Saturday, January 22, 2011

27% of Americans Have Checked Facebook While in the Bathroom

Have you ever checked Facebook while in the bathroom? 27% of the people AIS Media surveyed said they had. Granted, they only surveyed 500 people, but I’d bet that real percentage is even higher than that. Go into any women’s restroom in a club in Los Angeles and you’ll see that it’s true – lipsticks and cell phones all over the place.

So what does this mean to you, the marketer? A lot, actually. It’s another example of how social media is changing the way we go about our. . . shall we say, daily business. We’re becoming input junkies who can’t go ten minutes without connecting to our friends be it through social media updates, check-in services or text messaging.

The combination of mobile and social media has opened us up to a constant stream of information and that means more opportunities for marketing. It’s beyond time to start thinking about doing something different, something other than banner ads and search and static Facebook pages. To win that customer over, you need to put relevant advertising in front of them at exactly the right moment.

Let’s go back to that LA club restroom. Here’s Chelsea, checking her make-up and her Facebook and she sees that her best friend just bought this bold, red lipstick that makes men drop at her feet. Thanks to mobile technology, Chelsea can buy that lipstick while she’s still standing in front of that mirror and have it delivered in time for next weekend’s party.

Friday, January 21, 2011

TweetStork – The Twitter Tool For Finding Targeted Followers

Twitter users are always looking for new ways to find targeted followers. It’s important to not just have a lot of followers on Twitter, but to have followers that are going to interact with you and add value to your timeline. With TweetStork, you can find related users, list owners and re-tweeters who are just like you. You can also use it to unfollow users who aren’t following you back. Best of all, it’s free and requires very little work on your end.

Find Related Users

In order to find users that are like you, TweetStork will scan the followers of Twitter users who are similar to you. All you have to do is enter the username of a Twitter user of your choice and TweetStork will do the rest.

With the advanced search feature, you can define the keywords that the user descriptions should and should not contain. You can also set the quantity of users that you want to search for; the default is 30, but you can search for up to 100 at a time.

Once you get your results, you can follow users directly from the TweetStork website. Your results will display each user’s avatar picture, username, bio and number of followers. TweetStork keeps a tally of how many people you follow for the day and overall (if you continue to use the site).

Find List Owners

This section works the same way as finding related followers: enter the username of a similar Twitter user and get valid results. What TweetStork does is search through the Twitter lists of users that person follows and then shows you people from those lists that are related to you. You’ll be able to see the Twitter list that the user is on and how many followers the list has as well as how many followers the user has.

Find Re-Tweeters

Again you have the same setup, the difference is that TweetStork searches for users who retweet users similar to you. They suggest that you enter a similar, yet popular user here. You can also specify the amount of re-tweeters that you’d like to search for. There are no advanced search options for this section. The results here will show you the user’s tweet containing the searched user’s name.

Unfollow Users

TweetStork can also go through your following list and let you know who is not following you back. If there are some users that you never want shown here, you can add them to an “unfollow whitelist” and TweetStork will never display them again. Results are displayed in order from oldest to most recent and you’ll be able to see how long ago you followed each user. This will give you a good idea of whether you should unfollow at that moment or wait a little longer.

Subscriptions

As mentioned above TweetStork is free, but free accounts also have a 15 per day follow and unfollow limit. If you would like to remove this limitation, you can purchase a yearly (19.95EUR) or monthly (2.99EUR) subscription.

Plain and simple, TweetStork is a very useful tool that is great for helping you grow your Twitter network. I’d rather follow a small group of users who will actually interact with me rather than thousands of users who never say anything to me. I’m sure many of you would agree and that’s why TweetStork is a very valuable tool.

SMB’s and Social Media STILL Playing Hard to Get

With all the attention that the SMB space is getting from the sudden realization that people shop locally (really?!?!), it’s important to see if all of this is just media hype or are the actual small and medium businesses of the world actually catching on.

