 |
|
Archives
|
American Idol Consolidates Social Media Accounts of Top 24 ContestantsThe popular reality TV series American Idol made history this year by allowing the show's top 24 finalists to maintain individual Facebook and Twitter accounts... and then promptly took them away. According to MTV.com, "For years, the show has put a virtual headlock on all non-"Idol"-sanctioned social media, declaring a blackout on any information or correspondence from contestants during their championship run on the show." However, this change was short-lived. After blogs and websites started declaring who was the most popular contestant, i.e. who was most likely to win based on Facebook or Twitter fan/follower counts, American Idol quickly squashed this initiative. Last night, Twitter followers of each of the top 24 AI contestants were served this message: “Thanks so much for following me! All my updates from now on will be on our Official Ai9 Twitter Page, please follow me there @AI9Contestants.” Similar messages were posted to Facebook and MySpace as well, according to Mashable.  While American Idol is justified in its concern that social media could sway the results of a show whose results are entirely based on the public's votes, ultimately this move seems wrong. AI made a statement by allowing the top 24 contestants to create these individual social identities for the first time in history, and then immediately taking them away for fear of skewed results. While American Idol is not fully taking away the individual identities of its contestants, whose tweets and Facebook/MySpace updates are still labeled by name on the new consolidated AI9 pages, the show is still robbing them of the ability to generate and grow fans through social media. The more a contestant puts into their pages, the better results they will show for it. The more engaging questions they ask fans, such as what song they should sing next week, helpful feedback/criticism, etc. the better results they should have to show for it. If AI had a problem with contestants gaining fans and helpful information from their fans using social media, why did they create the identities in the first place? And it's naive to assume that the show had no idea the media would jump on the opportunity to determine the projected winner based on fans and followers of each contestant before they even began the season. If the contestants' activity on their individual social media platforms influences the show's results, this would only prove that social media marketing is a great tool for American Idol to use to reach its target audience and promote the show itself. But now the show's social media platform is tainted with this news, and its results will be shaky at best. Just like every other mindless reality TV show, AI season 9 is now left with one page on each of the social networks, where all fans can congregate and discuss the season (which has proven to be a disappointment thus far to most former American Idol enthusiasts). It almost seems that AI is opposing viewers establishing loyalty to any one contestant... just in case it actually means something in the end. Isn't this show supposed to be about what the audience thinks? Think again. Labels: American Idol, Social Media, TV Overdrive Interactive Releases Social Media Marketing Whitepaper: "Chiclets: The Social Glue of the Web"Agency helps marketers understand how to infuse campaigns and content with the viral marketing power of Facebook, Twitter, Blogger and other social properties. Overdrive Interactive, an award-winning digital agency who specializes in search and social media marketing, has released a new whitepaper “Chiclets: The Social Glue of the Web.” The white paper is available for free at http://www.ovrdrv.com/chiclets or by contacting the agency directly. The whitepaper was developed as part of Overdrive Interactive's commitment to educate all marketers on the power and measurability of social media and how to best apply it to their marketing objectives. Harry J. Gold, the agency’s CEO, said about the white paper, “We developed this paper because chiclets are truly the most powerful and most underutilized nuggets of free social media technology out there…they are literally marketing miracles.” He added, “Marketers need to be aware of the content distribution power of these colorful little icons and have a chiclet strategy for all their online marketing activities.”  The whitepaper covers chiclet strategy and tactics by answering a series of questions ranging from what a chiclet is to how they can enhance websites, banners and any online campaign with instant one click viral distribution. Readers will see real examples of exactly how chiclets actually work to easily get content posted in consumer’s Facebook profiles, blogs and Twitter micro-blogs. Ty Velde, Overdrive Interactive’s EVP and Director of Client Services said, “We help companies add social octane to their websites, landing pages, emails, banners, basically everything they do online, with well thought out, measurable social media marketing and chiclet programs.” He went on to say, “Chiclets can turn just a few clicks into thousands of impressions that create lasting links and content placements all over the social web. The results are more traffic, more actions, more leads or revenue and more success for your online marketing programs.” “Chiclets: The Social Glue of The Web,” is just another example of how Overdrive Interactive is demystifying social media and bringing effective, measurable and easy to understand social media marketing strategies and tactics to the marketplace. ### About Overdrive Interactive Overdrive Interactive is a full-service online marketing agency based in Boston that helps clients grow their business with engaging and measurable social media marketing and search engine marketing campaigns and services. The agency specializes in creating genuine consumer connections that help companies build their brands, generate leads and drive revenue. Overdrive Interactive serves organizations that are seeking a high level of accountability from their agencies with proprietary social media tracking and dashboard technologies that allow companies to track actual leads, revenue and ROI from their social programs. For more information, please visit www.OverdriveInteractive.com. Labels: Social Media, Social Media Marketing, social media measurement, social media monitoring, social media tracking How Lady Gaga Moves More than Just her BodyPop sensation Lady Gaga has managed to sell 8 million albums since 2008, in a time when no one is buying CDs. How did she do it? By leveraging social media and developing creative partnerships to sell product, albums and singles. She is the first artist to score four consecutive number one singles from a debut album and the video premiere of her “Bad Romance” video lead to a Universal Music server crash and over 110 million views on YouTube. Not only is Lady Gaga scoring in the singles and album sales department she is also reaping the benefits of creative partnerships. With the success of Lady Gaga’s career, big brands are reaching out to Lady Gaga for her help in selling their products. She has been named creative director for Polaroid in the hopes of reigniting the brand and the Estee Lauder Group is seeing record sales of Lady Gaga’s and Cyndi Lauper’s Mac Viva Glam lipstick. Lady Gaga boosts 2.8 million Twitter followers and over 5.2 million Facebook fans that are more than eager to hear the latest Gaga news. This army of followers is gaga, well, over Gaga. In the February 22 Ad Age issue, Steve Berman, Universal Music’s president of sales and marketing states in the article “GAGA, OOH LA LA: Why The Lady is the Ultimate Social Climber”, “Gaga has worked tirelessly in keeping up daily if not hourly communications with her fans and growing fanbase through all the technology that exists.”  