Social Media in the Arts

The Theatre Bay Area commissioned this study - The Tangled Web: Social Media in the Arts and it provides a snapshot as to how the arts and the cultural sector are using social media. Some of the highlights (summarized by Thomas Cott, of YouCottMail) of what they found were:

Arts organizations in the study utilize over 20 networking platforms.

The average arts organization is active on three social networks (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) and uploads 66 new pieces of content each month.


Facebook Pages updated multiple times per day, [with] a customized URL and [featuring] a custom Welcome tab have more fans, who interact more often, than those who do not.

Organizations that tweet more than 4 times per day and do not replicate Facebook content on their Twitter feed have more followers and a higher rate of engagement than others.

Venue pages on Yelp and Foursquare that have been claimed by an organization have more user engagement than those that have not.

Arts organizations [which] use a custom URL and a custom template for their blog have more engagement than those who do not, but overall blogs offer a very low rate of engagement regardless of format, structure or frequency.

Depth verses breath is a stronger indicator of success in social media.

What I found to be most interesting about this study is its support of social media’s role as a way to engage audience members and to create dialogue and connections beyond the performance or gallery visit. In this case, for the arts, social media is not a path to selling more tickets or increasing income directly. Is this the case for all organizations, even for-profit?

Search by image and voice search

I was recently surprised to learn that you now could search by images in Google.

Google users will be able to search by talking to a computer or dropping an image in the search box. Users can paste an image’s web address, upload a photo from their computers, drag and drop an image into the search box or use Chrome or Firefox extensions. Apparently, Google will analyzes the fundamental features of the image (lines and shapes), and match it with results in its database of images. It will only use face recognition when the picture is of a celebrity and already exists on the public Web.

I am not sure if it will be able to recognize the images of my university apartment but anyway, I think it’s pretty interesting. And it makes it even harder for competitors like Bing and Yahoo to make up any of the distant ground between them and Google.

I remember Professor Kagan saying in class something like images would not generate good traffic unless you used the proper keywords in the tags (if I recall properly). I now wonder if these new features will affect the search optimization process.

See also:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t99BfDnBZcI&sns=fb

Will Google AdWords take all the profit from e-commerce?

Learning how to advertise in AdWords I noticed that there are some keywords that are a lot more expensive than others. For example, to reach the top position for “auto insurance” you will have to pay around $26.24 per click. On the other hand, for “bicycles” or “LCD screens” you pay less than $5 per click. This is consistent with the competition for advertisement that you see on Google. When you search “auto insurance” you get the maximum amount of ads (3 on top, and 8 on the right side). When you search for “bicycles” you get no top ads and only 3 ads on the right side. In the extreme, if you search “nasa” you get no ads whatsoever.
This is due mainly to two things. First, the characteristics of the keyword people use to get to the product or service. For example, how broad or narrow is the keyword (e.g. a particular product reference vs. “clothes”). Keywords that unambiguously express and intent to buy (e.g. “auto insurance”) are more expensive than broader terms that might express different intents. I would expect narrow keywords to have a higher click through rate than broader terms and thus be more expensive. Second, the characteristics of the industry, in particular if consumers tend to buy the product or service on-line, drive prices of on-line advertisement. In industries like insurance where customers don’t switch as much as in other services, and where customers can get quotes on-line, there is huge competition for customer acquisition.
Google’s preeminent position as the top search engine in most of the world, coupled with its auction based pricing for advertisement, allows Google to extract almost all the profit of an additional customer acquired on-line. This is particularly true in industries where on-line purchases account for a significant part of revenues. I look forward to seeing how companies respond in the future to avoid depending significantly on their position on Google.

Print isn't dead yet...

In meeting with our company for our class project last week, I was struck by both the power of digital marketing as well as the need to still have other marketing media at your disposal… and how marketing must always be coordinated with other divisions within a company.

Our company had launched on the internet and was basically relying on word of mouth and fairly simple SEO to generate business. While successful, it was slow, albeit in keeping with their business plan. It wasn’t until two articles in high profile traditional media were published that their business began to take off. Soon, they had met their one year sales goals in only three weeks. Digital marketing is powerful, but don’t think print media is dead yet. It was only with the boost of print that the company achieved such significant sales.