If the findings reported by eMarketer are any indication then the answer is a resounding “Kinda”. The chart below speaks to the results from a study done by Ad-ology. The standard MP research warning alert is in effect. We keep our research validity threat level at a constant orange (high risk of PR drenched research) and we are not adjusting for this data. You have been warned .

So Facebook leads the pack. No surprise there.

The numbers I am most interested in are the “Very Beneficial” ones regardless of the platform. I think that SMB’s that find social media to be very beneficial are those who look beyond the metrics of leads generated and other ‘hard’ measurements. My feeling is that if there is a real and sincere effort to work social media channels to their utmost then the likelihood of them being completely worthless is slim to none. This is regardless of what channel they have decided to work.

It’s the “Somewhat Beneficial” group that is the social media tinkerer types. They dabble and try things without giving them a chance to develop. As a result they can’t admit that they have not really worked the channel as well as they should so they won’t say that they wasted their time because then they would look stupid. Instead they are the ones that will say “Well, I don’t think this social media stuff really applies to my business like everyone says. I won’t commit any more resources to it because I have other ways that I do business. Oh and of course, I get most of my business from referrals.”

Those who say it’s not very beneficial are the delusional types. I would rather hear that someone doesn’t use it over someone who is not getting very little substantial benefit from some form of social media. If there is any real effort given to the right form of social media for a business the benefits will likely be seen, although they may not be what was originally considered to be a key performance indicator. This is the group that says if there are no sales then this is no good. Of course, the ULTIMATE goal of any marketing effort is to contribute to top and bottom line goals but there is a ‘soft result’ aspect of social media that many SMB’s either don’t get or are unwilling to explore.

Below are some of the ways that SMB’s do get benefit from social media.

Notice that overall branding is not even mentioned and I think this is where the SMB falls short on truly understanding the business potential of social media.

So how do you see these statistics? What are the most important aspects of these findings in your estimation?

Have a great weekend, Pilgrims!

Google Set to Deal Groupon Some Competition with ‘Offers’

Following yesterday’s headline grabbing news about Eric Schmidt being removed from his CEO post in early April, Google just happened to let the cat out of the bag on a new product designed to give Groupon and LivingSocial a run for their money. The new product is around the daily deal concept and will be called Google offers.

Of course, no one is naïve enough to think that this ‘leak’ was an accident. Even if it was in this day and age no one believes that anything is ever ‘leaked’ anymore but rather given to a publication in exchange for some drama filled presentation of the ‘news’.

This particular exclusive went to Mashable and they report on Google Offers

Google is preparing to launch Google Offers, the search giant’s Groupon competitor, Mashable has learned. We have the documents to prove it.

One of our sources has sent us a confidential fact sheet straight from the Googleplex about the company’s new group buying service. “Google Offers is a new product to help potential customers and clientele find great deals in their area through a daily email,” the fact sheet says.

Google Offers looks and operates much like Groupon or LivingSocial. Users receive an e-mail with a local deal-of-the-day. They then have the opportunity to buy that deal within a specific time limit (we assume 24 hours). Once enough people have made the purchase, the Google Offer is triggered and users get that all-too-familiar $10 for $20 deal for that Indian restaurant you’ve never tried.

From what we can tell, Google Offers will be powered by Google Checkout. It also includes Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, Google Buzz and e-mail sharing options.

Here’s a look at one of the pages.

Google has been starting to push the idea to the SMB set and it makes sense considering the fact they finally have a human element to talk to the 4 million plus verified Place Page businesses about other offerings from the search giant like Tags and Boost (where available).

What is most interesting is just how truly crowded the daily deal landscape has become in the past few days. The sentence in the Mashable write up from above that now mentions Groupon and LivingSocial in the same breath may not have happened had it not been for the wildly successful Amazon deal from LivingSocial that was obviously designed to jumpstart the competition.

I suspect Google saw this move and decided that it would be a great time to ‘leak’ something about their offering so they could be mentioned in the same breath as the biggest players in an increasingly crowded space.

