Find out the benefits of Agile Methodology from a Scrum Master

Last month, I assisted Illawara Digital Conference where I attended and learn from some keynote speakers including Daniel Young from Ebay Australia and some others.

I also got in touch with Justin Urbanski who works as a Scrum Master using "Agile" Methodology for new product development. Justin kindly shares his view about Agile Methodology in Australia and its benefits below. 

Mauricio: Why are you so passionate about "Agile" Methodology?

Justin: On the train ride to the 2009 Agile Australia conference in Sydney I was reading "Agile Estimation and Planning" by Mike Cohn. On the train ride back I was writing my speech to management on why we need to go Agile. The conference is not the sole reason I am so passionate. When I first started reading about Agile it just made sense to me. In a way it was sort of how I liked to work anyway.

Justin Urbanski - Scrum Master - Australia

M: What does "Agile Methodology" mean and what are its key benefits compared with other project development methodologies?

J: Agile is an umbrella of methodologies. A team should choose which methodology is right for them. Agile differs from the traditional Waterfall method in that it promotes iterative development and self organising teams. Instead of doing 6 month software releases, in Scrum (one of the methodologies) we have 2 week sprints. At the end of each sprint the product is potentially shippable. Everyone can then inspect where the product is at, how the market is going, what the customers want and adapt every sprint. That's the difference and one of the key benefits. 

In Scrum cross functional teams work through tasks. The teams are also self organising. I used to be a project manager and assign tasks to individuals to ensure that the project completed on time. I don't have to do that anymore. The teams simply pick off the highest priority tasks and work on it within a sprint. The team members decide who works on what. It's hard to explain but because the teams are working in short sprints and they continually inspect and adapt and eventually they become high performing. The teams talk about how they can get better and better both technically and organisationally. Its not a manager telling individuals how to improve, its a team understanding how they can go faster. That's the benefit.

Agile Methodology Cycle

M: You are a Scrum Master. What are the benefits of having a scrum master in a project development team?

J: Yes I am a Scrum Master. A Scrum Master serves the team. The Scrum Master does everything he or she can to help the team and make them as productive as possible. Like a coach on a football team, the Scrum Master should observe the team and help them adapt.

Scrum Master Position within a Product Development team

M: Is there anything on "Agile Methodology' that we could use for digital marketing processes, ie: managing social media, improving Search campaigns, producing content, etc?

J: I don't see why not. You just need to determine which methodology would be best for your team. For example Kanban may be the way to go. It helps teams prioritise and limit work in progress. 

In Scrum you have a Product Owner. Their responsibility is to control the budget and vision. So they set what things should be worked on first to achieve greater return on investment. I don't see why you could not do that in the digital marketing space.

Kanban Methodology simplified 

M: For entrepreneurs, is there any risk of taking/using "Agile methodologies" in their product development processes?

J: No, and I believe it would be beneficial because you continually inspect and adapt. A great book to read is "Thelean startup" by Eric Ries. 

M: What are your top two project development management tools you would suggest for teams to track Agile projects (Jira?, others)

J: I am very familiar with Jira and it works well. I would suggest the Atlassian suite which includes Greenhopper and Confluence. Because they are both Atlassian products they integrate easily. Greenhopper is the Agile part and helps teams organise and plan sprints. Confluence is Atlassian's wiki. I love it because it enables teams to collaborate and document quickly.

Jira Dashboard - Example

M: Is there any specific products/services or even industries that tend to be better fit for 'Agile methodologies" why?

J: Agile is targeted for the software industry and I believe suits the development of any software product. Web based products tend to be the best fit because when you inspect and adapt each sprint there is something to show. Plus web based products tend to be more volatile and also easier to release each sprint.


M: What are Australian companies implementing best practises Agile metholodogies?
J: In Australia there are too many companies to list who is doing best practise. The thing is that every company is different. If you have the right people and the right coaches then hopefully those people are getting the most out of their Agile journey.


M: Is there anything Agile teams should avoid when using Agile Methodology?
J: Firstly avoid ScrumBut. If you do not Scrum properly then you will not get the most out of your teams. Secondly be patient. Your Agile transition is a journey. It takes years to get it right.  

