Continuing to Innovate

With the innovation of new technology devices (smartphones, tablets, etc) its become an issue for websites and developers to adapt their creations.  The problem for developers comes into play when you are view websites from smaller and smaller screen sizes.  The dimensions change but the user is still expecting a high level of service.  This is the same for companies running ads.

Fortunately for developers, websites with ad revenue models and even the advertisers big brother Google has their back. Google announced today that is has launched its new responsive AdSense unit.  The technology giant has built an adaptive code which allows for ads to conform themselves to the renderings your site displays on different devices.

What does this mean for advertisers?

This is reassurance that your ad isn't going to be misconstrued if someone looks information from a smartphone or tablet.  They ad will be proportional to the rest of the website.  These little innovations don't seem like much but allows Google to continue to print money daily.

How else do you see this type of solution helping advertisers?

Omnicom & Publicis Merger

Yesterday, Omnicom and Publicis announced their merger to create the largest advertising company in the world- worth up to $35B. Many cried foul as this news broke since the deal would surely create anti-competitive environment for advertising. However, this announcement goes to prove that the web and social advertising has become such a big force that the more traditional advertising firms must adjust their strategy and respond.

It was interesting to read about how quickly in the last few decades, advertising shifted from being creative and artistic to data mining. (As a Mad Men fan, I'm sad to see this change...) Sites such as Google, Facebook, and Yahoo are able to gather and store so much information each consumer and target advertising based on each person's profile and preferences in a much more effective way. I guess we will see if Omnicom and Publicis joining forces can help them ride the wave into the new ad age.

To read more:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/28/us-publicis-omnicom-idUSBRE96Q01F20130728

The Perils of Email Marketing - LinkedIn Edition

Last night on the Daily Show with John Stewart, John Oliver decided to go after LinkedIn and email marketing. At the 4:30 mark of the first segment of the clip below, you have John Oliver literally screaming at the TV screen, begging to please unsubscribe him from the LinkedIn email updates. "I don't even know what you do LinkedIn!  You seemed to have monitized irritating people!"

It's hilarious, and we all know what he is talking about, because as much as you try to unsubscribe from LinkedIn emails, somehow you keep getting them.

 

It will be interesting to see if LinkedIn can come up with some sort of clever, viral, social media response or if it will just take the insults or ignore them. Does LinkedIn even have a PR team or a PR firm? We'll find out.

While LinkedIn is the darling of Wall Street social media (The stock is up over 100% since its IPO and in the last year), it still faces risks that every other digital media company faces.

Email marketing can be extremely effective, but if you piss off the wrong person, a person with a voice, your control of the message can go downhill pretty quickly

The Internet Never Forgets

Like most people, I was shocked when Anthony Weiner admitted to showing extremely poor judgement in a sexting incident. However, after resignation and rehab; it seemed like he was ready to redeem himself and re-enter the public space, maybe. Then new scandals came out. What is so bizarre about this is the risk and reward of the equation, it is as if the man has a naughty typing fetish. This typing fetish seems to mean more to him than his family, career, or the trust placed in him by his former and potential constituents. Are there support groups for this? What is the payoff? The internet never forgets, and although painful, I think that this will help people to be more honest and accountable. On the other hand, alot of otherwise good people that want to run for public office, might not because of what they posted on Facebook when they were 28. Just sayin'

Urban Airship adds an in-app message center

Urban Airship is a push notification company that allows marketers a way to reach customers on their mobile phones. The new addition allows marketers to send a message to an in-app message center rather than placing a message across the home screen. As the company states in the below excerpt, they don't believe every communication or message is worth disrupting customers. Marketers can also use Urban Airship's GPS functionality to send geo-targeted marketing messages.