What this kind of news and competition does to the IPO potential for Groupon remains to be seen. The space has quickly gone from being Groupon’s eminent domain to now having Amazon and Google in their daily deal grill with the same offering (the complaint of many that Groupon was not unique and could be readily cloned) and very deep pockets to put up a serious threat to Groupon’s perceived market dominance. Has all this new found ‘competition’ taken some of the shine off the Groupon apple?

So back to Google. Now the whole Place Page push is coming full circle since it is likely (though not mentioned in the Mashable post) that a verified Place Page will be an important part of this equation as well as integration into the Hotpot recommendation mechanism that has been talked about but not fully promoted just yet.

Google made a ‘statement’ to Mashable yesterday as follows

“Google is communicating with small businesses to enlist their support and participation in a test of a pre-paid offers/vouchers program. This initiative is part of an ongoing effort at Google to make new products, such as the recent Offer Ads beta, that connect businesses with customers in new ways. We do not have more details to share at this time, but will keep you posted.”

The Mashable site also has copies of the sales sheet that is being used to talk to businesses.

So will this be a success for Google? It almost has to be. The search giant cannot afford many more out and out failures in the social realm. It also has a new public face at the ready in Larry Page so things need to be different. Gone is the aloof “I’m so stinkin’ rich from this deal that reality is not an option” approach from Schmidt that was ticking off everyone as of late. Of course, Page is even wealthier but the hope is that because he is co-founder along with Sergey Brin that his take on the business of Google will at least look different and hopefully carry some co-founder passion ala Steve Jobs (although that is admittedly a big stretch).

So what are your thoughts of Goggle being in the daily deal game? Are you interested in checking it out? Do you think they stand a chance in the space or will this ‘offer’ just be another nail in Google’s social marketing coffin?

As Kids Grow, Parents Spend Less Time on Social Media

Parents with children under six years old spend more time using social media than those with older children. This is one of the findings of a new survey conducted by Media Audit and featured on eMarketer.

Starting with 67.1% (for parents with kids under six), the study saw a gradual but steady decrease in usage ending at 55.2% for parents with kids over 18. My guess is that the decrease is based on two factors, parental age and lifestyle.

Though there are exceptions to the rule (Elton John), most sources quote the mean age for a first baby at 25 to 27 years old. So the top level of responders in this survey are in their early-thirties and under. That alone, will account for more social media usage.

Lifestyle also plays a part in parental usage for as the kids get older, the schedule usually gets busier. Where the first group of moms are often home alone with a new baby, desperate for some social contact, even of the virtual kind, moms with older kids are running to soccer games and ballet class so there is less time for online.

The good news for marketers is that the “Under Six” families are not only online more often, but they’re also actively engaged in buying stuff. 77.6% said they were looking for new computer equipment, 72.4% were in the market for a new car and 71.8% were contemplating a household appliance. Face it, a new baby changes everything and there is no end to the items a new parent needs.

If you have a product aimed at families with young children, ramp up those social media efforts because according to Media Audit, you’ve got yourself a captive audience.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Publicly Private Lives: The New Dynamic of Social Media

To post, or not to post: that is the question. Once a post, message or tweet is published, it is virtually impossible to undo. In these digital days, information becomes public in the blink of an eye. But, how much of ourselves do we really want publicly shared? As much as we’d like to think we’re in the age of ‘life as an open book’, privacy and digital surveillance are very hot topics. eye

Take the Fourth Amendment, which protects us from unreasonable search and seizure when we have a “reasonable expectation of privacy”. However, some argue that living out our lives and communications digitally forfeits that reasonable expectation of privacy by the very nature of us putting ourselves out there in the public domain. Since we have entrusted our personal information to the various social media tools we’ve signed up for, essentially we agree that we don’t consider that personal information private – right? Oh, and since we’re also aware that surveillance exists, we expect our personal information may be tapped at any time – or do we?

