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The numbers that make Google+ an integration dream
Jul 21st
Google+ is growing at an incredible speed – mainly fast, thanks to a young demographic and lots of traffic from other Google properties. So is G+ just a integration dream?
As of July 16, Google+ is the 42nd most-visited social networking site in the US and the 638th most-visited site in the world.
Google+ is even more popular now – 18 million people as per recent reports – and will gain even more steam when it opens to the public.
According to Hitwise, Google+ had 1.8 million total visits last week, an increase of 283% from the previous week.
In fact, the site has grown by a whopping 821% from the week ending on July 2, when the site officially opened its page.
56% of Google+’s upstream traffic came from other Google properties last week, with 34% of that traffic coming from Google.com. And 37% of its upstream traffic came from search engines, while 21% of its traffic was driven by email.
Google+ is dominated by young adults, its biggest age group for the four weeks ending July 14 was the 25-34 age bracket, which accounted for 38.37% of all visits. The week before, the entire 18-34 age bracket made up just 38.11% of total visitors.
Sounds like a breeding ground for digital marketing – but none of these stats are official and Google+ is still a baby. And bear in mind, Facebook still trumps Google+ in size.
But perhaps not for long…
AmEx goes social –sense a privacy scare coming on anyone?
Jul 20th
Banking is serious business – and it needs you now! Which is why American Express has taken out advertising on the site where everyone already is, Facebook.
American Express has launched a new program that gives cardholders access to special offers and discounts via Facebook, based on their expressed interests and preferences.
Through the “Link, Like, Love” application on the AmEx page, customers can link their cards to their Facebook accounts. Sound scary…and perhaps a little invasive?
The offers are tailored according to what users and their friends “Like” by using the Facebook Like button on third-party sites or by checking in at a location on Facebook Places.
The new Facebook initiative is similar to one the financial services giant unveiled earlier this month with Foursquare, in which cardholders can link their accounts to the social location service to get discounts when they check in at certain retailers and restaurants.
Edward Gilligan, vice chairman of AmEx, told Bloomberg it isn’t charging merchants for the service or repackaging personal information for sale to third parties…But businesses will receive reporting on deal redemption and customer loyalty to help shape digital marketing programs.
Meanwhile, in a novel effort in June, AmEx began allowing business customers to use accumulated rewards points to buy advertising on Facebook.
But do social networking sites and banking mix?
For some, it may seem a little too risky given Facebook’s not so privacy past.
Show me the innovation!
Jul 19th
Ever notice how much the term ‘innovative’ is bounced around? Here at UTalkMarketing we see it in almost every press release to come across our desk. But what is ‘innovative’ today?
Innovation is to use or show new methods and ideas of doing something that has essentially been done before.
We throw around the word innovation in marketing as if it were a prefix to the word advertising. Often, innovative is way off the mark.
So what is innovative?
Easy…campaigns that go where no campaign has gone before.
Campaigns are defined in an entirely different way than they were just 10 years ago.
Every element and medium has its own measure of success. The innovation stems from an idea that can be imbedded in multiple channels while presenting it in a different way for each.
Also, what may be innovative one week, isn’t innovative the next when 10 other brands have jumped on to it.
When I think of innovative campaigns I think of Mr ‘Old Spice’, or LG’s ‘Scarlet’ television launch. Or even Sony’s ‘Balls’ and ‘Paint’.
What do you think about when you hear ‘innovation’?
If you too are wondering how you can be more innovative come to our UTalkMarketing Marketing Innovation Expo, click here for more information
BlackBerry makes an early grab for the online video market
Jul 18th
The weekend newspapers were running with the rumour that Blackberry maker Research in Motion is about to launch a new product that will plug in to users’ TVs and stream online video in a bid to get ahead in the UK online video market place.
Today in the UK, 66% of online video viewers watch more video now than they did a year ago with 35% claiming that online video has cut into their TV viewing.
Perhaps most importantly to marketers, consumers skip more ads when watching TV than when watching online video. Just take a look at sites like YouTube which engages more users than TV ever could…or did!