Her Facebook page features a merchandise store, events calendar, and gift shop of Lady Gaga images to send friends. Her Twitter page is filled with tweets which encourage users to watch videos and tweet with the singer. “Check me out on the Today Show with Cyndi” and “Any scousers gotta video if “the living dress” so happy I could die? Tweet me!” However, for someone not down with the lingo (as in me), more than 140 characters would help translate her tweets.  Labels: Brand Awareness, Facebook, Social Media, Twitter, twitter social media, Video, Viral Marketing Social Networking Site Use Up 82% in December 2009 According to statistics just released by Nielsen, we are spending more time than ever on social media sites. The average social-networking user increased their time on sites like Twitter and Facebook to five and half hours per month this past December. One year ago, the average time spent on social media sites was around three hours per month. To no one's surprise, Facebook was the top social networking site with 67% of the social networking users throughout the world. Time spent on Facebook in the US increased by 200% over the same month in 2008 while Twitter posted a 368% increase for the same time period. But we weren't the only ones spending lots of time on social-networking sites - the Australians spent nearly seven hours per month on Twitter and Facebook during the same time period. Labels: Facebook, Social Media, social media measurement, social media monitoring, Twitter, twitter social media CMO's here's a new social media metric for you I am still not sure how to react to the latest poll by eMarketer indicating Comparative Estimates: Leading Metric Used by Marketers to Measure Social Media Marketing Success, 2009. Not a single mention of Social Media and tying results to ROI. Stunned by the results of the survey is about all I can muster for a reaction. 76% polled, answered driving site traffic as their number one metric to gauge a successful social media campaign. Ouch! Overdrive Interactive views social media as another channel and significant business unit that should be sharing in the responsibilities of ROI. I laugh too when people ask the ROI or value of putting your pants on, ok point taken. But surely at this stage of social marketing maturity we should be expecting more than just an increase in click through volume. Labels: Social Media, Social Media Marketing, social media roi, social media tracking Google Buzz vs. Everything ElseYesterday, Jeremiah Owyang of Web Strategy published a blog post that weighed in on his opinion of the freshly released "Google Buzz." So what is Google Buzz? Google's answer to social networks like Twitter and Facebook that attempts to incorporate and aggregate the chatter on all existing social networks. Many users have compared the feed that is aggregated and shared on Google Buzz similar to FriendFeed or the Facebook homepage feed. Google Buzz sits upon the email powerhouse of Gmail, not to mention the most popular website in the world, Google. Owyang offers a detailed matrix that compares and contrasts Google Buzz, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Most notably, Owang points out that Google Buzz is late to the party, but has potential to integrate the entire internet, while Facebook has gained traction with Facebook connect. The clearcut competition in social networks seems like it may come down to a faceoff between Facebook and Buzz, since many have predicted Twitter to be a commodity that will be integrated into everything. The real competition will not exist until Buzz gets enough users to sign up and use the service. Facebook, which already has 400 million active users, is starting in the lead. While Buzz was released to a public full of high expectations, users were fast to scrutinize the privacy flaws of the content aggregator. A Fox news article reported that Buzz users were automatically opted in to allow others to see who their email and chat contacts are. Google responded by making the opt out option for sharing contacts more clear, but many are still weary of the system's privacy. The Future of Google Buzz is unclear, however Owywang suggests that Buzz is quick to integrate into Chrome and Search to leverage the information and consumers that Google already possesses. Facebook is urged to become more open and reward users for sharing public information. However, Facebook's so-called "Titan" email project could be a game changer... Labels: Google, Google Buzz, Industry, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, web 2.0 What’s Your Social Media Engagement Strategy?Best Practices of Social Media Engagement Many companies are replacing traditional methods of direct marketing with social media. The companies with successful social media campaigns thus far have focused on designing the channels, monitoring the conversation, developing content, and measuring ROI. However, engagement with the audience is one of the most overlooked components of a social media strategy.One key benefit of social media is the two-way conversation brands can have with their audiences. They mistake their “content strategy” as an “engagement strategy.” But developing content without an engagement strategy is like talking to your audience and completely ignoring what they say back to you. What is an engagement strategy?Simply stated an engagement strategy is all about communication and interaction. While a content strategy is based on what you’re going to say, an engagement strategy is based on how you’re going to say it, and how you respond to what your fans say. You company will need to develop a plan for actually interacting with your audience, not just throwing content at them and hoping they catch. This is the most challenging part of developing a social media campaign, and as such many companies of shied away from developing a concrete engagement strategy. Through this article, I will outline the following engagement fundamentals that you can in turn use do develop your own strategy:
ToneMost people will come back to your fan page if they feel a sense of community, so it’s important to be open, friendly, inviting, and personable.Have a conversational tone: Social media is casual by nature. Sites like Facebook and Twitter were developed so that people could connect with their friends. Although companies should maintain a professional presence online, it’s important to exude a personal, conversational tone on these sites. Be open and friendly: Be fun, friendly, and enthusiastic about your product or service without being overly promotional or corporate-sounding. Be unique: Avoid imitating the tone of your fans. Although you want to cater to your target audience, you do not need to force your tone to sound like your community. Be unique, so that your fans are interested enough to follow your presence online. Level of EngagementEncourage fan participation: The role of your company’s updates should be to encourage fan participation. Avoid posting only about what you want to promote, and take an interest in your audience’s opinion. Ask questions at the end of your status updates, or ask fans to upload their own content.Maintain a dialogue: Don’t let your status updates be a monologue of self-promotion. Spark conversation by posing questions to the community and posting content that will encourage participation. Share fan content: Share content that your fans have posted to your social channels by re-Sharing on Facebook or re-tweeting on Twitter; they’ll feel even more connected to your brand. VoiceAs a company, there are several options for what the voice of the brand should be. Remember, on Facebook all updates will be prefaced by the name of the fan page (in the examples below, “The Candy Company”):
Posting FrequencyThere is a correlation between the frequency of posts and the number of fans or followers a brand has. There’s a fine balance though; you don’t want to overwhelm your fans. According to a recent study by Sysomos, 77% of Facebook fan pages have fewer than 1,000 fans, and fan pages tend to be updated only once every 16 days. It’s a good practice to update your fan page at least once every day, at least Monday through Friday. This should yield comments and engagement with your brand each day, which will in turn lead to friends of your fans also discovering your page and becoming fans.What to PostMany brands on the social channels are purely self-promotional, only updating their social sites with updates on their own products, deals, discounts, or news. While it’s important to stay relevant to your brand, mix it up with different types of content. There are several different ways to post content on Facebook, including:
Here are some ideas for what you can post besides self-promotional updates, which can all be tweaked to fit the character limits on the various social channels:
Sharing or retweeting fan’s content is a great strategy to make your page feel like a real community. The Coca-Cola Facebook fan page is an excellent example of this. They often share photos their fans post to their walls using the Share button.  Dealing with NegativityAlthough most people seeking out brands in social media are fans of the brand and are coming to show support, there will be individuals who come to complain. Comcast is a great example of a company who uses their social media presence primarily for customer support. But if this isn’t your company’s goal, how should you deal with the negative feedback? Fan to fan interaction: If fans on your page are having a debate, there’s no reason to get involved unless you feel that someone is arguing over a blatantly inaccurate fact. Then it’s fine to jump in and clarify, then remove the brand from the discussion. Otherwise, it’s best to stay out of it. If fans start posting derogatory messages, you can delete the offensive messages and block fans when necessary. Social Media Gives Your Brand VisibilityCompelling and active social channels should be an integral part of your online marketing campaign. These channels provide an exceptional opportunity for brand visibility, but you need to make sure that your fans will have content to comment on and engage with. The more comments you have, the more viral your campaign will become!In the end, an engagement strategy will make your social media campaign a much more compelling and high-impact aspect of your overall marketing efforts and truly enable you to harness all that it has to offer. When you think about it, social media is all about socializing, and an engagement strategy will ensure that how you socialize with your fan base is not only strategically sound, but effective. Not only will this help you to leverage social media to build stronger customer relations, it will enable your organization to guide and actively participate in the growth of what is only going to be a more important marketing channel for years to come. Labels: Facebook, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Twitter Foursquare: The Next Evolution in Social Media? Location-sharing social networks have steadily been gaining traction in the social media world, and Foursquare is currently leading the way in overall popularity and name recognition due to its ease of use and slick integration. Mashable even wrote back in July that FourSquare could be the next Twitter.The premise is quite simple. Install the application on your mobile phone (applications are now available for iPhones, Blackberries, and Android Phones) or browse to their mobile site and “check in” whenever you visit a new venue. Not only do you receive points and badges for checking in and reaching certain milestones (as well as blast a message on Facebook and Twitter alerting your friends and followers as to your whereabouts), but if you visit a particular location often enough, you could be crowned as Mayor. Many bars, restaurants, and cafes have started to offer discounts and free offers to loyal patrons who prove their mayorship, including free appetizers or a drink on the house. This sort of friendly competition, while of course a lot of fun, can also be extremely beneficial for a business’s overall exposure. Foursquare could potentially se  rve as a source of valuable traffic data for your business, as it logs not only how many times customers have visited your venue, but also the frequency of their visits. In addition, customers can leave comments or suggestions when they check in, allowing business owners access to invaluable feedback in much the same way Yelp does.In the future, Foursquare intends on implementing a more detailed dashboard view for participating venues to make it easier to keep track of who’s visiting, how often, where they’re coming from, and where they’re going next. Foursquare and other similar location-sharing services might just be the next evolutionary step for social media, and could completely redefine social media marketing. Labels: Foursquare, Social Media, Social Media Marketing Google Toolbar's Share FeatureAre you aware of the sharing feature on the Google Toolbar? Added in December 2009, this feature allows web surfers to share content on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Additionally, surfers can use the tool to share content on blogs and through e-mail.   