I think there is a big opportunity for push notifications and the addition of this in-app message center over the next few quarters and years. Based on trends we're already seeing in the market, it is clear that mobile advertising will grow substantially over the next few years. Push notifications allow for brands and marketers to reach customers who may not be engaged in other post-acquisition methods, such as email. I think the concept of the in-app message center is especially great since it is less invasive and disruptive, and allows the customer to determine when they want to read your marketing message.

Urban airship has already closed almost $50M in funding so venture capitalists are also betting on this technology in the mobile space. I'm excited to see how well this marketing can convert consumers who download apps into paid subscribers.

http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/10/urban-airship-message-center/

“Not every single customer engagement opportunity we believe is worthy of interrupting a consumer’s screen, but there’s times when a brand wants to reach their customers with important communication,” said Brent Hieggelke, Urban Airship’s chief marketing officer, in an interview at our MobileBeat conference in San Francisco.

Marketers can now choose to send a note to their app’s messaging center just as easily as they can already send push messages. The feature will also take advantage of Urban Airship’s Location Messaging functionality, which lets marketers target consumers in specific locations.

In addition to disrupting users less, Hieggelke says the new messaging center can also train users to look in a specific spot for deals.

Digital Marketing is not complicate

Recently just visited a friend of mine. After she get married and move to california (because her husband find a job there), she started to learn making cakes and cookies since she can't work in the state. At the beginning, it is just a thing she does to distract her from boringness. Then she found out she has talent in this. She started to upload photos on her own Facebook and has many great response. Next, she start a fan page and welcome any order from friends.

Those who has own fan page by yourself will now how hard to get fans coming and stay. Even you have ask 1000 friends to like your page, less than 10% will really do so. However, my friend got 7000+ fan in a year. She didn't hire anyone to manage the fan page. By word of mouth and her hard working on both develop new product (new design on the cakes and cookies) and upload/manage the fan page.

Now, if you want to order her work, you have to wait for 2 months. Her marketing spending? 0.

Google Chromecast

I was quite excited upon reading about the launch of Google Chromecast. It's something I've been envisioning and hoping would exist for quite some time and I believe is a better foray into TV than Apple TV. With Chromecast, one will be able to plug a tiny device that fits in the palm of your hand into one of your HDMI ports on your TV, connect to WiFi on your smartphone, tablet, or computer and be able to project media from Netflix, YouTube, Google Play, and even your Chrome Internet browser onto your TV. Over time, it will integrate with additional media formats online as well like HBO Go, Hulu Plus, etc.

Beyond being excited by this because of it's practical applications in my life, I believe that this has powerful implications for the value and size of the video industry and to a lesser extent, the online display industry. One potential barrier for the less tech savvy among us to spending more time on our Internet connected devices when watching online content is the fact that we want to have a better home viewing experience on our TV. By removing the hassle of plugging your laptop into HDMI and making it a simple wireless process that just about anyone can figure out, you will see individuals spending more time online and thus being exposed to advertising via the online channels.

For instance, one can easily watch YouTube and other ad-supported video platforms on their TV. This should mean that more individuals are exposed to online video ads more frequently. This should increase their importance relative to traditional TV advertising via cable. Being able to easily browse non-video content on Chrome should also increase exposure to online display ads.

Finally, I think this will help prompt the emergence of more traditional cable channels like TNT as they realize more and more of their audience is not accessing content via cable. It should, I believe, also generate more ad revenue and visibility for online only video-content channels like Funny or Die. Finally, I see it as removing further barriers to entry for individuals / companies to enter the entertainment industry by creating an online-only distribution channel that is not nearly as expensive as getting your channel onto a cable network.

Source: http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/chromecast/#netflix

Pinterest ad potential

We have recently discussed Pinterest as part of our Social media lecture. Pinterest has been one of the fastest growing social media platforms during current year. The article below discusses a great potential for Pinterest Ad Business that they are not yet involved in. Since people actually "pin" things they like on this social media platform, Pinterest might be able to monetize by actually selling "pins" to related retailers so they can directly approach the user again with a product they already expressed interest in. This would be huge for retailers and would definitely pay off as they would not be marketing unwanted products to many users. Read on for more details:

http://adage.com/article/digital/tracking-users-pinterest-lays-groundwork-ad-business/243340/

Big money?