In fact, the company’s sales may have been too much! They suddenly found themselves unable to supply all the orders they had coming in. While this is a good problem for a company to have, the potential problems in reputation- especially in an online world- if the orders were delayed too long or their customer service failed could have more than offset their sales in the long term. (Only recently did the company feel they were truly getting caught up with demand—so far, their digital marketing strategy has been NOT to generate excessive growth as they simply couldn’t handle the extra orders.) The lesson is that marketing must be coordinated with other divisions within the company for a smooth operation.

Looking at their office, though, it was impressive to see what could be built by a company that essentially operates online only. Our contact noted that online business accounts for only 2% of the sales in this industry, and that with more and more people becoming comfortable buying virtually anything online, they feel they are well poised for future growth. It also made me wonder just what other opportunities for traditionally bought goods to be sold on the internet are still out there…

The Magic of the Disappearing Ad Spend

There was a great article from the NY Times yesterday about how internet start ups are eliminating their marketing budgets from the equation when valuing their company. They call the process ACSOI which stands for Adjusted Consolidated Segmented Operating Income. Start ups from Pandora to Groupon use this to show what their company would have earned without the money they spent acquiring users. To me this seems a little crazy as your marketing spend should definitely be a part of your overall expenses as a company. If you're going to start taking large pieces out, why stop there? Here's a link to the article, so you can decide for yourself.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/abracadabra-for-internet-start-ups-magic-trumps-math/?ref=technology

The Social Stock Market (It was only a matter of time..)

As I browse Facebook and see the hoards of friends that people accumulate - I always wondered when people would start being measured on their 'social worth' so that companies could start using the most valuable 'people stocks' as conduits to promote their brands e.g. those with 1000+ friends. Empire Avenue clearly read my mind (well partially). (http://www.empireavenue.com/)

According to Wiki 'Empire Avenue is a stock market simulation social network game that allows users to buy and sell shares of people and websites'. Web spies say its user base is growing rapidly and the game helps players monitor their social influence and possibly make business connections that boost their profits. Leading brands such as Intel, AT&T, Microsoft, Ford, Audi and Toyota are already in on the Empire Avenue trend and are quickly rising up on the leader board – a list that compares the muscle power of the account holders on social media as a whole.

So how is your 'worth' measured? Your score depends on activity, audience and interaction. Essentially, it is a function of what you do on social media, how much you do of it, who is listening and how people are engaging with you.

My thoughts on this topic: I get it for brands. And it was only a matter of time for people's social worth to be measured. But it does leave me feeling a little queasy. Now all those people who you barely say hello to will have more of an incentive to add you as a 'friend' and let you know that 'they are going to the bathroom' on twitter. I don't have 6 gazillion friends on Facebook nor do I have a twitter account which incessantly tells people what I am doing every 30 seconds. If my social stock is rubbish as a result - I am OK with that.

Email Marketing..An undervalued digital marketing tool

         Last week I sent out a mass email to all my customers in order to promote my products for Fathers day. My cost to send out over 10,000 emails was a $75 monthly fee to the email company and the salary of my assistant for the time he spent drafting the email. The email company tracks my emails, lets me know which ones were opened and through the code used in the purchase, I am able to quantify the leads that I received through email marketing. With such an insignificant expense and a decent return, I believe that email marketing is not being given the respect that it deserves.
       Adword marketing is expensive and does not guarantee sales as I was forced to learn the hard way. SEO marketing is a slow process that takes a lot of time and effort. Email marketing on the other hand is fast and seemingly effortless. Anyone can draft an email and include promotional messages. The trouble is that today we receive many emails throughout the day. It seems easier to delete promotional emails then read them. Also, as Professor Kagan mentioned, if we catch a customer on a bad day, we face the chance that the customer might click the dreaded unsubscribe button.
        In order to prevent this from happening, I have reduced sending out emails to only four a month.However, I believe that email marketing has great potential and I look forward to hearing Professor Kagan speak on how to capitalize on this asset in digital marketing.

