Online Advertising « Social Networking and New Markets

And the winner is – digital! | Advantage Social

April 26, 2010 Leave a Comment

Well, pioneers will say we are late in the gainsaying. No we were not the naysayers. No it is not a holy jehad. No, Pope Benedict has no request to bless this revolution. No it is not the Book of Judas. No selling religion hasn’t gone digital. Phew, that’s another billion. Close. As April draws to a close, statistics say Twitter would have added 1 more billion to its 16 billion kitty from SMS alone.

Yes. And that news on the twitter blog is a good one, a great one and one that makes me wish I was a Cloudhopper. Twitter has finally started using the cash in the vain hope that it is ahead of the monetization of internet curve and thus people wil eventuually pay it in enough premium to cover now the third year of back breaking costs. The Cloudhopper purchase closely follows Tweetie and makes its Third party developers an integral part of Twitter.

We have said it before and we will say it again. It is time that all the tweeting , now available in the Library of Congress archives are a blessed source of will and wisdom that are sure to turn the world of digital media, social media and advertising in a tizzy.

Online advertising has also scored a neat $23 billion in advertising in 2009 according to a hat tip from the New York Times. 47% growth in Display ads, 38% in Video ads and search is still around. Well next year hopefully it will be Twitter’s promoted tweets there with a meaningful percentage and from our personal predictions, the search category would have mrphed into other pieces., incl the Apple iPad platform and maybe once Tweets count someone would have a percentage for Facebook as well.

Why am I rambling about that? Because a lot of people incl Accenture and Mckinsey have employed pioneers, our valley has gone down hooking them up and they all wanted to see a little more digital in our life. And that’s all Marketing, right! All those solo moments without advertising would also be sponsored by your refrigerator maybe. But the point is that magazine advertising scored less than $20 billion in the same year in the US. And that is where we plan to use everyone’s common decision. We think Marketing Budgets will be at least 30% Digital in a few years. And for the World’s Top 100 brands, more of that would be social and of course meaningful sponsorships would be most of the other stuff. See?

Filed under Digital Media, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter Tagged with Digital, Digital Media, Facebook, Online Advertising, Social Media, Twitter

Facebook vs Twitter series 13/800: What about Digital Books? Can Kindle be about social collaboration?

July 18, 2009 Leave a Comment

I know what you all are thinking. Why suddenly a Kindle in Facebook vs Twitter wars? What about the Friendfeed and the dozen social networks to be branded me too! Where do they come in? Well, to me Kindle comes first because Amazon is a phenomenon on my personal list of Enterprise greats and the other start ups have still got something to prove in terms of viability. Not that the risk is any lesser for a Myspace or a Kindle but My space going down would be a turning point people would remember like AOL, eBay and the others who have had a not so easy time since they set up on the web and who have never graduated to the real Web 2.0 or near real time social collaboration. Amazon and Kindle however have that potential ( may be they will also drop out later like Starbucks) and they can handle innovation and complex consumer minds with a relative ease that would be critical.

Long back, during the days of Patricia Seybold’s customers.com and Guy Hagel’s ‘Net Worth’ we saw an expostulation of the success determining parameters of the new invisible continent by Kenichi Ohmae ( let’s face it, the guy was an other world icon but still made it as a strategist on the new web). What the Invisible Continent described in great detail was an Infomediary – An organization or ‘Trust agent’ that would broker all business transactions on the web because they would be entrusted with the Customers foibles and deep seated choices that would make the best buying decision and robust sales. Amazon and Kindle are the perfect intermediaries for such digital transactions like iPhone and iPod have been for music albeit non collaboratively till now.

I think the new web needs Kindle and amazon to ramp up the offering in tune with customers, learning the nuances along with the customer as they go along this adventure. For amazon to continue with its 50% market share of the World’s Book Sales has been relatively easy when compared with the others and a vital part of that has been the enriched customer experience which is really beautifully collaborative and store front’ish at the same time. It also highlights the other essential for social collaboration which Facebook and Twitter seem to make light of, ad that is the reading habit. For any transaction on the new web, one has to be a voracious reader to navigate the choices, discuss with friends, colleagues and competitors online and make instant decisions that are almost always right.

Kindle could easily include Video, Audio and twitter / friendfeed messaging on the device along with maps and the books to replace other devices you need to carry arund today for a complete mobile experience. I think that’s the way it’s going to go too.

Filed under Facebook, Online Maketing, Social Media, Twitter Tagged with Amazon, Facebook valuation, FiLife, Kindle, Media, Online Advertising, Online Marketing, Social Marketing, Social Net, Social Networking, Twitter, Twitter Valuation

Facebook vs Twitter series 12/800: Twitter is down from FB hunting?