     I and my wife usually see blogs introducing restaurant before we go to the restaurant. It’s useful for me and wife because we can assess the restraint menu, food and service in advance. Also, we check TripAdvisor and Yelp to see other people’s opinions and pictures but we definitely rely on the personal blog comments because they keep writing blogs and avoid writing false information, I believe.

    Some of those who write blogs make money utilizing affiliate advertisement on their blogs. If we clicked the ad and bought some products via their blogs, they could get some points or money. If there is some ad for the restaurant, I tend to click this because I’m searching for good and valuable restaurant at that time. Generally, those who write blogs of food and restaurant utilize food and restaurant affiliate marketing on their blogs. I believe that this target segment is reasonable and effective.

    However, my friend who utilizes ad and makes money said, “maybe more effective than other blog but cannot make big money via affiliate marketing.” Effective marketing doesn’t always make big money. 

Propertyshark - another DISINTERMEDIATION real estate website

On the topic of real estate disintermediation, I want to share a powerful, one-stop-shop real estate research tools for making NYC and NYS home buying decisions. The site offers detail property report available for virtually every property in NYC, find NYC foreclosed homes and REOs (bank-owned properties), run comparable. This data is based on public and proprietary sources updated regularly so savvy buyers and real estate professional can enjoy transparency and accuracy to evaluate real estate. The site will provide you property information such as year built, square footage, permits, recent sales, loan history, ownership, zoning (for development, toxic sites, FEMA flood zones, NYC school district and crime maps) and property taxes. Propertyshark celebrates its 10th anniversary and has more than 1 million registered members. With that said, try it for yourself. http://www.propertyshark.com/mason/

What makes content go viral?

The holy grail for digital marketers, create content that goes viral.  But what makes content goes viral? This question has been researched, debated and pondered from the beginning of time (well, at least a few years now). Here is an interesting article that I came across that tries to offer some suggestions on what makes content go viral.

http://mashable.com/2013/07/09/jonah-berger-viral-content/

 

I may not agree with everything mentioned in this article, however, it does offer some interesting perspectives.

 

So after you read my blog entry, and use it to create the next gangnam style video that goes viral, please make sure to give me a shout out on the Ellen Degeneres Show.

ESPN3 | WatchESPN

As another example of the digital media outlets that were discussed in class yesterday, ESPN launched an on-demand video website in 2005, initially branded as ESPN360.com, and over time this initiative has transformed and rebranded into ESPN3 and incorporated into the WatchESPN platform that also carries simulcasts of the cable distributed mainstream ESPN channels. Now, ESPN3 in addition to the mainstream US sports like baseball, basketball etc., carries live streams of other niche sports (at least considered niche in the US) for which there is a significant total audience, just not concentrated in one particular regional market to be of interest to cable service providers. 

 

Cricket, a popular international sport, was previously hard to watch in the US.  In the past, you could view it either through websites that had questionable distribution rights (allegedly!), or through overpriced specialized websites like www.willow.tv.  However, in either case, the quality of streams provided were less than ideal.  However, with WatchESPN, the writer gets to enjoy his beloved cricket games every weekend (much to the dislike of his bride) in stunning HD quality.  Good work ESPN!

Facebook Back in the Game

After reading the Facebook Effect, I was convinced of the long term value created by Facebook. Their ubiquity across the Internet landscape, made all the more powerful by Facebook Connect and the Open Graph API, coupled with their incomparable data makes them an invaluable tool for marketing. Post IPO, the concern seems to have been that Facebook would not adopt successfully to mobile. As the most recent earning show, these concerns are unfounded. Facebook now receives half of its advertising revenue from mobile ads, having shown an ability to adapt. The stock was up 20% on the earnings news-- still a far cry from it's $38 IPO price, but a positive sign nonetheless!

