan Media, consistent to its other services, have always felt an enhancement of this service was to be predicted upon delivery systems and strategies that are practical and can bring measureable results. Donovan Media uses a few rules of etiquette that they follow to keep the company from becoming a statistic of a bad category. The company spends more time listening to the tone of their clients to gain an understanding of the communication language. Donovan Media uses their spare time by watching and gathering information on social networks to ensure that their strategy is targeting the correct audience. The company uses site metrics and intelligent social media tools to determine where the client’s customers can be most effectively targeted and to see if there are any sudden spikes or dips in a clients’ traffic to their website. Social media is a great tool if it is used wisely and a terrible one if used wrong. Using the wrong tactics or using them only half way will render any efforts worthless. Once your damage your reputation, it is very hard to rebuild the trust that you have already destroyed on the web. Little resistance if any came from the employees of the company. Two years ago, the employees already knew that it was time to make a change in order to keep up with the every changing technology and innovation. The employees took the change well and were actually happy that this change was put into the company. The change Donovan Media made, ensured them a chance for survival in the online business that we call web site development.
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Results/Outcomes
According to Donovan Media, one of the more immediate results of social media is the extension of real time search results. For example, Google has recently launched five products that are deemed social: Google Sidewiki, Google Searchwiki, Google +1, and Google Hot Trends. This in turn has had a high significant importance for search engine optimization for Donovan Media moving forward. Often, companies and people as a whole think of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, as social media strategies, but the effective programs and strategies already far exceed those well-known platforms. The outcomes for Donovan Media incorporating these little pieces of social secrets into their daily operations have been a risk worth taking. Although, there are some negative aspects surrounding the world of social media, Donovan Media has had nothing but success using and implementing these systems for all of their current clients. Donovan Media knows how to target their audience and the deliver the right message. The company reviews each social media platform for client suitability and its capability to deliver reasonable results as part of the overall marketing program. For Donovan Media, writing good content is a key to social media marketing. The company makes it a point to create fresh, unique content regularly. When businesses think of search engine optimization, the goal is simple, outdo what your competitor does for the same keywords and beat their rankings. Donovan Media puts a plan in place to help their clients reach their goals. A client’s search engine optimization plan is updated every three months based on what a client’s competition is doing versus what previous changes
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were accomplished. When it comes to the social media aspect of search engine optimization, last year having Twitter and YouTube videos did virtually nothing to a client’s search engine rankings, this year they are an absolute must have to increase rankings. Donovan Media also takes into consideration the impact that the major search engine Bing, has been having on the marketplace recently. This time two years ago, Bing did not exist, now because of all the major changes that have been happening in area of search engine optimization Bing has now grown to a major market share. With a majority of web sites focusing on optimizing for Google, Donovan Media also optimizes every client’s site for Bing as well. There is a market share to gain by optimizing for Bing, especially in the very competitive keyword arena where the competition is higher than most for a keyword. Today, every major search engine focuses on many components of a website in ranking a site. Only a few of the smaller search engines focus on a single aspect of a website’s rankings. This means that over time, if a company is focused only on a single keyword or links for a site, they will find that their search engine optimization efforts will fall short quickly. Donovan Media keeps their efforts up by not letting their guard down. It may take months to get a client on the first page of Google, only to find out a week later that they are not on the first page anymore. Sustaining a client in the search engines at a very high spot in the rankings is no easy task, Donovan Media uses their experience and A to Z strategy ensures that a company sustains a search engine ranking over a long period of time and stays there on the first page of all major search engines.
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Keywords
Reputation Management
Monitoring Accounts
Donovan Media uses a search engine optimization plan to ensure their clients are on the right track and get the traffic and rankings that the company promises them. The first step in Donovan Media’s search engine optimization strategy is time. The company’s search engine optimization specialists stay on top of the latest trends and technology in the search engine optimization world. That is one reason many companies outsource to specialists, because of the time that is involved. Simply adding a new sentence or comment here and there on a company’s site will not help increase rankings on major search engines. Virtually every business has different needs and at different levels, a small business would focus only on the local area, whereas a large business selling nationally would invest more time and money for exposure at a larger level. Donovan Media plans their search engine optimization strategy in the present so they can see their outcomes and efforts on the search engines three to six months later. That is the estimated time it takes for search engines to actually crawl and index a page that is on the internet. The second step that the company uses is researching keywords to optimize a client’s site or social media posts. Donovan Media uses Google Analytics as a way of looking to see what keywords people are using to find their client’s site. The third step is reputation management, which is a critical part for any business. Creating good blog entries, press release articles, and
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relevant comments in social media sites are all ways of keeping a good reputation online. Monitoring a client’s pay per click account (if they have one) is the fourth step in Donovan Media’s search engine optimization plan. Many social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn all have marketing tools that can be used effectively if the right keywords are chosen. There are a few additional plan items that Donovan Media uses and may be too much to explain in this paper. A brief rundown of the additional elements are as follows: •
Keyword Density
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Title Tags
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Social Media Elements
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Page Content Relevancy
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Social Media Optimization
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Social Bookmarking
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Site Linking