July 18, 2009 1 Comment

Sitting inside a conference room at Twitter, BlackBerry in hand, Kevin Thau is all business.In his first interview since taking charge of the San Francisco technology companys mobile business development a month ago, Thau is confident that cellphones will play a crucial role in helping the messaging service make money.

The four-year-old company, which has raised more than $35 million from Benchmark Capital, Spark Capital and others, offers its service free of charge, and hasn’t yet figured out how to generate revenues.

Thau, 36, says thats about to change. He says the number of text messages passing through Twitters platform has grown 1,000% in the last year. Add to that the fact that users are texting more substantive observations and opinions in real time, and the company has a valuable information database it can sell to businesses.

Thau says Twitter is developing a range of analytics and metrics products and services built around the information contained in “tweets,” the e-mail and text messages that pass through its platform. “We can measure the tweets,” he says. “Were trying to figure out what are the appropriate metrics around engagement and how to convey those.”

Thau, however, didnt say when Twitter plans to sell these services or how much it will charge for them.

Its an interesting business model, but can Twitter survive selling analytics and other services? “When it comes to enterprises, absolutely,” says Jeremiah Owyang, a social computing analyst with Forrester Research ($FORR ) . “I just got off a call with a client thats asking about how to engage on Twitter. There’s definitely interest.”

via ‘Forbes’

Filed under Facebook, Social Media, Twitter Tagged with Amazon, Facebook valuation, FiLife, Kindle, linkedin, Media, Online Advertising, Online Marketing, Social Marketing, Social Net, Social Networking, Startups, Twitter, Twitter tools, Twitter Valuation

Something Burger sandwiches are..

June 27, 2009 1 Comment

The latest hot ads, will the banking moguls respond to this consumer strategy http://ow.ly/fYzE

THIS COULD HAVE BEEN A BANKING CAMPAIGN FOR CREDIT APPLNS

In an effort to keep making horrible ads that have nothing to do with whatever Burger King’s brand identity is they’ve come out with this ..

Let’s not forget their past insulting work here, Mexican get sizzled, and here, Slap that booty.

Obviously the only branding strategy Burger King can come up with is to be controversial. Brilliant.

So I’m out of the Burger King loop. They obviously want people in the business to write negatively about them because what women is gonna run out and buy this sandwich now? And do men really think they’ll get a blow job? No, the only thing Burger King wants is press, so stop giving it to them, they don’t deserve it.

Ads are meant to do one thing…sell product, period.

via Branding Blog Branding Company Corporate Internet Brand Image Strategy.

Filed under Financial Services, IPOs, Marketing, Superbowl, Twitter Tagged with Blogging, comScore, Entertainment, Linked In, Media, MR, Online Advertising, Online Marketing, Social Marketing, Sports Marketing, Twitter

Online Ads | The Spending Blip in 2008 | Los Angeles Times

June 7, 2009 Leave a Comment

Remember when Internet marketers said theyd be immune to the recession because online advertising is more accountable? Well, it hasnt quite worked out that way.

Internet advertising revenue was $5.5 billion for the first quarter of 2009, a 5% decline from the same period last year, according to a report released this morning from the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

The 10% decline from the fourth quarter, when revenue surpassed $6 billion for the first time, is the biggest decrease, percentage-wise, since at least 2001.

“The first quarter was really freak-out time this year,” said Jose Villa, founder of Sensis, a Los Angeles interactive ad agency. “Everybody just slammed on the brakes.”

Companies were deciding whether they should even advertise, he said, because they thought it might look bad to be spending on marketing in a tough economic climate.

“It was an unusual three-month period,” he said. “It wasn’t really rational, and it went across all media.”

via Technology | Does flirting with the Pre mean the romance with iPhone is over? | Los Angeles Times.

Filed under Online Maketing Tagged with Advertising, comScore, Online Advertising, Online Marketing, Trends

Twitter Fires Up the Spotlight | Marketing Pilgrim

February 24, 2009 Leave a Comment

Last month Twitter launched its ‘suggested users’ feature and the impact on those who were put on Twitter’s red carpet has been significant. Some of these profiles saw tens of thousands of additional followers added to their own personal profiles which created some very happy folks and, you guessed it, some not so happy people. The LA Times Tech blog has all the details but here are the high points.

Evan Williams and Biz Stone, co-founders of Twitter put this feature into place last month. When users sign up for a new account which is happening at a dizzying pace they are given a list of suggested users to follow. The folks at Twitter were noticing that many folks were signing up then not using the service. The hope by offering this was to get the newbies in the game. Makes sense to me since Twitter can be somewhat daunting for those beyond the early adopter / social media savvy part of the population.