Email Marketing

During the class, I was surprised to hear that companies still devote a significant amount of their marketing budget towards those annoying emails that spam your inboxes each and every day.  Most of us either delete them in the mornings, or just create outlook rules to move them to a "junk" folder. 

Obviously, I am exaggerating.  There are emails you receive that you actually signed up for and look forward to receiving like my wife and her RueLaLa/Gilt/Hautelook etc. emails.

Here is an example of an email I received from Hotels Tonight that was witty, and had a link to a interest article..
 Hotel Tonight Email

..and it referenced an article on buzzfeed.com that interesting ideas about how to beat the heat in the summertime..
Buzz Feed Article

I thought this email was interesting and engaging, and referenced something cool to engage Hotel Tonight's customers. 

 

Where is Chromecast headed?

After Google announced a new streaming device called Chromecast this week, I found myself wondering what the future holds for the product.

In case you haven't read about Chromecast, it is a relatively inexpensive dongle device that you hook up to your tv. You can tell it what to stream from almost any phone, tablet, or computer through the chrome browser (or android app), and it streams the content straight from the cloud on its own.

As it stands right now, this doesn't appear to be much of a game-changer. It is a little cheaper than a Roku box, but is less functional at the moment (except for Roku's suprising lack of YouTube). And for iOS fans who have Apple TV with streaming plus mirroring, this is almost useless.

So why did Google build this device? First of all, once this technology makes its way into TVs, this may finally convince people to buy the smart TVs Google has been trying to push for a couple years. But I think the more important feature is that this technology is platform-independent, and makes it easy for people to stream from any source - Netflix, YouTube, Google Play, and probably Amazon and Hulu eventually. This gives Google Play some hope of competing with iTunes and Amazon, and also makes YouTube a more viable source for living room entertainment.

And if it convinces more people to use Chrome as their browser, that doesn't hurt either.

Twitter and TV commercial

So many marketers have become so obsessed with online advertisement and paying too much attention to create original contents for its online advertisement. In fact, the traditional advertisements are still very effective way to reach and convince consumers as we learned from OwnLocal who convert traditional advertisement to online marketing.

TV viewers watch TV program and commercials and when they like the it, they tweet. Twitter calls this "now moments," which is a successful real-time ad sales based on capitalizing on the way TV viewers use computers and mobile device. The article explains watching TV is very engaging and benefits derived from utilizing "now moment" on the twitter.

Creativity brings the traditional and the current marketing together. Companies do no necessary need to invest on creating totally new or what people think innovative. A spark of connecting two effective ideas can make something unique that can be more innovative than something that is totally new.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/07/09/twitter-facebook-hashtag-ravenue-adam-bain/2501583/

Four Square - Levelling the playing field

Four square has launched a new self service advertising tool that makes it easy for local businesses to advertise easily on mobile phones. It brings to small businesses the unprecendented ability to advertise their venues on mobile platforms which was at one time restricted to major market share holders like Taco Bell and KFC.

With this new ability, local small businesses can comptete effectively with franchises with their marketing advantages. With more of the searches from consumers requiring relevant information from their immediate vicinity, Four square appears ot be poised to revolutionalize mobile searches.
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2284910/Foursquare-Opens-Self-Service-Advertising-to-Small-Businesses has mores information regarding the mobile advertising platorm.

Decoding Digital Marketing Intelligence

As more businesses are becoming “digitized” they are beginning to understand not only the importance of data collection, but also how imperative it is to gain actionable insights from the data.

Many businesses today are making major strategic decisions without using the data to tell them what is really happening. Businesses are building or shrinking marketing budgets based on limited information, and often the wrong information. With all of the advances in digital marketing and social media technology, it is crucial that companies use the right tools to gather information and the right people to intelligently decipher the data.