Tracking

My group recently had a conference call with our client, Sailthru, which provides transactional and marketing email services. When the VP of Business Development described how the company was able to track users, I was a bit surprised. The company can see when emails are opened and email activity on the account (only for those emails sent by Sailthru's clients). It can also place a tracking cookie when a user clicks on a link embedded in the email. That way Sailthru can track what sites users are interested in, how long users are online, etc. Finally it can track location via a users IP address. This technology isn't necessarily new but it does raise concerns.

Most sites place cookies but people don't really think about cookies when they are checking email or clicking on links in an email. Another issue is how to even block these cookies. Would you have to block the linked site or another website associated with the company in order to stop the cookie? Sailthru (and other email marketing companies) use these tools to give their clients better user data in order to ensure better hit rates and email readership (among other goals) and I am sure the data is being mined in a responsible and secure manner.

The larger issue is that marketing in general (be it surveys via mail, purchase logging or newer methods) relies on a lot of user data. New technologies just change the way user data can now be collected and analyzed.

Can you releasemyad?

Not too long ago, I found myself needing to place an advertisement for real estate in the local newspaper in India. It was a herculean task – first, I had to send a clerk to the offices of 3 newspapers to obtain their physical quotations and ad requirements. Then I had to understand their complicated rate structure – different prices for different days, pages, distribution, color etc. Eventually, once I decided my pick, I was told it was too late to publish my ad in a paper and date of my choice. As an alternative, I found a ‘broker’, negotiated a deal with him, and he finally placed my ad for me.
I recently came across www.releasemyad.com. This is a brilliant solution to the exact pain-points I experienced in India. The site allows you to create basic advertisements, and simply check off the newspapers that you want the ads to be displayed in. The website will price the ad based on various parameters, and, once you accept, you’re done! No going back and forth with the newspapers and brokers. And your ad is in the papers faster.
When we discussed Google’s adwords in class, I couldn’t help but think of this website. Although SEM is gaining traction in India, the online community itself is not quite robust yet. Print advertising is easily the medium of choice. Therefore releasemyad, as an online platform for a print solution, positions itself very well for future growth.

Building Civil Society By Making Money Online

While we know that internet advertising offers tremendous business potential, display ads and other online marketing tools are playing a critical role in building civil society and the social sector. In previous generations, small non-profits required capital to start fundraising programs and build a base of support, limiting new organizations. Today, with relatively little money, people can launch efforts to promote all kinds of change.

This blossoming of civil society has helped countless worthy causes find their base, and has brought new and diverse issues to the forefront of public consciousness. It's also made a significant impact on financing for non-profits. In the past, small donors have been expensive to maintain, coming in primarily through the mail and telemarketing. While low-level donors collectively can add up to big money, the investment -- even for organizations with large existing bases of support -- has been very high. Many non-profits have given up acquisition, effectively dooming their programs to long-run failure.

But these days, minimal investments can offer pay-off from in acquisition. Blackbaud's 2011 Donorcentrics Report indicates that gifts acquired online are, on average, larger. They tend to come from households with higher incomes, and have much larger cumulative giving.

This is an especially critical renaissance of acquisition coming at a time when the population of major donors is aging. Today's micro-philanthropists are tomorrow's major donors. Any organization that doesn't understand that today's continuum of giving starts with social media, display ads and online donations will lose money in the generational shift of wealth.

There is a flip side to the non-profit bonanza online: it is leading to a proliferation of charities doing similar work and competing for the same finite philanthropic dollars. Many of these organizations could join forces to make an even bigger impact. Nonetheless, it's a particularly exciting time to be thinking about revenue generation in the non-profit space.

Facebook Stores: Is this the future of business web sites?

It has been a while I am following social media marketing and browsing many e-Stores on Facebook, however it seems like Facebook is actively partnering with some key consumable product brands like Procter & Gamble (P&G). P&G recently announced launching 6 Facebook Stores which will bring a whole new business segment for Facebook. Well if this is a start, what to expect in near future. Amazon, JCPenney, Urban Outfitters, Old Navy and hundreds others have already opened theirs. Even the companies like Amazon, Ebay, Apple cannot live without the integration with Facebook anymore. The value proposition for companies like P&G and others is simply the voice of the customer i.e. sharing the feedback about the products with friends and family. At the same time the biggest challenge would be how the companies overcome the negative marketing that will in other words called bad reviews. Would those bad reviews will be filtered and if it does happen than it does not seems to me a transparent review system.