M: Can someone use Agile methodology for everyday activities? how?

J: Yes there are people using it in schools and I have even used it at home. At home I setup a Kanban wall to help organise our family activities.

M: How we do compare with America on the adoption of Agile methodologies and what companies in Australian are taking the lead?

J: I don't know the stats or about America but Agile in Australia is thriving. In 2009 there was the first Agile Australia conference. We now have 5 or more Agile conferences per year in Australia. The leading companies are Thoughtwoks, SMS MT, Suncorp, and Atlassian just to name a few.

M: Where people can learn more about what you do? please send us your website, blog, twitter, etc.

J: The best way is to just contact me via email for any questions your readers may have. 

M: Anything cool or funny that you have experienced by working with Agile teams?

J: The coolest thing is watching a Scrum team grow into a high performing one. That's what I love about Agile. Its about the soft skills just as much as the technical skills. The soft skills allow teams to build the rapport that enables them to produce remarkable software.

NEXT

• If you are a Scrum Master or Agile expert who would like to contribute to this article please let me know. Mauricio. Call Mauricio - Digital Marketing Specialist & on +61481 367 711
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ebay Australia launches "Buying Guides" today! What's the opportunity?

E-newsletter sent to Ebay members on 16 August 2013

eDigital Review - New ebay Australia Buying Guides

Quite interesting that after writing last night my only article about ebay Australia Social Media Strategy keynote presentation at Illawarra Digital 2013, I woke up today with the above e-newsletter in my inbox.

I remember the "Buying Guides" topic was mentioned but was not quite sure when the buying guides functionality on ebay Australia website was going to be live. 

Well, it is live now and anyone who is a member can start creating their own buying guides for other ebay members to read. 

Benefits for ebay Sellers

• Another way to generate traffic to their product pages and ebay shop.
• Position sellers as experts ( if they create compelling buying guides - Some seen today look horrible!)

Benefits for ebay users

• Have some advice and tips pre-purchase.

Benefits for ebay Australia

• Fresh, unique and powerful SEO content that search engines (Google) might start crawling, indexing and giving top SERP's.

ebay Australia Buying Guides - How they look

Not that great as they are not polished or curated by someone internally at ebay. This means any user can create and launch a "Buying Guide". In the example below there is no images, no videos, no subtitles or any clue that is SEO optimised from a content perspective.

ebay Australia Buying Guides - Back End

• Just a plain WYSIWYG. I would have expected a video tour to let users know how to use the WYSIWYG
• If you want to add an image of a product that you as a seller already have on one of your ebay listings you cannot easily add it. You have to upload the image from your computer. That's silly!
• No tips on how to write a killer buying guide. After browsing many guides you start seeing so many inconsistencies in term of style and form.
• No tips on how to make it SEO friendly. 
• No option of embedding video using Internet Explorer (bug)
• No tips to write killer call to actions.

Letting people write any sort of "buying guide" might give ebay Australia a traffic boost but it might need some sort of structure in place to ensure quality, readiness and engagement.

NEXT

• Call Mauricio - Digital Marketing Specialist & on +61481 367 711
• Check Mauricio Escobar Mármol LinkedIn profile.
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EBAY Australia Social Media Manager Presentation - Take Aways @ Illawarra Digital

Add caption

I went down to Illawara Digital event at Wollongong, NSW, Australia on the 24 of July 2013 to listen Daniel Young - Social Media and Content Leader for Ebay Australia.

Daniel's key note was my favourite of all presentations and some of the key take aways were:

Daniel Young - Social Media and Content Lead - Ebay Australia

• Having a mobile optimised website is possibly more important than doing social media. Get the basics right first.
• 7 million visitors a month to Ebay Australia.
• 84% of products are new products and just 16% are second hand
• Mobile traffic is a key player on Ebay Australia strategy. Ebay Australia Mobile traffic already accounts for 53% of total traffic.
• Customisation is key: Ebay presents products that shoppers are interested on.
• Ebay market positioning between: Amazon (Utility) and Pinterest/Etsy (Engagement).
• Ebay Australia key Social Media objective: Sharing products and stories; advocacy.
• Create and publish great stories to inspire shoppers as the key of Ebay Australia Social Strategy.
• Ebay Australia key consumer segments where they are currently focusing on: Mums and Fashion (Fashion Gallery launched mid 2012) with over 60 retailers signed up for the fashion gallery.