When businesses receive the “big data” intelligence, they should answer these questions:

·         What is the intelligence telling us?

·         How accurate do we feel that the information is?

·         How current is the information?

·         How can we decipher this information to help us make more intelligent decisions?

From a very high level, businesses are using analytics to track:

·         The performance of digital assets (websites, landing pages, blogs, videos, social pages, ads, search rankings, etc.)

·         User behavior (where are they coming from, what’s driving them to our web pages, what are they doing once they get there, how long are they staying, when and where are they leaving and why, and are they taking some kind of action?)

Google Analytics is an open source (free) analytics tool in existence and can be easily installed in most websites. Its capabilities include:

·         Content analytics

·         Conversion analytics

·         Advertising (marketing channel) analytics

·         Mobile analytics

·         Advanced segmentation

More advanced enterprise-level analytics tools require an investment. Some advanced analytics tools include:

·         Clearsailing

·         C3Metrics

·         Adometry

References:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/brentgleeson/2012/10/10/big-data-deciphering-digital-marketing-intelligence-part-1-of-2/

Cash Mob

We talked about Groupon today. Groupon is a best way for the shops to know how much inventory they need to prepare in advance. For restaurants, they can easily control the material they need and reduce the risk of stocking food material. Also, they can arrange the amount of staff, avoiding waste of human capital.

However, mostly we can't choose what store/restaurant we want. We can only wait and see what is coming up next. Some really bad restaurants have made deal with Groupon and provide good deal, thus people will still buy the coupon and go.

Is consumer sick of this? You have no power to choose the store you want to spend money on? (Of course you can, just without discount)

Some people start the anti-groupon activity. They choose the shops/restaurants they want to go, and invite many people to go there at the same time. The shops/restaurants do not know in advance. For them, it's a great surprise. Suddenly many people come and spend money.

This activity is arrange by a group of people called "Cash Mob" (from the idea of "fresh mob"). In order to support local products, they keep arrange this kind of activity to spend their money on those shops.

The event site:
http://www.cashmob.com/

 

Tips for Making it Big with E-Commerce

DIGITAL STRATEGY

Getting rich with hard work is the American dream. Kids born in the late 1970s and early 1980s may have started college with the prerogative of studying finance, finding a job on Wall Street, toiling for seven to ten  years, then BOOM- millions come rolling in.  However, with the financial crisis, many young people are considering career switches out of finance as layoffs, technology and lower payouts have become the new norm. Many more college students are not even considering finance at all. This brings to question: what is the new American dream for young, ambitious, smart young adults? Technology. Specifically, technology that can be monetized through web-based and socially enhanced commerce.

The quintessential industry movie Wall Street, has been effectively replaced by, The Social Network. Many 20 something are now wondering, how can the American dream be achieved in the digital commerce instead? A website is key. However, not all websites are created equal- especially in the case of marketing, the lifeblood of sales. There are a few key elements when building, designing and launching a website intended for e-commerce:

Analytics are key. One must never settle for basic, static analytics. Instead, go for the slight extra premium to discover real time metrics such as:

·      See how often people clicked on contact info

•  Identify how often people clicked on videos on the site
•  Assess contest and voting participation
•  See how far people scroll down each page
• Once a website is launched- after much sweat and tears- it then becomes essential to gather,  categorize and prioritize feedback. There will be bugs on the site and areas to improve- it’s  natural, don’t take offense. The mandate at this point is to find solutions. Specifically:
•  Categorize user feedback versus internal

·   At this point, prioritization is key. Everyone within the web marketing team will have different view 

ppoints on what’s important. As an executive, one must decide what will be key drivers of user 

eexperience, and, in turn, revenue.

BBuilding, designing and launching a website will not be easy; especially if the intent is for it to be used

aas a platform for a big e-commerce idea. Nonetheless, it will be the small steps of web development

tthat will be needed to provide for optimal impact on generating interested users, loyal customers and

powerful sales. 