After users select where they would like to share information, a pop-up enables them to post the selected content to a social networking site, blog or e-mail. Here is an example of what the content looks like posted on a Facebook wall:  Labels: Google, Social Media Leaving Your Fate with FacebookThis Sunday, football fans will be glued to their TVs for the Superbowl, while we in the advertising industry will be glued to our TVs for the... Superbowl. Let's face it, some people watch the Superbowl just for the ads, and through the years I've seen some great TV spots debut on the big game day. This year, 30-second ad spots reportedly cost $2.5 million and up - that's A LOT of money so advertisers often spend months (even years) in advanced preparing for those Superbowl ads. However, Budweiser - a huge Superbowl advertiser - decided to take a leap of faith on deciding which ad to play and leave its fate with Facebook. Yes, Facebook, particularly Budweiser Fans on Facebook. Budweiser proudly declares as its status: Budweiser wants our fans to help us decide which commercial makes it to the Big Game. Click on the "Game Day Pick" tab for an exclusive preview of three new spots and vote for your favorite! This "promo" first caught my eye when I saw a Facebook homepage engagement ad:  It was a basic "Become a Fan" ad unit and it actually made me wonder why Budweiser is targeting me - is it because of my age group/gender/location? Or is it because I have "advertising" in my profile? I'm not a big fan of beer but I am a big fan of (most) TV commercials so I still clicked the ad and became a fan. I landed on the custom tab for "Game Day Pick:  And proceeded to watch all three clips. My personal opinion: they were all... blah. I was not impressed by any but did end up voting for the "Payment" one (the only one that's slightly funny and more interesting than the others, I think).But if I didn't like with the Budweiser ads, why am I using up precious blog space and brain energy to write about Budweiser on Facebook? Because while I wasn't impressed with the ads, I was impressed with their strategy. This is one of the most well-known brands in the world, undoubtedly with millions of dollars invested in marketing and advertising, and it is wholly embracing the power of social media. I'm impressed that they are leveraging the power of Facebook to hype up their Superbowl ads, and are letting their fans become part of this big decision (what ad to run), encouraging user engagement and brand affinity. And I'm impressed that they got me - a non-beer drinker, non-Budweiser aficionado - to actually become a fan, and watch their ads, and vote! And even more impressive? Budweiser is smart enough to encourage viral propagation not just by giving the user the option to post it on their feed:  But also asking them to comment on the "what do you think" area:  This is just basic social media strategy, but it is genius in its simplicity. The key here is user engagement and Budweiser is doing a really good job at it.I'm definitely watching out for the Budweiser ad this Sunday to see if the one I voted for actually "won", and hey, I might even drink a bottle of Budweiser (just maybe)... Whether you're tuning in for the football or the ads, I hope you have a great time! Labels: Advertising, Facebook, Industry, Online Media, POV, Social Media Are YOU measuring Social Media ROI?The Alterian Integrated Marketing group recently released their 7th annual survey on social media and marketing adoption. Almost 1100 marketing professionals and executives participated worldwide, and the results paint a very interesting picture. Highlights include:
 With core metrics like unique visits and time spent on the biggest social networks continually ballooning upward, these figures come at no real surprise. But when the medium and large businesses making these big buys into social are consistently downsizing across nearly every industry, it's also easy to see where more than a few executives raise eyebrows over social's 'real' value. Where, how, or how much does social media marketing contribute to the bottom line?The social media Kool-Aid dictates that if you're not in it, you're outside of it. Now, it doesn't take money to register a Facebook page, but it certainly does take time and effort (and ultimately creative, development, and maintenance dollars) to impact the opinions and ideas gathered and exchanged in social media. And it takes alot of effort to do so in a positive, meaningful, and above all, sincere way. Brands are certainly counting how much they're spending on social. Shouldn't they be paying attention to what they're getting out of it? Almost 85% are in the dark.  Would you put a dollar in a vending machine without bothering to see what comes down the chute? Would you spend on an online media or branding campaign and not pay attention to the analytics? There's clearly a disconnect here.Social media spending is on the rise. That's a fact - money is going where the traffic is, makes sense. CMOs want measurable results, also makes sense. But most of them don't know where to start. MarketingProfs reports that 10% of marketing executives can't find measurable success in LinkedIn or Facebook, and 15% believe there is NO ROI associated with Twitter. Guess what, Dell made almost $7M off of Twitter last year. How'd they do it? With defined end goals. What are you end goals? Followers? Leads? Registrations? Links? Sales? Define these goals before you engage. Structure your campaigns and their success metrics around these goals. Listen to the conversation about your brand before you engage. Want to know Dell's other Twitter secret? Tracked clicks. Simple campaigns + measurable assets + a defined end goal = Social Media ROI. Are you measuring? Labels: Brand Awareness, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, social media roi Twitter Now Tracking Local TrendsTwitter recently unveiled a new feature that allows users to view trending topics according to city or country. Prior to the update, Twitter users were only able to see major topics of discussion worldwide on Twitter. With more localized trending topics, users can track trends more relevant to themselves (for example, the Celtics, for Boston residents) as well as note the differences in how various areas of the world perceive a major event.    