Ebay Australia Fashion Gallery - August 2013 - Home Page Carousel 

• Ebay Australia is also working with bloggers and trend setters to get people share great stories and products.

Other Tips from Daniel to companies doing social media:

• Have a clear objective.
• Better to concentrate on one social channel and be deep than having many social channels and being thin.
• Identify your value proposition and promote it well.
• Share your knowledge.
• Do not expect immediate results
• Great Case study: Black Milk (Brisbane) No traditional marketing, just use of Social Media with fantastic content.

Black milk Clothing homepage - Social Media is the only driver of engagement and sales

• Your customers are fuel for inspirational stories.
• Also find unique product stories. Example: Australia's most expensive Holden for sale on

We are Social is the current Social Media Agency for Ebay Australia.

NEXT

• Call Mauricio - Digital Marketing Specialist & on +61481 367 711
• Check Mauricio Escobar Mármol LinkedIn profile.
• Follow us on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter or Google+
• Are you a retailer who does not sell on ebay yet? Check this out:

SEO Agency Sydney - SEO in Action - Test Article 2

SEO Agency Sydney - SEO in Action - Test article 1

"SEO Agency Sydney" search term for a Sydney SEO agency could be a key search phrase you might think an Sydney SEO agency should rank for.

However there is more to it than just ranking for the term you think your business should rank for. In this specific example, the term "SEO Agency Sydney" is:
a)  not a "high volume" term (just 140 searches last month in Australia - According to Google Adwords keyword tool)
b) it is just one of other key relevant terms an SEO agency might want to rank for.
b) Possibly might not generate as many conversions (phone ringing asking for Sydney SEO packages).

This optimised SEO Agency Sydney article is one of some others SEO test articles I am planning to publish in my Blogspot website (Google owned Blogging service) to find out whether Google Australia will rank this article for "SEO Agency Sydney" searches on Google Australia.

Would this optimised SEO Agency Sydney blogspot page be enough to be ranked on Google Australia for "SEO Agency Sydney" search phrase? ANSWER: We do not know (YET). As with any SEO project; we need to test, test and test.

With so many changes with latest Google Panda update and latest Back Links updates from Google; as ranking positions rely more and more on quality content and not just buying links pointing to your optimised pages.

Not just "SEO Agency Sydney" term!

Our business (as yours) cannot rely on just one term to get traffic. Generally a planned SEO content strategy that publishes "meat" that Google would love to eat is key!.

For this testing exercise then how do I ensure I am creating enough meat? 
In the next days I will also publish pages that optimise for the terms:

• SEO Packages Sydney
• SEO Consultant Sydney
• SEO Consultant Salary
• SEO Job Description
• SEO consultant philippines

I will start internal linking between these pages too. At the moment there is no linking as the pages have not been created.

How did I come up with the above terms?

As this is a BASIC TEST to check whether this Blogspot page can actually gain great Search Engine Ranking Positions (SERP's)  for the term "SEO Agency Sydney" a BASIC keyword research using free tools ( tools you can also use) was used to come up with the above terms we will be creating pages for. 

Basic keyword research.
Step 1: I looked into Google Adwords keyword tool and find relevant terms.

"SEO Agency Sydney" relevant, related terms - Google Adwords keyword tool

So, who is ranking for the search term "SEO Agency Sydney" by the 7th August 2013?

SEO Agency Sydney - Google Australia results - 7th August 2013

As seen above, none of those ranked sites are Blogspot sites!

Is that because anyone is optimizing for the term "SEO consultant Sydney" using Blogger/Blogspot platform? 

According to Google there are  14,000 Blogspot pages that have the term "SEO Agency Sydney" in them so it is not going to be an easy fight as some of those blogs have better page rank and page history than my new Blogspot blog.