Word of mouth is the oldest form of verbal communication in an analog world. Think of all those stories you used to hear about from your grandparents – you know, the ones about them walking to school in the snow uphill for five miles barefoot – stories passed down through generations. While the means and methods of story telling and sharing may have evolved, the essence of communicating information has not. In our digital landscape, social media itself is an amazingly powerful communication tool.

Good social media relies on the freedom of credible, reliable and transparent information. Twitter set a precedent in June of 2009 during the Iran elections when they took a stance in defense of freedom of speech. On December 14, 2010, Twitter found itself once again at the center of the digital surveillance topic when the US DoJ issued a subpoena, and accompanying gag-order, to release the names – including personal information of user’s home and IP addresses; bank account and credit card numbers; telephone numbers; and screen names – of more than six hundred thousand Twitter users who had been ‘followers’ of WikiLeaks. This was the first bit of actual evidence of the government’s alleged espionage case against WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.

For Twitter to comply, they would have essentially gone back on their position from 2009, a move that likely would have been seen by the public as pandering to the DoJ. They appealed the gag-order to disclose the ask to it’s users – and won. It is rumored that both Facebook and Google received similar orders, and may have compromised their user lists as a result.

We see more and more stories in the news everyday of how social media tools and entities like these are changing the landscape with real-time publishing of information, across boarders and time zones, and affecting change. Just last week the Tunisian government was overthrown by its citizen revolutionaries, and Twitter was again at the center of the debate over whether it sparked revolution, or simply reported it. Either way, it marks an important reality that social media tools have changed the way the world works – and now that the lines between public and private have become so blurred, this impact must be understood now more than ever.

With so many headlines referencing the debate over privacy breached, it can be intimidating for brands to take the plunge into social media. The key is – rather than avoid online engagement altogether, companies might consider defining their social media parameters and proactively establish privacy policies of their own to address potential concerns of their stakeholders.

If Mobile Is So Important to Facebook, Why Does Its Android App Suck So Much?

Yesterday, Facebook made the announcement that they have created a new app for feature phones which can spread the use of Facebook in other mobile environments.

The Facebook blog post from Mark Heynen tells us

We want people to have a great mobile experience no matter what type of phone they carry. Smartphones have offered better features for sharing with friends but aren’t used by most people around the world.

Today, we’re launching a new mobile app to bring Facebook to the most popular mobile phones around the world. The Facebook for Feature Phones app works on more than 2,500 devices from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, LG and other manufacturers, and it was built in close cooperation with Snaptu. The app provides a better Facebook experience for our most popular features, including an easier-to-navigate home screen, contact synchronization, and fast scrolling of photos and friend updates.

Good move. There are a lot of people out there who have feature phones rather than smartphones and they deserve a chance to waste time on the go as well.

Here’s my question. If mobile is so important why does the Android Facebook app suck so bad? I have stopped using it altogether and go to the site even on my smartphone. Why? Because getting information off of it is a spotty proposition at best. I did an extremely unscientific and limited test just to see if I wasn’t just whining. It looks like I am not alone in my assessment and no one rushed to the defense of the app.

With the growth of Android devices and the types of users that are getting them (at least for now) wouldn’t it make sense for Facebook to make sure its app in that environment (as well as iPhone’s) is as close to flawless as you can get?

Apparently not. This is the one major flaw I see with how Facebook does business. It seems to want to do things so fast that it is OK with putting out inferior offerings just as long as they can say they are in the field. Then they will hide behind the ‘newness’ of all of this as an excuse why everything doesn’t work better.

The reality is they look more and more like a social media chop shop every day as they push everything through their mill as quickly as possible and then get it on the market and wait to see if anyone notices that it’s not that great (or that it runs roughshod over privacy like the mobile phone number for developers mess).

I guess today is a day to piss and moan about the shortcomings of social media (for me at least!). But the reason I do it is because I think that the major players in the space should do a better job. Bigger does not mean better in this space. It appears it just means bigger.

If Facebook were to concentrate on high quality offerings with a much cleaner interface and more direct communication with what they are actually doing with your information they, and the rest of us, would be better off.