Currently, the feature is only available for major cities and countries, but Twitter is working on adding more locations.Source: Twitter Blog Labels: Social Media, Twitter, web 2.0 Digital Marketing; the Music Industry’s New HustleIn a time when cassettes and CDs are obsolete, the traditional methods of promotion and marketing in the music industry are close behind. The panelists at the “Music Artists go Entrepreneurial” Summit at Stanford; Chamillionaire (@chamillionaire), Hammer (@MCHammer), and Mistah Fab (all rappers), discuss how the internet has changed the music industry and how it has impacted their music careers. Chamillionaire said it best: “Digital is the [music industry’s] new hustle.” The days of street promotion and literally driving from city to city, store to store selling records are gone. The internet and social media have taken control, now serving as a convenient venue for promotion, marketing, and distribution; making it easier and quicker for artists to push out content and for fans to easily obtain it. Today, music fans (including myself) will have already heard an entire album and have tracks in rotation on their iPods before the album reaches stores. Thanks to YouTube, Twitter, MySpace, and Blogs, raising awareness for artists has become less manual and more digital. As Hammer explains, social media has replaced the middle man or “hype man” - the guy artists pay to promote them and their music; which may or may not actually translate into sales. Being able to apply and analyze their online marketing programs’ analytics allows artists to not only target exactly who their fans are behaviorally, demographically, and geographically; but also measure if it translates into record or concert ticket sales.  Technology and Social Media has rewritten the business model for the music industry. If artists aren’t incorporating Social Media into their current business models, they need to do so, immediately. As a music enthusiast and music blogger, I rely on other music blogs and artists’ Twitter accounts for valuable content; what’s new, what’s hot, and more importantly (stalking-ly) what artists are up to in their everyday lives. Whether they are tweeting/pushing content themselves or hiring a ghost tweeter, having this medium allows artists to control the content and information fans are getting, receive feedback on their work, and most importantly connect and build strong relationships with their fans, as we are ultimately consuming and purchasing their music. To view the entire discussion: http://alwayson.goingon.com/page/display/28097?param=session/343 Labels: Online Media, Social Media, twitter social media Interactive TV Ads: Real-Life ExamplesMy last column, "When TV and the Internet Converge," examined four points that marketers must understand about what's now happening with interactive television. In this column, let's review real-life examples of interactive television ads and explore where advertising will go from there. Interactive Television Ads: Real-Life Examples OK, let's look at some things that have been done that start to combine video and interactive TV with advertising, games, and even e-commerce. Budweiser: Branding Game and Contest  Budweiser ran an interactive TV ad that rewarded "interactors" with a game and chance to win a trip to the World Cup. According to a case study examining this campaign, around 890,000 people interacted with the ad by "pressing red" or select and 90 percent of the interactors played the "Heads Up" game to win World Cup tickets. Interactors reportedly spent an average of just over seven minutes interacting, but 38 percent thought they'd spent 10 minutes or more interacting! See a video of the Budweiser interactive TV ad here on YouTube. Axe Body Spray: Interactive Branding Game  For this interactive TV commercial, Axe created games where viewers controlled bikes and did a stunt using the arrow keys. Other options also brought up a slow-motion version of the stunt and information about Axe body spray. The ad was shown to 60 million homes that have either DirecTV or Dish Network. In just a few weeks, 3.5 million people watched the video and spent an average of five minutes playing with the ad. Charmin: Coupon Distribution  This Charmin toilet paper interactive ad was delivered to TiVo users. When the ad appears, a green thumb appears in the right corner of the screen that reads, "Apply now for a valuable coupon from Charmin." When viewers click the thumb using their remote control, the program they are watching pauses and they are taken to a coupon request screen. Using the remote, they can choose that option and the coupons are sent by mail. The program resumes once the viewer completes the interactive ad. Although this ad was done via TiVo, it could be done with any cable system. Domino's Pizza: Ordering Goods  OK, this was one of the first interactive TV promotions to really get some buzz. As described from the press release dated Nov. 17, 2008: "TiVo subscribers can seamlessly access their Domino's Pizza order from various advertising entry points on the TiVo user interface...by clicking on "Order Your Pizza"...they can log-in with a simple account number...build their pizza order right from the television set by selecting type of crust, toppings, and sauces, and get the pizza delivered by their local Domino's Pizza." This particular promotion was not e-commerce enabled, so you paid for your pizza when it arrived. But how hard would it be to add a pay feature now? Not too hard. Clickable Video: Imagine Where This Can Go Let's start to imagine where this can go. First, take a look at the images and videos below. They're examples of Web-based clickable video. Now, imagine that this Internet technology moves to television and the mouse-like remote control evolved to be a Wii-like remote control mouse where you can move a curser around a screen to play games and click on items in actual TV shows. Now, imagine watching your favorite shows and movies in catalog mode. Product placement will be huge and shows will generate click and commerce revenue from the highest bidders. It will be "The Truman Show" meets Google AdWords meets Amazon! There is no reason why this technology can't be applied to television now that the remote control, the Internet, and television video are fully merged and we can pause shows while people perform transactions. At the very least, we can tell people to click "OK" to see more info on a particular item. Then the DVR can pause the show and a consumer can view a pop-up Web page and make a transaction if she wants to. This could be done in millions of homes right now! To see the below videos live, visit VideoClix, choose a category, and choose a video. When watching these videos, roll your curser over the products and click on them. Vogue, 60 Seconds to Chic This video includes links for consumers to obtain additional information and to make a purchase.  Progresso: Start Cooking This is an example of a brand's informational video that could link to coupons.  Nike: Zappos Clickable Video Catalog I couldn't find this on Zappos, but you can see it on YouTube here. I like this example because it integrates everything and shows where you could end up making a transaction at the end.  Bring It All Together, Mash It Up, Make a Wish List So, here are a bunch of things I can imagine being done -- or are already being done -- with interactive TV. For the real-life examples, the items include links. What can you add to this list knowing what you know now?