It is expected to be a billions of dollars business for technology innovators. These innovators developed innovative technology solutions that help companies develop their e-Stores on Facebook and them integrate with twitter and other social media sites like foursquare, livingSocial, Groupon, etc. Many of these e-store developers offer customized solutions as well as subscription based solutions starting from 9 dollars based on number of products.



Paul Marsden at socialcommercetoday.com has compiled a great list of 20 innovators ecommerce solutions developers and also a list of top 50 Facebook Stores.



The interesting trend here to see its that would the business need to manage and maintain different web sites when there core requirement of selling more is achievable through this new type of social e-commerce solutions. If you ask me I would go with one simple Facebook store web site and enhance it to optimize ROI. A domain will directly take you to the Facebook store where you will not only be able to buy products but also share experience across your network.



For more interesting posts like this, visit my blog at Web Technologist.

Netflix 1 : Cable 0

Even since I have started Graduate school I hardly have time to watch TV let alone watch the 3 Netflix DVDs I have sitting on the shelf for the past 3-months. I know, I am not a smart customer, but between a full-time job and classes I don't even find the time to cancel my cable or reduce the number of DVDs I get from Netflix.

I am sure you will all agree with me that Netflix is a wonderful service. When I first came to the U.S. from Israel and heard about it, I thought to myself "this could never work in Israel" - people would just 'forget' to return the DVD, copy it or the mail service would lose it. I was amazed every time how perfectly the system works. Ever since I got an iPad I find myself using the Netflix app almost every time I travel, or sometimes even when I am sitting in a coffee shop.

What only occurred to my now about this service and why I like it so much is the fact that it doesn't have any of the annoying commercials that usually pop-up every time I am watching a stream online or of course on T.V.. Due to the success of Netflix I recently wondered if Netflix would become even more successful would they compromise and start allowing advertising on their site.




In an article published yesterday in NYTimes Bits Blog "Netflix Helps People Cut Cable Cord, Report Says" by Nick Bilton, turns out many people (as one would expect) have been canceling their cable service favoring watching video or streaming on their home television.

"The report found that people who use Netflix to stream Internet video to their televisions are twice as likely to cancel, or slim down, their cable television options."


With this in mind, I couldn't help but think what is happening to all this audience, especially for advertisers who mainly advertise on T.V. Will this shift in audience mean even more online advertising? Although the majority of the people surveyed reported economic reasons as their main reason for canceling cable, 34% said that the growing use of online video was their rationale with Netflix being the main content provider.

As Netflix continues to grow, offering its content on a variety of platforms like smartphones, Apple TV and Boxee it is not unlikely that eventually Netflix will open up for advertisers. I would be interested to hear if you agree with me, do you think online advertising would eventually 'hit' Netflix as well?

Instant Pages - Google new Search Tool

There is no doubt that Google is a Search Engine leader and the reason is simple. Innovation and Wisdom of Crowd. Google introduced a new idea of instant pages that means they will start caching the web results locally instead of sending it to the final destination. The core reason to come up with this idea is to compete with other search engines by offering optimized search speed. It will save searchers 3 to 5 seconds of download time that in computer processing time matters a lot.








This new tool sounds interesting for searchers but what about the companies who own the sites. Will Google face legal issues because of this move? Possible as I remember archive.org also known as way back machine had many legal campaigns for not only copy right violations but also for keeping the records/old versions of web sites.



I have raised this question in our last class "Is this possible to develop a real time live search engine?". I think this instant page is one step ahead of same direction. Wouldn't that be great if we get what we expect live from the web sites. Well the only think that makes it hard is the processing time and a powerful multiprocessor architecture. May be by using quantum computing it will soon no longer be a myth.