The list includes Felicia Day, The Guardian, Rainn Wilson, Dell, The New York Times and CNN to name a few. The benefit to those who made the cut is very clear:

Since Twitter began endorsing a handful of personalities in mid-January, The Guardian was among several entities to reap a subscriber windfall. Its account jumped from about 4,000 followers to 66,000 in about a month, according to stat-tracking service Twitter Counter. And within the last two weeks, @GuardianTech added new users at a pace about 300% faster than the previous two weeks.

Day, an Internet video maven, experienced similar results. She has jumped from 20,000 to 83,000 since mid-January.

TechCrunch went… from 41,000 to 111,000 in the same period. The New York Times’ Twitter account increased its subscriber base by a factor of six — to 145,000.

The Twitter purists, however, are crying foul. The concern is that those who have grown their following organically and around ‘real’ value or severe self importance, you make the call are going to suffer. Leo Laporte of TWIT puts it this way:

via Twitter Fires Up the Spotlight.

Filed under Online Maketing Tagged with 2009, Amitonomics, Entertainment, Facebook, Guy Kawasaki, Online Advertising, Social Media, Social Networking, socialtoo, Twitter

Facebook Photos Pulls Away From The Pack | Techcrunch

February 22, 2009 Leave a Comment

Facebook Photos Pulls Away From The Pack

by Erick Schonfeld on February 22, 2009

If Facebook has one standout application it has to be Photos. Measured on its own, it is the largest photo site on the Web. A full 69 percent of Facebook’s monthly visitors worldwide either look at or upload photos, based on comScore data. And more than 10 billion photos have been uploaded to the site.

And it’s been pulling away from its competitors. As can be seen in the comScore chart above, as recently as last September the top three photo sites in the U.S. were running neck-and-neck, with Facebook Photos at 23.9 million unique visitors, followed by Photobucket at 21.3 million uniques, and Flickr at 19.5 million uniques. But by January, the number of monthly U.S. visitors going to Facebook Photos shot up 41 percent to 33.6 million. Meanwhile, Photobucket is up only 7 percent to 22.8 million, while Flickr is up 12 percent to 21.9 million. Picasa is a distant fourth in the U.S. with 8.1 million.

In other words, Facebook increased the gap between its closest competitor Photobucket in the U.S. from 2.6 million monthly unique visitors to 10.8 million. On a worldwide basis, the gap between Facebook Photos and Flickr which is the No. 2 site globally, and looks like it is about to pass Photobucket in the U.S. went from 41.2 million unique monthly visitors in September to 87 million in December the most recent data available, see chart below.

What accounts for Facebook’s advantage in the photo department? The biggest factor is simply that it is the default photo feature of the largest social network in the world. And of all the viral loops that Facebook benefits from, its Photos app might have the largest viral loop of all built into it. Whenever one of your friends tags a photo with your name, you get an email.

via Facebook Photos Pulls Away From The Pack .

Filed under Online Maketing Tagged with Entertainment, Obamanomics, Online Advertising, Social Media, Social Networking

Display Ads – How Online Advertising is missing revenue

December 15, 2008 Leave a Comment

Whenever I’m asked “what type of click-thru-rate do ads on Marketing Pilgrim receive?” my reply often suggests that the inquirer take a look at Google AdWords, if they’re only interested in CTRs. Why? Because, I know that display ads are the perfect platform for increasing brand awareness and trust, but are pretty lousy when it comes to CTR. (Yes, there are some exceptions to this rule)

In case you don’t trust my years of online marketing experience, new research from comScore supports the notion that display ads shouldn’t be measured by their CTR. As avc.com reports, comScore compared 139 display ad campaigns with a control group of ads. The findings?

It’s clear that display advertising, despite a lack of clicks, can have a significant positive impact on:
- Visitation to the advertiser’s Web site (lift of at least 46% over a four week period)
- The likelihood of consumers conducting a search query using the advertiser’s branded terms (a lift of at least 38% over a four week period)
- Consumers’ likelihood of buying the advertised brand online (an average 27% lift in online sales)
- Consumers’ likelihood of buying at the advertiser’s retail store (an average lift of 17%)

In fact, as the chart below demonstrates, display ads provide a 65% lift in site clicks the first week they are seen, and still provide a 45% uplift 4 weeks later! They’re just not that great at immediate clicks.

The moral of this story? Buy advertising on Marketing Pilgrim today! When you purchase a display ad, you have two choices:

Figure out how to measure the increase in overall site traffic, not just those that can be directly linked to your banner ads.
Forget about any kind of measurement and just trust that, with the right targeting, display ads will increase your brand awareness.

Filed under Online Maketing Tagged with Facebook, India, linkedin, Networking, Online Advertising, Social Media, Twitter