Honestly, I suspect that posts like this are just an exercise in futility though because Facebook will do what Facebook does regardless of what users say. The only way that Facebook will truly listen to users is if people start to leave the service and I just don’t see that happening anytime soon.

Twitter Reports 200 Million Accounts. So What?

Twitter is an interesting character in the social media space. It is rock solid in its position because there is no other service that is just like or has grown to the ‘importance’ it currently has (or is perceived to have).

Where one can get confuzzled is in pinning down just how influential and widespread the actual use of Twitter is. On Tuesday, it was announced that they have entered into their seventh language for the service (Korean and most will need Google Translate to read it) and that international growth is moving right along. Twitter also has some new stats for the service as Forbes’ Oliver Chiang reports

Twitter has reached nearly 200 million users registered accounts who post 110 million tweets per day as of the January 1, 2011, Twitter spokesperson Carolyn Penner tells me. That’s up from 160 million registered accounts as of September 2010 and 95 million tweets per day as of early December— steady, but not explosive, growth. That’s why the company is now focused on building out its international presence.

Chiang’s user v. account recognition points out the current confusion regarding Twitter. It seems that Twitter suffers from the same problem of defining important metrics for the service just like many of its users do. The number one most misleading metric for Twitter users is number of followers. People tout these numbers and claim ‘expertise’ based on them but in most cases there is no clear line to be drawn between number of followers and actual influence.

Now Twitter talks about 200 million accounts. OK, some overly simple math tells us that if these accounts were actual Twitter users then the average number of tweets per day per user would be about 1.8. Let’s be generous and round it up to 2. That’s fine. But let’s take myself as an example. I have at least 5 placeholder accounts which do nothing other than protect a name I will be using in the future and I have set up countless other accounts for other businesses doing the same. In fact, it’s a regular piece of advice I give to businesses all the time.

That being said, in my rather small part of the social media space, I have some direct influence on many ‘accounts’ that don’t do anything on the service (except get ‘followers’ without even trying because the Twitter bot world is alive and well).

Also, take into account the social media industry, which one might argue is the source of any real usage of the service at all. Just a glance around to see those that average 10 tweets per day and much, much higher should give anyone pause as to just what these Twitter numbers of accounts and tweets actually means regarding reach and impact on the world at large.

Of course, there will be those who say that many people make a great living using Twitter. If you want to go down that path, I would ask that you put an actual number to just what number constitutes ‘many’ and a clear definition of what a ‘good living’ is. I think it’s more accurate to say that a very select few have built very nice income with Twitter as part of the mix (the superstars) while some others make some money in a variety of different ways and the vast, vast majority don’t make a red cent (although they will claim they do).

Look, I think Twitter is great for what it is. It works for me in the limited fashion that I use it but as I talk to more and more business people and people in general who are not social media hyper-users the real value of the service is hard to define. There is SO much junk in it that any numbers that are given by the company need to be looked at with a very serious critical (and skeptical eye). Couple that with the mystery revenue plan and you have something that is looking more and more like a Hollywood set everyday. The buildings look great on the outside but when you walk through the door you get nothing.

This may be a harsh assessment of the service and feel free to tell me so in the comments but the more I hear about Twitter stats and compare it to what I actually see going on, the less I am convinced that Twitter is what it wants to appear to be to the world at large.

Your thoughts?

Study Shows Internet Users to Be More Community Minded

There are people who think internet users are solitary souls who communicate virtually in order to prevent having actual human contact. But according to the most recent study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, internet users are much more likely to be involved in community, political and religious groups.

Says the study:

80% of internet users participate in groups, compared with 56% of non-internet users. And social media users are even more likely to be active: 82% of social network users and 85% of Twitter users are group participants.

The majority of group members who used the internet said that the internet was an important communication tool, it helped them draw attention to their issues and aided them in connecting to other groups.

Around 50% of respondents said the internet was useful for raising money, organizing activities and recruiting new members.