In conclusion, the way to think about interactive TV is this: anything you can do on a Web site you will be able to do with interactive TV. Ads will become much more action oriented to encourage viewer/user behavior and shows will have new revenue opportunities with product placement and embedded calls to action (really saving them). Finally, tracking will be extended to television in a whole new way and will really raise the bar on marketing and advertising performance and accountability. So, what is the good news for online professionals? Online marketers already work under this kind of atmosphere! Labels: Advertising, ClickZ, Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing The ConversationalistsRecently released data from Forrester Research has coined the term "The Conversationalists" for people that post a status update on a social networking or microblogging website at least once a week. The Forrester data was analyzed and published in this article from ReadWriteWeb. So, who are the Conversationalists? More than half of The Conversationalists are female, and more than 70% are 30 years and older. This group of people contributes mainly to online discussions with their friends on social networking sites. This group of internet users is the fastest growing group of adults online, and based on their usage patterns, may be more focused on maintaining current relationships rather than developing new ones. Although The Conversationalists are rapidly increasing, the number of Creators (those who publish their own content) has remained quite steady. As the aforementioned ReadWriteWeb article proposed, this is most likely due to the fact that it is relatively easy to join a social network, but much more difficult to consistently create and maintain internet content.  Labels: Facebook, Forrester Report, Social Media, Twitter A Social Media Scorecard – 2010 US Senate Special Election in MA Click above image to enlarge The recent special election to fill the vacated US Senate seat of the late Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts was certainly one of the most highly charged and closely followed statewide elections in recent history, both on state and national level. Not only was the Democrats filibuster-proof 60 vote majority at stake, the fact that a Republican was threatening to take the seat, in what many consider the bluest of blue states, made this an election for the ages. Labels: Facebook, POV, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Twitter, twitter social media, web 2.0, YouTube Social Media Helps Drive Off Page SEO Blogs, social networks, video sharing platforms, audio, photos, podcasts, wikis, virtual worlds, forums, microblogging, social shopping ... The era of digital marketing is now part of our lives and social media offers an attractive landscape for brands [both b2b and b2c] who have adopted social media as a core objective. The goal, to exploit these connective advantages through the enormous power of the network, or what may be considered the same, the enormous power of the users. Social media is giving way to a new era where the concept of communication begins to be replaced by a dialogue, where before, companies had to create, listen and speak. Now, we see a new paradigm that consumers are not necessarily averse to advertising because they are the ones creating and developing content for the brands, enhancing the social product mentions and social placements. Do not be because they do [Yoda speak] The interesting investment in social media, however, was misinterpreted by many companies. In the beginning they understood that this method was simply to move the social tools that conveyed the same message through traditional media. They did not realize that it was in fact an entire philosophy of work whose mission was to place users as protagonists of their success by reorganizing the message to them and allowing the users to qualify, criticize or even reject their content. Social Media was a new concept of communication which was first kept in the background, enhancing the product development of useful information and providing value to the user. Social Media is not a set of mechanical actions Social Media social action is based on people, not machines or automated methods. The strategy therefore, not based on simply exposing a product to the greatest number of potential sites and social networks, but to define new communication activities where individuals are active partners in spreading the message and its importance. That the message is conveyed by the brand becomes less credible and more credible when transmitted by the users as an intrinsic act of endorsement. Communication but not much dialogue The concept of a traditional advertising campaign where the brand delivers a message to a user is not appropriate in the formula of social media. The role of the user is not meant to only receive information, but to disseminate the concept, culture and actions sought by the campaign. This old belief system fully cancels and lays null and void plans for interaction. Continuous messaging by brands and the need to share value with their audiences is actually how social media works. This is a communication process that requires listening to what the public thinks of you and your product on the network: this is not what you say to people, but what people say, do or how they interact with your product or services . Once we receive feedback from users, data mining is important for working on strategies that allow us to connect with our users the most effective way possible: there is no standard way of doing Social Media, each case can arise from very different circumstances related to the type of product, with its target goal, or the need to expand information about a particular product. What we must not ever forget in this type of communication is to plan long term strategies and move away from seeking immediate ROI. Social Media is about creating communities where you encourage and reward loyalty continuously to its most active users. Social media speaks of a discipline which also applies to both "off page" using third party tools, and "on page" strategies that allows you to use our own site as a forum for dialogue where we can incorporate other disciplines such as creativity, SEO, user experience etc.. The basic tenants of best practice SEO from 5 years ago still apply to today's best practice SEO with very little changing other than the availability of off page influence and search engine spiders ability to crawl a wider variety of files and formats. The Social Media mix now amplifies and extends the inbound traffic and profitability of a site via off page execution of social media strategies and campaigns. Labels: off pgae seo, seo, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, social media roi Real Time Search isn't Real No sooner had we gotten used to the idea of “Universal Search” and every detail needed to understand what would go into dominating the search engine results pages with images, videos and text, than Google releases “Real-time Search”. The question is how real time is the returns and how flawed are the results. The lack of Google’s ability to show real-time results was a weakness that many people felt hurt them in development. With the release of Universal Search so many interesting features were added to Google Suggest and Google Quick Scroll enabling Google’s search capabilities to save users time and enhance the user experience. Real-time Google Search is available in English only for some people, but Google believes that by the first quarter of 2010 could be implemented in other languages. Some of the pages that will work with this new system will be Facebook, Twitter and MySpace sites that are updated every minute. For now if you want to see Real Time in action, I recommend choosing any of the terms found in Google Trends. Only for some specific terms will you see results, massive searches at a given time, so if you want to see it in action, I recommend choosing any of the terms in Google Trends. Not Just Google but Bing too: Both Bing and Google have agreements with Twitter to take every tweet (post or message) and analyze each with its own technology to deliver relevant results to searchers. There were already some partial solutions like Twitter Search Results for Google via GreaseMonkey, but this new real-time is certainly a step beyond. We see that Bing has completely separated search Twitter, trying not to affect results pages (SERPs) for your main browser. While search engines can be added to Twitter as an input to the characterization of the sites that are part of their index, they do not plan to add sound to your results pages with tweets. Therefore we must see real-time searching as a new type of search, and existing (News, Blogs, images, etc), which is sorted by relevancy. Social information is important and needed for business and individuals alike. Google’s new interest in blended results beyond Universal search is problematic on several dimensions. The sleek and streamlined results, Google used to serve, now look like a hodge podge of information. Gone are their austere results views, no longer conforming to the most relevant and best results credo. Add sponsored results which are now even more wonky given the addition of images in paid search and the results pages looks terrible. My concern stems from sources of information used and information available for use. So much of what happens in this world takes place in extranets and behind forum walls that truly influence our everyday lives that search engines have no access or insight into. So how real is real time search? Labels: Bing, Google, real time search, search results, SERPs, Social Media, Twitter An Alternative Approach To Social Media Marketing - Your Social Brand“Your Brand is what identifies your business to consumers. If you were to ask most people about ‘branding” as it applies to their business they will most likely respond with an answer rooted in a company’s products and services. Sure, they will speak to the importance of emotionally connecting with their target audience, but at the heart of it all it still boils down to what you do or the products you produce. In short, for your brand to be effective it needs to sell and move product or services.