SEO Agency Sydney - Blogspot pages ranking in Google Australia - 7th August 2013

But is it really worth the effort trying to rank a blogspot page for the term "SEO Agency Sydney"?

According to Google Adwords keyword tool, "SEO Consultant Sydney" term had 140 searches last month (July 2013). That might be quite a few searches if you sum up the volume for the other 5 searches we are optimizing for and get around a 2% conversion I am looking at a gain of 5-6 clients which I will be very happy with. Then if I convert these 5-6 clients into long term client who engage me for other website SEO packages, SEO consulting or training; eDigital products that are worth on average a couple of thousand dollars, it might then be worth the effort!.

In summary, how to SEO a website for great Google organic (free) rankings requires an experienced Sydney SEO Consultant, a solid SEO Content Strategy and some testing time.

Next:

• Call Mauricio - SEO Consultant Sydney on +61481 367 711
• Check Mauricio Escobar Mármol LinkedIn profile.
• Follow us on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter or Google+

About Mauricio

Mauricio Escobar Mármol (BBsMn & MCom) is eDigital Sydney SEO Consultant, Social and Digital Media Specialist. Mauricio posses over 10 years experience helping companies to earn new customers and prolong customer lifetime value by effective execution of structured Digital Marketing strategies and executions. Mauricio worked as Digital Marketing Manager for some of Australia's most visited websites. Mauricio expertise focuses on Website Optimisation, Social Media, SEO/Networks Acquisition Strategies (SEO, SEM, Affiliates, Display) and vendor reviews.

How to choose a Social Media Monitoring tool - eDigital

Looking for a Social Media Monitoring Software (SMM) but not sure what to review and how to pick the best social media monitoring tool (SMM)?

The increasing importance of Social Media conversations in the process of shaping brand sentiment, brand reputation and influencing consumer behaviour  is now crucial for any business success. 

Companies do not longer control conversations and more importantly have recognised it. Coca-cola for example has mentioned, it do not have the extensive resources to monitor and control all global conversations. Other brands try to engage key influencers and control key topics which they believe are important for its brand health and success.

A Social Media Monitoring tool (SMM) come in handy when you want to automate some of  the process of finding those key conversations, influencing consumer behaviour and also having a high level feeling of your brand sentiment and reputation across the web. This is extremely important in case of media crisis or any other public topic affecting your brand.

To help companies to listen and monitor key social media conversations, a great range of tools/software/platforms (more than 250 according to Ideya Research)  are in the market designed to help analyse the vast quantity of Social Media Buzz. It has also, however created a highly complicated choice for marketing professionals and brand managers in identifying and contracting the most appropriate ones for their brand needs.

I welcome vendors to comment on this article and provide more information about their tool and what it make it unique. (Let's see how quickly and effectively they are monitoring their brand).

Out of the 250 Social Monitoring Tools in the market, here are some 26 Social Media monitoring tools (SMM) that are in my radar:

1. Adobe Social
2. Alerti
3. @ Walmart Labs (Former: One Riot)
4. Beevolve 
5. Brandseye
6. Brandwatch
7. Buzz Metrics - Nielsen
8. Cision
9. Converseon
10. HubSpot
11. Jive
12. Klout
13. Lithium Technologies ( Former: ScoutLabs)
14. Radian6 (Now part of SalesForce)
15. Reputation
16. SDL SM2 (Former: Alterian)
17. Sysomos
18. SocialMention
19. SproutSocial
20. TopSy
21. Trackur 
22. Twelvefold Media (Former: BuzzLogic)
23. UberVu
24. Venuelabs
25. Visible Technologies
26. Vocus

The below review criteria was made for one of my client's needs and you might want to give each factor your own importance (weight) depending on what your needs are and what exactly you need to accomplish with the SMM Social Media Monitoring Platform. I believe the below criteria covers all key areas to consider before committing to a Social Monitoring Tool contract.

How to review a Social Media Monitoring Vendor 

Before we move into the factors to consider, you need to know what you want to achieve with the tool (objectives) and how you are going to measure its ROI.