This article was originally posted on Search Engine Land that was re-posted on my personal blog at Web Technologist.

Google Local Search and Mobile- The Way of the Future?

Today, Google announced plans to revamp its mobile search, combining two of the important components of the future of paid search advertising we discussed yesterday. New features include the ability to speak what you're searching for into the phone with Google Voice Search and the option to search by clicking and dragging an image into the search box. With Google Goggles, you can point your phone at words in any language to get an instant translation.

What do you folks think about the importance of mobile and local in the future of search? I rarely search for things locally because I feel the information I want is hard to find and inaccurate. Maybe big improvements in the area will help change my mind. However, I definitely agree that mobile is the way of the future. I even find myself searching the web on my iPhone when I'm at home and just too lazy to walk over to the computer. Do you have any other opinions?

What does the AdMeld Acquisition Mean?

Quite simply it means Google is consolidating it’s overwhelming dominance of display advertising. From my initial glance at the acquisition, it appeared that Google was simply growing its already massive analytics toolbox, but I now believe that this is only a small part of their acquisition rationale. The more significant byproduct of the acquisition is the growth Google’s display ad presence.

Admeld’s technology, most notably its yield optimization service, will undoubtedly be incorporated into Google’s own DoubleClick. This does not preclude the possibility that Admeld will continue to operate its original service; the future development efforts will most likely be redirected to doubleclick. Maintaining Admeld will certainly be part of the strategy to retain Admeld’s publisher client base, which is certainly a larger part of the acquisition.

However, a much more powerful and less intuitive benefit of the acquisition is the boost Admeld will make to Google’s display ad presence by increasing their queries per second (qps) volume. Queries per second is a direct measure of the volume of display ads), and these queries are generated by Sell-Side Platforms (SSPs) like Admeld.

I anticipate that Google’s acquisition of Admeld will boost the value of the remaining Sell-Side Platforms, and we even may be seeing Microsoft looking to acquire one of the other major QPS generators.

Facebook and Politics

Facebook is proving to be an increasingly useful tool for politicians. A campaign was conducted recently by SocialCode to measure how many times a potential presidential candidate was “liked”, where the voters were from, and what issues are important to them. Using this information, SocialCode was able to come up with a ranking by importance of issue for potential candidates. They were also able to identify the popularity of potential candidates in a given state. This will prove to be extremely useful in predicting the outcome of the elections. Candidates can use Facebook as a mechanism for measuring where they should focus their energy in the campaign. This is yet another way that social media may prove to have a real effect on world politics.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=152236

Groupon Vs Living Social – Their Approach to Advertising

At the end of Q1 2011 Groupon had 83 million total subscribers compared to 26 million for Living Social. At first glance it seems that Groupon and Living Social have the same business strategy but the way each company approaches its audience is vastly different. Both companies spend heavily on advertising but rely on different channels to get their message across.

“LivingSocial concentrates the vast majority (73%) of its display ads on the top five U.S. Web properties, especially Yahoo and MSN. Within those sites, the ads run chiefly in email and news sections. The rest of LivingSocial's ads are scattered around the Web. Groupon takes the opposite track, running only 31% of its ads to the top publishers' site and spreading the bulk (69%) across mid-tier and long-tail sites.”

The reason might lie behind the demographic and geographic make-up of their audience. Geographically, Groupon's user base lies towards the Midwest and Pacific regions, while LivingSocial is stronger in the East. Which makes sense as Groupon is headquartered in Chicago while LivingSocial in Washington, D.C.

Demographically, Groupon users are younger than its rival’s (25% Groupon users are in the age bracket of 18-24 compared to Living Social’s 10%). Also while Living Social users are more gender balanced, Groupon users are primarily female.

Another reason for the difference in choice of advertising channel might lie in the retail categories that the companies focus on. More than half 50% of Groupon's offers are for restaurants, while more than 40% of the LivingSocial's deals are for books and magazines.

It is worth noting that both companies heavily rely on display marketing instead of search marketing (SEM or SEO) due to the nature of their business model which relies heavily on interruption marketing.