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Video Optimization
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RSS Feeds
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Site Map Frequency
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Robots.txt File
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HTML Source Code and Errors
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ALT Tags
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Programming Languages such as Java, Flash, PHP, and ASP
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Evaluation of Efforts
Based on what I have learned from this course, I think that Donovan Media has taken several risks in business management, but for all the right reasons. The ability to change an organization and take on something that is new is not easy task for any company to deal with. Donovan Media has changed in a way that is more beneficial to the organization and the company is profitable than ever before. What the company needs to do to stay effective and keep providing great customer satisfaction is sustaining their presence on the internet for the services that they provide. Donovan Media has planted a seed two years ago when they entered the area of social media, and that seed has been growing into a plant. The company made the most of their moment when the opportunity presented itself in front of them and changed their initiative of their core business. By launching a social media strategy into their business marketing campaign for clients, it not only boosted the business’ profit, but also received great customer feedback responses. The next step for Donovan Media would be to redesign their award system for their employees of the organization. With so many intelligent, hardworking, and experienced experts on the Donovan Media team, a new change should be on the horizon for the company for those employees that are the best of the best team players. Rewards should be consistent and should include recognition for going beyond meeting the company’s goals and objectives. Unfortunately, the opposite of the same type of treatment can be said for those who do not meet
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the company’s standards. At Donovan Media failure to meet the company’s policies and procedures could be terms of reprimand or even termination if the employee does not change in a timely manner if his or her work load continues to lack the effort the company is looking for. An employee’s work performance is a reflection on the company as a whole and credibility. If an employee cannot take a type of change that is being embedded into the organization, management needs to step in and communicate the problems the employee is addressing. Donovan Media has a realistic outlook on the future of the organization and where it wants to be within the next five years. The company would like to be on a national level for providing web development solutions to businesses across the country. It is a long term goal that is well within the company’s reach. Although Donovan Media focuses on different aspects of web development, the company can now add that they are social media experts to their ever growing portfolio of short term wins and is now looking at the future with a brighter and more confident step into whatever new technology has to throw at them.
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Bibliography Ryan, S. D., Magro, M. J., & Sharp, J. H. (2011). Exploring Educational and Cultural Adaptation through Social Networking Sites. Journal of Information Technology Education, 10IIP. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Adam, A., & Mowers, H. (2008). Start Your Search Engines. Part One: Taming Google-and Other Tips to Master Web Searches. School Library Journal, 54(4), 44-46. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Tong, Q. (2009). Search without Boundaries Using Simple APIs. Computers in Libraries, 29(6), 26-30. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Brantley, J. S. (2010). Exploring Library 2.0 on the Social Web. Journal of Web Librarianship, 4(4), 351-374. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Gifford, J. (2010). Digital Public Relations: E-Marketing's Big Secret. Continuing Higher Education Review, 7462-72. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Corbett, P. (2010). What about the "Google Effect"? Improving the Library Research Habits of First-Year Composition Students. Teaching English in the Two-Year College, 37(3), 265-277. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Liaw, S. (2004). The Theory of Planned Behaviour Applied to Search Engines as a Learning Tool. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 20(4), 283-291. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Walters, W. H. (2009). Google Scholar Search Performance: Comparative Recall and Precision. portal: Libraries and the Academy, 9(1), 5-24. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. http://google-plus.com/598/social-network-user-statistics-as-of-july-2011/ http://mashable.com/2011/07/20/google-plus-stats/ http://multichannelmerchant.com/social-media/google-plus-one-0808tpp4/ http://www.arikhanson.com/2011/01/31/16-social-media-statistics-that-might-surpriseyou/ http://www.banking2020.com/2011/07/05/social-media-statistics-by-the-numbers-july/ http://donovanmedia.com
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Appendix A
Social Media Users Statistics As of July 2011 25 50 115
250
Twitter 750
LinkedIn MySpace Google Plus
All numbers are in Millions of users
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Appendix B
Google+ Statistics: July 16th 2011 • Google+ is the 42nd most-visited social networking site on the web. • 57% of the traffice came from the male population • The age bracket for users was 25-34 which was 38.37% of all visits
Google+ Statistics: July 2nd 2011 • 56% of Google+'s upstream traffic came from other Google properties. • 34% coming from Google.com • 37% coming from search engines • 21% coming from emails
Google+ Statistics: Popular States Driving Traffic • Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco are the most dominant areas driving traffic. • Other areas include Bowling Green, Kentucky, Portland, and Oregon.
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Appendix C
• 75 percent of "Likes" on Facebook come from advertisements • More than 250M people use Facebook to connect every month • College-aged kids (18-24) made up the fastest growing segment of users on Facebook in 2010 • Chicago was the fastest growing city on Facebook in terms of usage in 2010 (Houston was second)
• Since April of 2011, Twitter has gained 40M users and a 62 percent increase in mobile use of the platform • From December 2009 to December 2010, users with a biography listed on Twitter increased from 31 percent to 69 percent • 48 percent is the percentage of Twitter users that never or rarely check Twitter
General
• The average American Internet user watches 30 minutes of video online per day, which is a 40 percent increase from 2009 • 22 percent of fortune 500 companies now have a public-facing blog that has at least one post in the past 12 months • Social networking site usage grew 88 percent among internet users aged 55-64 between April 2009 and May 2010
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Appendix D
38,000,000 people in the U.S. age 13-80 said their purcahsing decisions are influenced by social media
132.5 million people in the U.S will use Facebook this year; by 2013 the number will increase to 152.1 million
59 percent of internet users use at least one social networking service, compard to 34 percent who did in 2008
750,000,000 monthly active users for social networking Facebook, up from 500 million active monthly users last year