Start from the basic - What is a Social Media Monitoring tool (SMM)?

A tool/software (custom build web spiders) that detects when and where your brand has been mentioned on the web and has the ability to understand the importance (influence/popularity) and sentiment of the mention in order to gain actionable insights to help your brand's social media engagement strategy. 

Social Media Monitoring tools benefits

• Identify risks and issues at an early stage before they become a media chaos.
• Identify existing and emerging brand influencers.
• Benchmark and measure sentiment against your competitors
• Spot new consumer behaviour, preferences.
• Identify new social media platforms where conversations about your brands are happening.
• Identify business generation leads.
• Quickly identify customer dissatisfaction at an early stage.
• Identify purchase considerations and help with customer journey mapping.
• Improve product/service development.
• Identify gaps in the market
• Identify potential talent that can work at your company.

Selection Criteria - Factors to consider

1. CONTENT     

• How is the content aggregated? Third party? Own system? How often? Real time?
• You might want a tool that aggregates social media conversations in real time using their own system as "immediacy" will be key to shape your brands' conversations.

2. SENTIMENT ANALYSIS

• Is "Sentiment Analysis" automated?
• What's the algorithm? How is it being formed?
• Can the vendor show some examples related to your brand where automated sentiment analysis is performed? did it make sense? are they meaningful?
• Can you and your team members be alerted (via txt or email) when social media conversations from key influencers bring some sort of "bad sentiment" about your brand? Can the tool allow you to respond immediately and easily?

3. DATA RETRIEVAL

• How long is content archived? is back data available? To which year? If so, what are the extra cost?
• This is key as sometimes you might want to compare social media buzz between different dates withouth paying too much for it.
• Some of the Social Media monitoring tools might archived content for a specific period of time 6 months/one year so you need to ensure you have systems in place to archived the conversations in case you want to go back to them later on. In some cases it might be too much information so you might want to prioritize what exact conversations (keywords) you want to keep in your companies records (maybe just brand terms and not generic terms).

4. DATA COVERAGE

• Can the vendor offer an example coverage for a specific brand term you would like to monitor within a specific country and time range? Lets say you want your Social Media Monitoring vendor to give you an example of Data coverage for the term "Iphone 5" within Australia during the period of July 1st to July 31st 2013. 
• Getting an specific test will allow you to compare results within different vendors and have a great indicative on which tool might bring more relevant results.

5. DATA REACH   

• For some brands, most of the social media buzz happens inside private Facebook conversations. There is no Social Media Monitoring tool that will allow you to track these Facebook conversations that mentioned your brand's name.
• You would like to check with your Social Media Monitoring Vendor what other social media conversations the vendor cannot monitor: ie. Intranets, Instagram, any other.

6. SPAM   

• Ask your vendor what data cleansing strategies are in place to address spam, splogs, duplicate content? If results from duplicate content are found…would you have pay for them? 

7. SEARCH TYPES

• Is boolean logic available when constructing searches? ie "AND-OR-NOT"
• Does the tool allows for other way to construct searches?
• This is important as it will allow you to get the exact conversations you want to monitor and filter out the ones you do not really care.

8. SEARCH RESULTS SPEED   

• This is key. You might find some tools are quiet slow. You want to double check they are fast when bringing results. How long (on average) does it take to retrieve results for your brand's most popular term? within an specific country and time range? Get that tested before signing up.

9. METRICS AVAILABLE    

• What specific metrics are standard in the system?
• Do the tool offer sentiment analysis? At micro level? Post level?
• Check how the sentiment analysis was constructed by the vendor and see if it makes sense for your brand social media monitoring goals.
• Can the sentiment analysis be tweak by the tool user?

10. DATA PRESENTATION, CUSTOMAZATION, AUTOMATION, SHARING  

• What dashboard features are available in the standard tool version?
• Can dashboards be customised by users?
• Are drill down capabilities available for all analaytics on the dashboard?
• Can reports be automatically delivered and share across the organisation?