Using the code named ‘BlackBerry Cyclone’, the new product will be similar to Apple TV and other products currently offered by Sony and LG.
Media boxes have become increasingly popular because they allow users to put the growing amount of online TV content onto their TV easily and watch in a more comfortable environment that at a computer desk.
Most use either a wired or wireless internet connection.
According to the Nerdberry website, the BlackBerry Cyclone will be able to stream NetFlix and YouTube content, as well as access a user’s WiFi network devices.
The UK is playing catch up when it comes to streaming online content to TVs. In the US, services such as Netflix, Hulu and Pandora have the area pretty well covered and have been in the space for a number of years.
In the UK, BBC iPlayer has been among the most successful online video sites, but devices that allow users to stream these services to TV sets is limited.
BlackBerry and the UK market are well matched in that respect.
The handset maker has increasingly been focused on making its products appeal to a market that is interested in more than simply emailing.
Finally, according Cisco’s Forecasts, two-thirds of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video by 2015. Mobile video will more than double every year between 2010 and 2015.
When too much is way too much – BP’s Twitter assault
Jul 15th
I must admit, it’s been a while since I logged on to Twitter. The ‘people’ I’ve chosen to follow tweet way too much boring stuff – they tweet anything and everything they’ve posted online! This however, means I’ve missed BP’s incredible claw back from disaster…and it seems the disaster has indeed continued.
When BP’s deep sea oil rig Horizon blew it guts from its bowls in February last year, it spelt month of misery for the British oil giant – namely misery in dealing with a PR crisis.
Weeks went by and it eventually took to its Twitter and Facebook pages to offer somewhat of an explanation disguised as updates.
It coped a lot of criticism for its slowness in doing so. But now, it seems it can’t get enough of the social media medium. And it’s to the point where it is blatantly covering up the disaster with PR fluff.
A tweet today reads: “Photographer & proud #Gulf Coast resident Steve Jones captures the spectacular beauty of Gulf Shores, AL: http://pub.vitrue.com/FPH”
Putting a few photos online of a good day at the beach won’t make people forget.
Other tweets boast about the company investing $500M to address climate change and record numbers of sea turtle nests.
None of which fit in with the BP brand in the real world.
In the digital world, BP is going through a bit of an identity crisis it seems. The company is coming across as a big green hug too soon after it was a big black killing machine.
BP still has a way to go to build trust in the offline world. And in the online world, it needs to stop suffocating people before they completely switch off.
$500M is a great step toward climate change, but if BP really cared about the environment, they wouldn’t have to tweet about it. Its PR activity has unfortunately come across as a cover up for something.
Is Google+ the search giant last chance to stay relevant?
Jul 14th
If we could say what is on Facebook’s mind right now we probably wouldn’t be able to publish or get through your email filters. In simple terms, Facebook is scared. Google may or may not have come up with a viable rival networking site, but most importantly, it’s already pulled in more than 10 million users, pre-launch!
Facebook took over a year to garner such a sign up. And while it may have more than 50 million across the globe now, some may be ditching the social networking king of kings for a brand that they’ve come to know and love for more than 10 years.
With headlines such as ‘How to move your Facebook photos to Google+’, ‘Google+: It’s a man thing’ and ‘Professors Look at Google+ For Student Learning’, it’s not looking too good for Facebook.
Some media experts have suggested that Facebookers have simply become bored of the site and that Google+ is offering something new to people who are looking to try something new.
So what does this mean for marketers?
Marketers, and Facebook itself actually, have finally figured out how to use the social networking site as a marketing platform. And it’s working!
No pitch is ever pitched to a client without the inclusion of a social media strategy and drafted Facebook Wall posts.
Now those marketers will have to get to know Google+ immediately and probably do twice the work. After all, a tailored approach to each network is usually what a client wants to see.
Google will have to get its social network right pretty quickly if it wants to compete at an elite level and maintain its rapid take up of users – both business and pleasure.
Social media is big business not just for brands but everyone. Facebook made us aware of this and now there are so many sites in which we log on to and divulge the inners of our lives, but not ever network can succeed.