Social media is definitely changing how we market and connect with consumers. Therefore as marketers, we need to also think differently about how we approach our business and look to connect with consumers. In the end traditional branding models will not always work, because they were not constructed to deal with a high degree of social interaction and input from consumers. Therefore, we need to look at branding as a form of subsets, including how we will and want to socialize with our target. Labels: Advertising, Brand Awareness, Facebook, Integration, POV, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Twitter, twitter social media Yahoo Picks Up Baggage for the Holidays On December 23 (the busiest travel day of the year), Yahoo sent employees to the San Francisco International and San Jose International airports and paid for airline customer's baggage fees. According to NBC Bay Area, this was "not a bad deal for travelers, who likely booked --and payed for -- their tickets, only to learn that they'd have to cough up a bit more dough for the privilege of actually traveling with luggage. The timing couldn't be better for Yahoo. For one thing, people leaving town will have a warm feeling in their hearts about the search company." And according to AdAge, who called it a brilliant holiday marketing stunt, Yahoo hoped to inspire the Yahoo community to create a wave of goodwill. "Goodwill? Great. Putting the idea in consumers' heads that Yahoo is a company that will make navigating the world simpler and cheaper? Brilliant." However, the AdAge article points out that the only issue with the stunt is scale. Instead of sending employees to just two airports near Silicon Valley, Yahoo could have spent more money - a lot more money - sponsoring baggage fees throughout the country for the whole holiday season. I wholeheartedly agree. I think a bigger scale approach would get more attention and possibly build stronger brand affinity among consumers. Yahoo already launched Yahoo! for Good with a campaign spotlight on spreading kindness. Yahoo declares on its website: This holiday, create a ripple of happiness triggered by your single act of kindness. Update your status to share what you're doing to spread joy. Then inspire others to join you by asking "You in?" The more people you tell, the larger your ripple. We'll use our network to share your good deeds with others. We'll also be doing our own acts of kindness inspired by your updates. So whether you pay for someone's groceries or drop off a coat for the homeless, your actions will encourage others around the world to join in. How big will your ripple of happiness be? I personally find it endearing that this web giant is encouraging people to do random acts of kindness. But as an online marketer, I think the AdAge article had the issue spot on - this definitely could have been a much, much bigger campaign. Where is the social media component? There is already an inherent viral spread there (by updating your Yahoo status with your act of kindness, your actions will encourage others to join in), why didn't Yahoo leverage the power of social media to blow up "Yahoo! for Good"? For instance, Yahoo could have incorporated their Facebook page - maybe create a tab for this campaign - and not only generate user interaction but also build their fan base and create lasting connections. Yahoo could also have used Twitter to send updates about making the holidays better by paying for your luggage fees. And last but not least, what about Flickr? It would have been great to see pictures of delighted customers who were treated to Yahoo's generosity. Yahoo could have encouraged more people to comment, share stories, photos, videos, and basically engage with the brand. These are just some of my thoughts, but in spite of all the could have's, I still want to give kudos to Yahoo for doing its part in making the holidays easier and brighter. Maybe next time they can send some employees to the Boston Logan airport :) I wish everyone a stress-free, kindness-filled, happy New Year! Labels: Advertising, Industry, POV, Social Media Remembering 2009 Through TwitterTwitter has become the water cooler of the Internet, and is a valuable tool to determine what is being discussed around the world at any moment. It also serves as a unique time capsule. Twitter recently released the Top Twitter Trends of 2009, which provides interesting insight into what mattered to our culture in 2009. Some of the rankings aren't a surprise, such as Michael Jackson as the most discussed person, and the Iran Election and Swine Flu being the top news stories. Yet the claimed "social media phenomenons" like New Moon and Paranormal Activity were still trumped by Harry Potter. And there are some notable trends missing from the list, including our new president Barack Obama in the People category and #followfriday in the Hashtags category. Here is the list of the top trending topics of 2009: News Events 1. #iranelection 2. Swine Flu 3. Gaza 4. Iran 5. Tehran 6. #swineflu 7. AIG 8. #uksnow 9. Earth Hour 10. #inaug09 People 1. Michael Jackson 2. Susan Boyle 3. Adam Lambert 4. Kobe (Bryant) 5. Chris Brown 6. Chuck Norris 7. Joe Wilson 8. Tiger Woods 9. Christian Bale 10. A-Rod (Alex Rodriguez) Movies 1. Harry Potter 2. New Moon 3. District 9 4. Paranormal Activity 5. Star Trek 6. True Blood 7. Transformers 2 8. Watchmen 9. Slumdog Millionaire 10. G.I. Joe TV Shows 1. American Idol 2. Glee 3. Teen Choice Awards 4. SNL (Saturday Night Live) 5. Dollhouse 6. Grey’s Anatomy 7. VMAS (Video Music Awards) 8. #bsg (Battlestar Galatica) 9. BET Awards 10. Lost Sports (Teams, Events, Leagues) 1. Super Bowl 2. Lakers 3. Wimbledon 4. Cavs (Cleveland Cavaliers) 5. Superbowl 6. Chelsea 7. NFL 8. UFC 100 9. Yankees 10. Liverpool Technology 1. Google Wave 2. Snow Leopard 3. Tweetdeck 4. Windows 7 5. CES 6. Palm Pre 7. Google Latitude 8. #E3 9. #amazonfail 10. Macworld Hash Tags 1. #musicmonday 2. #iranelection 3. #sxsw 4. #swineflu 5. #nevertrust 6. #mm 7. #rememberwhen 8. #3drunkwords 9. #unacceptable 10. #iwish What did you expect to be a top trend for 2009 that didn't make the list? Happy New Year! Labels: Social Media, Twitter Hypertargeting Registered UsersHypertargeting, a term coined by MySpace, describes the social network's ability, as it puts it, to, "tap into