Kristen Purcell, the research director at Pew Internet and co-author of the report said that respondents were proud of their accomplishments and that they were excited about the impact their actions had on society. As you can see by the chart below, 53% of respondents felt that the internet played a major part in getting a government official elected.

When it comes to social media, Facebook reigns supreme for group communication. Twitter only got 12% of the vote but 74% said they use texting to keep in contact with members.

The survey also found that internet users tended to be more active within their group with a significant difference in the number of people who attend meetings, donate money and volunteer their time.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

What’s All the Fuss About Quora?

For the past month, I’ve seen article after article about how the new Q&A site Quora might be the next social media darling. The site began in “invite only” mode, which certainly helped elevate the buzz. Then Ashton Kutcher started answering questions there, so that was an indication of . . . something.

Now open to the public, the site does appear to have some heavy hitters in the community, particularly those in the journalism and tech areas. I saw the founder of Lifehack, the CEO of Mashable, a former AOL Chief Marketing Officer and the CEO of Netflix. Quite the cocktail party.

The questions on Quora are more intelligent than the ones you find on those other Q&A sites. For example: How did Mint acquire 1.5m+ users without a high viral coefficient, scalable SEO strategy, or paid customer acquisition channel?

Seriously, I was wondering the same thing, so thank heavens for Quora or that would have kept me up all night.

As with all Q&A sites, you can use Quora to promote your business. Simply find a question that’s in your field and answer it. Unlike Answers.com, Quora puts your name and affiliation front and center which makes you more visible and it helps users judge the validity of the information. The site is much cleaner than Answers.com, a bit too clean, and it leans more toward social connections, downplaying the rise and fall of popular updates such as you see on Digg.

The downside is that Quora isn’t intuitive. The site doesn’t open to the most recent questions. Instead, it delivers the recent updates from your categories which I don’t remember picking. It must have figured my interests based on my Facebook profile and it’s not wrong, but I prefer to browse a wider range of questions and that’s impossible. The site also appears to be self-monitored wiki style because you can make changes to the way things are organized. Not sure about that, either.

Quora feels very techy, which is probably why tech blogs seem to love it. But despite the fact that it’s gaining in popularity it still seems like a site that is destined to become a large spam repository. As for it being the next great marketing tool, I don’t see it. Do you?

“And the Award Goes to…”: The Golden Globes’ Biggest Social Media Winners

redcarpet_wtwitter

If you watched the Golden Globes sans computer, you were missing out. Because beyond Ricky Gervais’ awkward one-liners and Natalie Portman’s awkward thank yous, there was a raging flood of original commentary and snarky play-by-play happening on Twitter.

But you don’t have to take our (celebrity-loving) word for it: According to Trendistic.com, 9 of the top 10 topics on show night were related to the Golden Globes, and 18 of the top 20 as well. (The non-Globes hot topic? The Jets. Seems rabid playoff fans still trump red carpet fashions.) Anyone who logged in to Twitter.com during the three-hour airtime was immediately greeted by a barrage of banter about what was happening on the TV, down to the most minute of details (poor Susanne Bier, the Danish director who won Best Foreign Film for her flick “In a Better World,” who will best be known — at least in the Twitterverse — as “the lady who flashed her Spanx onstage”).

But more than just the witty repartee, the Twitter element added new fun to a dying franchise (it’s no secret that award show ratings have generally been on the decline for years). Stars tweeted behind-the-scenes snippets — no need to wait for US weekly’s next issue. (”#Starving. No food unless you got here at 3p. I was getting my hair done at 3p and then I took eons to get in because of security #starving” posted Jane Fonda.) Fashion editors tweeted their insta-reviews of red carpet looks — no need to wait for Joan Rivers’ follow-up segment. (Big shoulders, long sleeves and sequins earned the thumbs-up, in case you were wondering.) Whether you followed mainstream outlets like E! Online or more renegade people like Michael K. from DListed, the dishy online discussion ran longer and faster than host Ricky Gervais’ own commentary, creating plenty of special moments courtesy of Twitter. So, who were the big social media winners and losers? Read below.