Google has a lead coming into the game already being a digital marketing expert. However, if it fails to live up to expectations, it could very well be the beginning of the end of Google.
If people are leaving Facebook because they are bored, it could only be a matter of time before they bore of Google.
Which has already started with people watching to Bing…mmm, last chance saloon for Google to remain relevant?
What does the demise of NOTW mean for digital publishing?
Jul 13th
It could be the final nail in the coffin for newspapers, News of the World – a brand that has been on our newsstands since 1843 – has met its demise, and it wasn’t anything to do with a lack of advertising sales.
When we hear talk about news papers dying and journalism having no integrity in the modern world, it’s usually attributed to the fact that online news is just a copy of what is in print.
The news is now very rarely created by journalists, but instead journalists are following the news and reporting back via the medium of our favourite new aggregator.
How often do we read a story that says ‘as reported in’ or ‘as published in’ or ‘so and so told’ bla bla newspaper or magazine.
The demise of the more newspapers would mean an end to those super exclusive news stories, investigative journalism and of course those rare exposes that we probably don’t need to know, but manage to sell millions of copies.
There’s no denying that the phone hacking activities of several journalists not just at the News of the World but also The Sun and The Times is absolutely wrong and totally unethical.
However, the fact that it has brought down the entire paper is sad news for newspaper journalism and those journalists who are dedicated to doing the job properly and ethically.
The repercussions could see advertising revenues from newspapers fall sharply – once again – and this time could reach the point of no return.
If we can’t trust newspapers as readers, who will as marketers and brands?
Advertisers have long complained about having their ads next to news stories that their values don’t quite sit comfortably with.
How do they feel when the paper itself is outside the bounds of not just reality but ethical journalism?
Where digital news aggregators dodge the bullet is in the fact that their news comes from other sources. They therefore relinquish all responsibility.
As for advertisers, they have the benefit of syndication deals.
The future is bright from an advertiser prospective. In terms of news, the wave of possibilities includes tablets, location-based ads, voice activation ads, video ads, social networking and the sophistication of targeting campaigns based on individual details gathered from search engines and social networking profiles.
Google Yahoo! and Bing are all spending millions of dollars and going to great lengths to improve their advertising offerings including display, search and of course their news aggregators.
Digital news is an advertisers dream. But unfortunately on one’s rise to the top, others must be trampled.
One element of advertising that could see the endurance of the newspaper and print media mediums is PR.
PR is responsible for the generation of 88% of all news in newspapers and magazines. While some have tipped at its demise several times, PR is at its height and in terms of spend is on equal par with above-the-line advertising budgets.
PR is no longer just about telling a journalist a story and getting a press release copy and pasted into the news pages. It’s about buying space.
Many magazines won’t even consider a PR generated story unless the said brand has taken out paid advertising – large format ads or advertorials – prior.
While newspapers tread cautiously when accepting free lunches, dinners and gifts from PRs, they won’t publish anything unless there is a little something in it for them somewhere – dollars and bottom lines are now a top priority for everyone who works at a media organisation, not just the MD and CEO.
It’s this purchasing power that will keep the print media alive – for now. But it’s not secret digital has taken over. What we’ve already seen happen in this space is a massive uptake of trade media and dedicated titles to specific industries in forms of blogs.
As for journalism, well, there’s life there yet of course. But we’ll see a shift towards more specialised professionals. And most will probably being dubbed as writers – not journalists.
Where mobile marketers are missing opportunities
Jul 12th
Forrester Research has just come up with a new report that highlights were marketers are failing to leverage extra contextual opportunities when it comes to reaching their customers. And believe it or not, many still deem mobile as a low priority.
Advertisers will spend more than half a billion pounds this year on mobile display and search ads to reach consumers who will make more than £5 billion in retail purchases on their phones, according to a new report from Forrester Research.
The report, titled ‘eBusiness: The Future Of Mobile Is User Context’, reiterates that as the adoption of high-end mobile devices continues to rise, consumers will not only text and search the web for information, but consume content and media.