Content marketing in social media

Businesses struggle to find out best social media strategy for their product. With plethora of online marketing tools to manage different channels, marketing executives can follow few basic steps while developing social media strategy, which can also affect search channel and help drive conversions.

First, the company should find out the objective of using social media i.e. brand awareness, brand favorability, increase traffic on the web, customer care or all of the above. Second, social media strategy will be successful when targeted effectively. The company should invest time in finding out right segment of market or customer for the product. In addition, since multiple outlets can drive up the cost of maintaining social media channels, appropriate tool such as Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Twitter should be chosen. Third, any social media tool such as Sysomos, Radian, Lithium6 etc provides analytics for the campaigns or for the company owned pages that can be further be leveraged for further insights and future improvement ideas.

Content marketing including creating articles, blogs, optimized product pages, creative copy, product videos and pushing them to all social media channels increases brand awareness, allows brand/product consideration and helps drive conversions. Increase in new visitors to the website indicates in increased awareness. At the same time, quality can improves search rankings, leading to higher sustained organic traffic to the website. Not involving customers is one pitfall to avoid as higher engagement on the in-house generated content or blogs or videos will increase relevancy of the posts in social media (or Edgerank of Facebook). In addition, content should posted should not always talk about the product but should highlight value to the customer and share success stories from within the community. When customer moves through the next stage of consideration, increase in average time spent on the web page or on mobile application, lower bounce rate, and other social metrics indicate that the customer is continuously engaged and considered buying the product. Articles, white papers, newsletters, FAQs, web page content and blog posts impact customer's consideration. Finally, increased conversion rate can be measured by sales, leads for each campaign or referrers. Once customers purchase the product, people share their stories on the social media, which further influence social media awareness and search.

5 Tips to Increase Your Following on Social Media Sites

1. Share Frequently
Don't let weeks pass between tweets and FB posts. Brands that share consistently have a better following than ones that only use social media sporatically. Social media is a direct channel to engage directly with your customers in a way that is more authentic than traditional media. Don't pass up the opportunity to increase customer loyalty through these outlets.

2. Entertainment & Inspiration
Inspirational quotes and photos make a brand feel more authentic. These tactics increase the likelyhood that posts will be "sharable" which is more valuable than likes and followers, thinks of "sharablity" as the digital version of WOM.

3. Promotions & Web Exclusives
Launching a "first look" or Twitter-only deal makes the customers as if they're in the inner circle. Do not underestimate the power of social posts to increase ROI. A good example of how to use social to create sales is Lolly Wolly Doodle using Facebook posts as a tool for immersive customer engagement.


4. Be Responsive
Reciprocation is key. Respond to others in your network and keep up with the dialogue. Warby Parker uses social media creatively by posting videos to respond to customer service questions.

5. Follow Likeminded People and Influencers 
Surround yourself with a group of people that value your brand and expertise, so that you can become an influencer among them. 

An attempt to go viral - Mini posts a selfie!

Although comments regarding Mini's recent tweet under the handle @CarlosDMotor was dubbed "sophomoric" and "contrived", I still think it was a pretty funny attempt to benefit from the recent firestorm surrounding former congressman Weiner's less than stellar judgement regarding his use of social media.
Just the picture alone of the towel clad Mini was enough for me to chuckle...don't you agree?











Not to mention the actual tweet!

It is interesting though that the tweet didn't inspire more people to follow Mini...seems a rather weak campaign with only 76 followers and 29 retweets.

But I don't want to ruin the whole thing for you - so here is the link for your viewing pleasure!

http://adage.com/article/digital/mini-mocks-weiner-selfie-carlosdmotor/243344/

Twiplomacy: Twitter Connects World Leaders

According to 2013 Twiplomacy study, 77,7% of the world leaders have a Twitter account and 68% of them interact with other leaders on the social network. There are 1/3 of these world leaders tweet themselves, but very few on a regular basis. 