At the same time the differing strategies of both companies raise the question as to who is smarter and why? And what is the brand impact of these strategies. Does LivingSocial benefit from being more selective about its ad placement or is it just a matter of targeting its older audience who read more books and magazines more effectively? Is Groupon chasing its younger audience when advertising in niche websites or is the game simply about achieving the lowest customer acquisition cost?

Another thought to ponder in this discussion might be whether these companies intially used these advertising channels because of their target audience or whether their choice of advertising channels has created their unique audience. I guess it is the case of the chicken or the egg…

Source: Online Media Post

Google Correlate

Given our introduction into cool tools on the internet (i.e. Google Insights, The Wheel) in our digital marketing class – I set out about trying to see what else Google has to offer in this space. Primarily, I was curious to understand what other insights we could gain from people’s search patterns and behaviors. I will focus on one tool that particularly intrigued me – Google Correlate.

It was officially launched at the end of May on GoogleLabs and essentially flips the concept of Google Trends and Insights in that instead of entering a search term and seeing the trend, you enter a trend of a real world activity and see which search terms best match that trend.

The Google Correlate journey actually started with analyzing flu trends. Google compared time series for millions of search queries with the actual influenza data to find the queries that best correlated with flu trends...they found that certain search terms were surprisingly good indicators of actual flu activity. Google correlate allows you to use your own time series data and the output is a set of search queries that are best correlated with the your ‘real world’ time series data.

Now you are thinking ‘ well what if I don’t have time series data – just a term I’d like to check’. Of course there is a solution for this too. Lets say we type in ‘sunglasses’ the correlation data shows that the term ‘fossil sunglasses’ is most highly correlated with this term. Fossil is actually a brand of sunglasses so we might infer that they recently launched an ad campaign which influenced search behavior. See the results by clicking on this link: http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=sunglasses&t=weekly

Like all other things Google – the beauty is in the simplicity of use yet the wealth of information and insights you can draw from the output. An interesting question posed by a web article on this topic was when hedge funds will start using this – any digital marketers/financiers in the class want to take a punt?

Google AdWords: let the buyer beware

No journalist out there has done a better job of keeping a sharp eye on Google's monstrously successful AdWords product than The Register's Cade Metz. He is a must read. Here's why:

For the uninitiated, Google AdWords is the product that makes Google most of its money -- it's the monetization engine behind its search engine, which in a very real way is actually a loss leader. AdWords takes your searches, matches it with bids from advertisers, and then displays ads next to your search results. It's actually a great way for small, low-budget and relatively unsophisticated ad buyers to get access to advertising -- without having to hire a media-buying firm.

Sounds simple enough. But Google can trick you in many small ways. For example, default settings can actually be pretty dangerous for your budget, being allocated to words that sound like or are spelled like the ads you've purchased. If your ad is for "Hello Kitty", then "Hi Kitty" isn't quite the same thing.

But, of course, Google has an incentive to move inventory, and these little problems for you are profits for them. So if you're spending any money with Google AdWords, keeping abreast of Cade's latest articles about AdWords is a very good idea.

Hulu Tries to Mitigate Declines in Summer Viewership

This summer Hulu is exploring new ways to increase viewership over the summer months. The company has experienced the same decline in viewership that networks have historically faced in the summer and is looking for innovative ways to turn that around. As part of their strategy they have acquired 3 new shows that will be available in the U.S. exclusively via Hulu. Historically, Hulu has not held exclusive rights to content and as such they have been an alternative viewing platform. This could prove to be an interesting approach for Hulu and we will see how it plays out in the U.S. market. The question is: are they actually finding a solution to increase summer viewership with this strategy? I am skeptical that these three shows will offer something unique vs. the “counter-programming strategy” that has been used by television programmers for years with little success. I find it highly unlikely given the nature of the shows acquired that they are going to make up for the historical drops in percent viewership over the summer months. Even if the content is extremely compelling and results in a slight boost in the number of viewers this will not spill over into the other content Hulu is offering. It makes sense to think of the television industry as cyclical and while it is an interesting approach on Hulu’s part exclusive rights to these shows will not be the end of their summer woes.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-hulu-20110611,0,7294936.story