self-expressed user information" and "reach the consumers most likely to be receptive to your brand." Basically, MySpace is saying that you can target consumers by the information they post in their registration information and profiles. The team at MySpace adds, "Thanks to the unsurpassed reach of MySpace, you can target highly specific user interests while still reaching a significant audience." This is basically saying that even though you are getting super specific about the consumers you are trying to target, there are so many people on MySpace who have registered and populated their profiles that you can still reach tons of people. While MySpace hasn't been the top dog for some time, let's give credit where credit is due. Its term, hypertargeting, perfectly describes what social networking, dating sites, and other sites that require registration can offer to marketers. They can enable marketers to target consumers with unbelievable accuracy and efficiency. As consumers we get a great deal as well. We get a huge variety of free and low cost Web services for simply letting companies advertise to us in a more relevant and targeted way. Typically, there are three main buckets of information that enable the "hypertargeting" of consumers, based on registration information a person reveals when joining a site or making a purchase. The buckets include:
"We allow advertisers to choose the characteristics of users who will see their advertisements and we may use any of the non-personally identifiable attributes we have collected (including information you may have decided not to show to other users, such as your birth year or other sensitive personal information or preferences) to select the appropriate audience for those advertisements. For example, we might use your interest in soccer to show you ads for soccer equipment, but we do not tell the soccer equipment company who you are." So if I wanted to, I could reach males ages 18 to 26 in New England who are interested in soccer. And because Facebook has 350 million registered users, chances are that even with that narrowly defined selects I will still reach a pretty good size audience. Note that this technology is typically used in a very ethical way. All of this stuff is no more intrusive or dangerous than credit card companies targeting people with offers from partners and vendors via direct mail. As Facebook puts it in its privacy policy: "We don't share your information with advertisers without your consent...For example, we might use your interest in soccer to show you ads for soccer equipment, but we do not tell the soccer equipment company who you are." Now, the ability to target consumers based on registration information is nothing new. Sites and services like Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Gmail, and gated publications like the Wall Street Journal have been able to do it for a long time. But now that you have behemoth social networking and user-generated content sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube, and even Match.com with hundreds of millions of users, the universe of hypertargeting opportunities is bigger than ever and promises to continue to grow. And, the addition of "self expressed" information that people post to their profiles combined with behavioral data makes for an even richer spectrum of targeting options. In many ways, this type of targeting is the future of advertising. Furthermore, companies like IAC own an entire network of sites including Match.com, Ask, Evite, Citysearch, and Shoebuy. Reading excerpts from Match.com's privacy policy is very revealing. (See below.) Basically, it shows that IAC is combining registration information from different sites to formulate some pretty amazing targeting options for marketers -- all on an anonymous basis of course. "We may collect information that can identify you ("personal information"), such as your name and email address, (i) when you (or other users) provide it to us when using our website or in some other manner, or (ii) from other IAC businesses, from our business partners, and from other third parties. We may combine the personal information that we receive from different sources." It goes on to explain how this combined information may be used: "We may use information to:
The purpose of this column is not to whip up a whole needless privacy debate. All people need to do is not use these primarily free sites, clear their cookies, or opt out of ad targeting by all member companies at the Network Advertising Initiative. Instead, my goal is to share the huge opportunity that we, as online marketers, have to hypertarget consumers more efficiently than ever dreamed possible in numbers that will soon make for viable advertising campaigns using exclusively hypertargeted media. This is huge and represents the future of advertising! Labels: ClickZ, Facebook, online marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing FarmVille More Popular Than TwitterAs Facebook hits 350 million users around the globe, one of its most popular applications, FarmVille, is rivaling another popular social media site, Twitter. In a meeting with TechRadar, Facebook revealed that its website garnered about 200 billion page views per month, with 1.6 billion messages sent daily and 2.5 billion photos uploaded per month. FarmVille is an addicting game that allows players to develop their own farm from scratch by plowing land, harvesting crops and trees and raising cows, chickens and other various animals. Players can also decorate their farm with buildings, scarecrows, hay bales and other farm accessories. According to Facebook, the application (just one of the 90,000 available on Facebook) has 69 million users - more than Twitter's user base.  Facebook also released other statistics related its user demographics. The social networking site's average user base is getting older, as the 35+ category is the fastest growing. Furthermore, at least 53% of Facebook users visit the site on a daily basis, demonstrating how integrated the site is in the lives of its users. To read the article on TechRadar, click here. Labels: Facebook, Social Media, Twitter |
Blog Search
Categories
|
| Blog Home | Social Media Map | Schedule a Seminar | eMarketing Blog | Contact Bloggers | © 2002-2010 Overdrive. All Rights Reserved. |