11. ENGAGEMENT - SOCIAL MEDIA RESPONSE

• What workflow capabilities the tool offers? Can specific conversations be assign to other users? You might want the tool to spot customers in distress (while using your product/service) or customers venting out bad commentary about your brand and pass that quickly to your customer service team for immediate follow up.
• Does the tool allow for user to engage directly with content owner?
• Can "owned" content (ie your brand website, Facebook page, twitter) be managed by the Social Media Monitoring tool user. 
• Can multiple Facebook pages be monitored?
• Once a conversation is engaged and completed, what reports the tool can offer?
• Can Real time social conversation alerts be sent to specific users? Or franchisees' emails ( non-tool users)?

12. SPECIFIC INDUSTRY BASED FEATURES    

• Is there anything in your the Social Media Monitoring Tool set up for set up for your specific industry? If so, ask the vendor to provide examples.
• I know some such as Venue Labs are made for franchisee based brick and mortar businesses for example.

13. INTEGRATION    

• What additional types of data can be integrated in the system? Google Analytics? Email database? CRM?, Sales Force?, etc

14. REPORTING CAPABILITIES  

• Does the standard version allow for reports to be generated?
• Can reports be automatically produced?
• Can reports be customized? At what level?

15. GEOGRAPHIC SCOPE   

• Can the tool just track conversations happening in Australia or in a specific City in Australia? How?
• Would it pick up Australian based conversations happening in different languages? Any extra costs?

16. PRICING STRUCTURE 

• There are three key main pricing structure most of the Social Media Monitoring tools offer: Volume based pricing, Search based pricing and flat rate.
• You need to compare which structure might be best in the long term. You might want to start playing for specific keywords monitoring regardless volume or you might want to pay by volume regardless the amount of keywords you want to monitor. The last alternative is to pay a flat rate that gives you access to a specific amount of volume and number of keywords to monitor during a specific time period.
• Is there any trail period? Can we try the tool for a month?
• How the cost varies depending on amount of members accessing the tool?

17. TOOL SET UP (INSTALLATION)     

• Is there any specific system requirement needed?
• You might want to check with your IT department there is no issues to install the tool in your computers.

18. TRAINING  

• Is training included on the tool costs? How many training hours? If not, what are the training costs?

19. VALUE ADDED SERVICES  

• Is tool installation and configuration costs included?
• Is customer service available just at business hours or 24 hours? weekends?

20. CLIENTS    

• Is there any success retail franchise based Australian client case study you can offer? If not, why not retail franchise based Australian clients have not bought your tool?

21. MINIMUM CONTRACT PERIOD  

• What's the minimum contract period.
• Can the Social Media Monitoring vendor allow you for a test period?

22. CONTRACT TERMINATION NOTIFICATION   

• Is there anything you have to be aware when deciding to terminate a contract with the Social Media Monitoring tool provider?
• When contract finish, is it clear how to store the data used during contract period? do you have to pay any extra cost?

23. TOP USP'S    

• Out of all the above criteria, which top two does your tool position as the best in the market?

I welcome your feedback and any other factor you believe can be added into the process of reviewing a Social Media Monitoring tool.

Mauricio Escobar Mármol offers support on Social and Digital Marketing and Media, you can contact Mauricio:

Next:

• Call Mauricio - Digital Marketing, Social Media &  SEO Consultant Sydney on +61481 367 711
• Check Mauricio Escobar Mármol LinkedIn profile.
• Follow us on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter or Google+

About Mauricio

Mauricio Escobar Mármol (BBsMn & MCom) is eDigital Sydney SEO Consultant, Social and Digital Media Specialist. Mauricio posses over 10 years experience helping companies to earn new customers and prolong customer lifetime value by effective execution of structured Digital Marketing strategies and executions. Mauricio worked as Digital Marketing Manager for some of Australia's most visited websites. Mauricio expertise focuses on Website Optimisation, Social Media, SEO/Networks Acquisition Strategies (SEO, SEM, Affiliates, Display) and vendor reviews.

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How to choose a Social Media Monitoring Tool - Guide from Mauricio Escobar Mármol