This study shows that Twitter has become a formidable communication tool allowing the broadcast of short messages to millions of followers. 

Pinterest: setting the stage for ad revenue

Today Pinterest announced a couple of interesting additions to its service:

1. An Edit tool that allows you to personalize your feed
2. Recommended pins based on websites you've visited

All of this sets the stage to provide Pinterest with a tremendous of data about where users are traversing the web and what their core interests are.  This sounds quite a bit like the way search engines are indexing our preferences except that this is targeting the visual web. All of this data gathering seems to be leading Pinterest towards the one thing that (despite a $2.5bn valuation) is lacking, revenue.

Perhaps laying this ground work will pay off and Pinterest will be able to monetize its business through an ad-driven model.  Or perhaps the company will be wiped out by the next Silicon Valley photo sharing website that doesn't have ads. 

#Hashtags = $Revenue

I have to admit, I was a late adopter. I didn't really understand what hashtags were until about a year ago. But once I discovered it though, it has transformed the way I search and gather real-time information on the internet. Twitter has been able to use the hashtag phenomenon to be a disruptive (and lucrative) force in the social world.

Next year, Twitter is projected to rake in $1 billion in revenue- thanks in large part to their innovative ability to monetize hashtags. Their tremendous success has prompted Facebook to also join in on the hashtag craze. See more in the link below:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/07/09/twitter-facebook-hashtag-ravenue-adam-bain/2501583/

Yay for startups!

Today the SEC voted in favor of a section of the JOBS Act that will allow private companies to advertise their fundraising.  Previously, news of raising money had to be passed around in a private fashion.  This lift on the advertising ban will allow startups and private investors better access to each other.

While private companies can now advertise, investment is still limited to accredited investors who must meet certain income and wealth requirements.  The JOBS act intended to make investments in startups available to everyone, not just accredited investors.  It is likely that we will see the SEC allow this to come to fruition in the near future.  Kickstarter has been a great crowdfunding source so far, but once the SEC gives its blessing, we should see a plethora of investing opportunities arise.  Like all investments, there will be some winners and some losers, but one clear winner is new startup ventures looking for seed money.

Read the whole article "SEC Lifts Ban On General Solicitation, Allowing Startups To Advertise That They’re Fundraising" on techrunch.

Hump Day (GEICO Commercial)

According to this article, GEICO Hump Day Commercial Dominates Social Video, At Least on Wednesdays, one of the more recent GEICO commercials featuring a camel walking throughout an office getting excited about the fact that it's Wednesday (Hump Day), receives an inordinate amount of traffic on Wednesdays and dominates in terms of social media referrals.  If you look at the chart in the article, you see huge spikes (or humps if you will) in social media shares on Wednesdays.

I wonder if this information will compel advertisers to begin "claiming days" trying to create a viral video that can be shared for specific days of the week.  It will be interesting to see how advertisers respond, if at all.

I think the Hump Day commercial is great by the way, but while I have your attention, here are some of my favorites from GEICO.

Tiny House - I'll tell you, the first 5 or 6 times I watched this commercial, I actually thought was a commercial for a TV show and I thought to my self "I have to watch this!"

Parker Solution to Hair Loss - Like Tiny House, the first couple of times I saw this, I thought it was real.  I kept thinking to myself, "are these guys serious?  Does this company think they're going generate customers by showing them?"

Baseball - I don't think this one is in the same league as the other two, but I think this was one of their first commercials in the "I've got good news for you" genre.

Tips for measuring a social media campaign

One of the biggest challenges businesses face with their online campaigns is measuring the effectiveness of their social media efforts. There are a number of tools available for measuring social media and managing online campaigns.

Measuring Social Media Begins with Understanding Online Campaign Objectives. Just like other marketing methods, a business needs to develop a plan and objectives before launching an online campaign and measuring social media efforts. The objectives for an online campaign should identify measurable goals a business hopes to achieve in their social media efforts.