Mobile delivers immediacy, simplicity and context, making content relevant to individuals rather than the masses, say Forrester analysts in the report.
Furthermore, Consumers are on the verge of “voluntarily” relinquishing privacy in exchange for the benefits of mobile convenience.
But brands will need to keep a keen eye on privacy, while improving the convenience of mobile services by improving the use of context in delivering mobile experiences.
The report reveals that context is underused and during a series of interviews with several digital marketing and strategy professionals, only nine marketers said they used location-based context beyond GPS to find the nearest ATM, gas station, store or other physical location.
When marketers were asked why not leverage more context and user-content in the design or the delivery of mobile services, 17% of survey participants said it was too low a priority; 11% cited technical challenges and a lack of expertise; 3% noted privacy concerns; and a combined 6% pointed either toward financial resources and cost, or an inability to justify the return on investment.
While brands continue to increase their budgets for mobile and search engines integrate social signals into serving ads on computers, Forrester analysts view the lack of integrating user-generated content in search and display mobile ads as a missed opportunity.
Is paid search improving?
Jul 11th
Advertisers spent 20% more on paid search campaigns in Q2 2011 compared to a year-ago, while click through rates rose 12%, according to new research. But is spend really driving the popularity of the medium, or is it something else?
The Paid Search Quarterly Benchmarking Report from Marin Software also reveals an increase in efficiencies from search campaigns.
However, Google advertisers saw a dramatic decline in impressions with the average marketer experiencing a 15% drop, while click volumes rose by 8%. This suggests either search marketers took steps to improve efficiency or Google modified its algorithm for matching ads to queries, according to Marin Software.
So are advertisers getting better at paid search, or are search engines simply becoming smarter?
Gains in efficiency during the past year have been a result – in part – of advertiser efforts to refine match types. The share of paid clicks from exact- and phrase-match keywords rose 10% during the past year at the expense of broad-match clicks.
Exact and phrase keywords have higher click-through rates and lower costs than broad match terms, which not only explains the gains in efficiencies advertisers found during the quarter, but also improvements in quality scores.
In the past year, search marketers have increased their use of exact- and phrase-match keywords, growing click-share of these terms by 7% and 3%, respectively.
Aside from exact- and phrase-match keywords, spend on Yahoo! and Bing rose 52%, compared with the year-ago quarter as advertisers built out their campaigns on the combined platform.
Advertisers also experienced a boost in effectiveness on the Yahoo!-Bing platform, reflected by a 6% rise in CTRs.
Compare The Meerkat – a marketing campaign that identifies one joke simpletons
Jul 8th
Meerkats may look cute, but beneath that cuddly exterior they’re ruthless killing machines. Never trust a meerkat. They’re tough as anything, they will eat their own young and they can dig their own body weight in seconds if they see you coming. In other words, the perfect poster boys for the car insurance industry.
So we should all tip our hats to the ad agency that made this association. Most people, sadly, aren’t in on the joke, and consequently the Compare the Meerkat marketing campaign has been hailed as one of the greatest advertising campaigns of all time.
It was based on a simple premise. Meerkat sounds a bit like market- if you’re speaking in a comedy Russian accent. They got huge mileage out of this one joke and, as you might expect, it’s wearing a bit thin now. As Viz magazine pointed out, anyone who uses the Meerkat catchphrase – Simples – is effectively advertising their lack of wit and giving you a Top Tip that they’re worth avoiding.
On the other hand, the ‘Simples’ would make perfect fodder for the car insurance industry’s latest scheme. In case you’re not familiar with this new ploy, they encourage everyone involved in a road accident to cash in by applying for injury compensation. Like all the best hustles, it appeals to people’s greed. But then suddenly the tables are turned and the claimant discovers that they are liable for the legal bills for their failed injury claim.
Meanwhile, the Compare the Meerkat joke plods along, with more money being poured into a huge digital marketing campaign and a web site dedicated to Meerkovo. I supposed it’s a good way of separating out all the simpletons from the herd who could be targeted for exploitation. There seems to be a lot of them. Simples-tons!
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