Define the target audience for the online campaign. Develop a content strategy for the copy, videos, images and other elements featured in social media channels. Identify individuals within the company who will manage the campaign. Keep the social media objectives realistic and achievable.

Here is an article that describes the approach


http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidvinjamuri/2011/10/26/whats-it-really-worth-to-you-5-tips-for-measuring-social-media-campaigns/

Personalizing your marketing campaign with predictive analytics

Instead of selecting the right potential customer base for a marketing campaign it is a cool concept to choose a right campaign for a customer user predictive analytics.

Here is a cool blog that I found

http://blog.zopim.com/2013/06/25/personalize-your-marketing-campaigns-with-predictive-analytics/

Predictive analytics focuses on the preferences and requisites of your customers, and so, provides us with the right channel, right customer, right timing, and a profitable and effectual marketing campaign.

The traditional way of approaching segmentation is now changing. Big data and predictive analytics are changing the way business is traditionally conducted.

Google+ Turns Two

Even though it is a relative newcomer in the social space, Google has made some great inroads with Google+ in the past couple of years. As Google+ turns two years old, it has become more relevant and more important to any digital marketing campaign. So relevant, in fact, that Ad Age is publishing articles urging users to not ignore it.

With the power of all the data and resources of Google behind it, Google+ definitely has some clear advantages over other social networks to both marketers and users. The article below highlights some key features that make Google+ unique.


http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/google-turns-afford-ignore/242996/

PR vs Digital Marketing for a Start-up

I'm in the start-up world, and responsible for managing my entrepreneurial endeavors' sales, business development, marketing and PR efforts, I also take out the trash.  In my world you wear multiple hats and become a jack of all trades.  But I would like to address an issue we currently faced regarding PR or Digital Marketing or Both.  For the sake of this post lets assume I work for a social website, PS we are a social site!

Recently I've been debating where to allocate dollars to drive customer interaction and customer traffic specifically should I spend more dollars early on with PR, on digital marketing or both.  Ideally, it would be both but unfortunately I think it makes sense right now.

 So the question is PR or Digital Marketing?

Answer: Depends. Ugh!

For my business being a social platform we've elected to go the PR route.  Hoping to spend dollars on exposure rather than targeted individual marketing.  Its hard to calculate the ROI of a potential user if we aren't necessarily asking them to buy anything.

For an e-commerce business I believe the answer would be different if you have to chose one or the other.  I believe Digital Marketing would generate the most bang for your buck because you can easily calculate the ROI of an individual user.

What do you think is the right answer? If you were a social platform what is your argument to use digital over PR?

Top 10 Reasons for not reading the Top 10 lists

Top 10 Reasons for not reading the Top 10 lists

So, if you haven't noticed, the web has become saturated with Top 10 lists.  Whether it be "best rooftop lounges", "healthy foods that are bad for you" or one of my favorites from last week, "most overrated US cities" these lists seem to have become so ubiquitous, I've begun to wonder whether there's an ulterior motive at work here.   Turns out -- shockingly, there is.  Here are the perfect ingredients for advertisers, people seem to love these lists, companies are willing to pay to be on them and most importantly, why not get 10 clicks for the price of one?  Take the last point, if you've ever read one of these lists (which undoubtedly you have), you know that a simple one page list of "worst celebrity chefs in America" isn't what you're going to get.  Rather, it loads one item at a time requiring you to click next 10 times - not cool for reading on your phone or skimming a top 50 list.  But, for the website this means 10x the page views for the same content.  Next, in an effort to feed these lists writers have reached to the depths of editorial latitude, often even contradicting their own lists in back-to-back lists -- making one wonder, "Top 10 according to who??".  Lastly, and maybe most disappointing, many times these lists are paid for by the companies featured on them.  So, when we finally click through to the "#1 beach bar in the world" and it’s located in the Jersey Shore -- well you know....