1. Chris Colfer. The adorable “Glee” star was the first winner to see a rousing Twitter response, which only grew after costar (and table mate) Dianna Agron tweeted a picture of Colfer at the table with his statue, and the star himself took to the site to issue a heartfelt thanks to fans, which was retweeted at least 1500 times, according to Tweetreach.com.

2. Jenny Packham, Calvin Klein and Marchesa. In the barrage of red carpet dresses, brands can have a hard time standing out from the pack. But a few key dresses — Sandy Bullock’s ethereal gown from small designer Jenny Packham; Claire Dane’s perfectly bright pink Calvin Klein sheath; Olivia Wilde’s ultra-full Marchesa confection — sent the Twitterverse atwitter, earning extra attention for those brands. (Of course, it had the opposite effect as well. The big losers? Jennifer Lopez’ showgirl sparkles, January Jones’ beyond- skimpy gown and Christina Aguilera’s Jersey Shore-esque look were dismissed before they even got to the dinner tables.)

3. Angelina Jolie’s lip gloss. It wasn’t long before there was a screen grab play-by-play of the candid moment. Before the actress had finished puckering her pout, beauty tweeters were buzzing over what the brand was — the consensus? little-know brand Chantecaille, who has yet to join the conversation — giving the moment more buzz than most Globe winners.

4. The Chateau Marmont. When Claire Danes whipped out her acceptance speech, an intrepid Tweeter noticed it was on Chateau Marmont stationery. More proof that even the smallest instance can earn a brand lots of attention with help from social media.

5. The audience at home. Because finally, us regular folks at home have a way to customize our viewing experience — and, for those of us who choose to, even participate in it ourselves. And also, because no longer are the awards totally predictable and contrived, even when they are (looking at you and your fake tears, Lea Michele). See you at the Oscars!

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Social Network Ad Spend Continues to Rise

Facebook may still have its issues (note the recent move to help developers get more data from Facebook users and their rather quick retraction of the effort) but it does generate cash. Of course, no one knows exactly how much because Facebook is supposedly a private company (and Goldman Sachs, those lovable, honest, upright guys of Wall Street intend to keep that way by playing fast and loose with securities laws) but there are people out there willing to guesstimate and then make predictions for the future (what would we do without these predictions?!).

The latest comes directly from eMarketer. US social network ad revenues were very good 2010 with 2011 promising to be a whole lot better.

Of course, Facebook accounts for roughly 65% of this spend according to the study so it’s safe to say that if there were no Facebook there would be a lot less hubbub about the industry (or would something else have fulfilled the pent up demand?

Here is eMarketer’s best guess at the year Facebook had and what the future might hold.

Remember how Facebook boldly predicted at one point in their past that they would double revenue projections? Remember how the predicted numbers for 2010 revenue for Facebook just kept rising through out the year? Did Facebook take a lesson from Apple and ‘promote’ ridiculously low targets so they could look like business a business super hero? Mark Zuckerberg and company twisting the truth? Really? That’s just not possible! Face it, with Facebook anything is possible. Oh and by the way, all of this is being done without needing to provide a shred of evidence (except to the chosen few who are made to look like 500 investors by Goldman). Being private has its benefits!

Well, it’s no surprise that Facebook sits on top of this growing heap of ad dollars. What will be most interesting in 2011 is not whether they generate serious ad dollars. They will do that. The bigger stories will be if they do anything in their other business dealings with the likes of Goldman Sachs and their continued privacy gaffes that put a whole in this rapidly rising balloon.

Netflix Built it, But They Didn’t Come

With all the hype about social media marketing, it often seems like Facebook is the key to instant success. This week, however, Netflix found out that just building it wasn’t enough to make the people come.

Two years ago, Netflix added a Facebook component to their system that allowed you to easily share your movie choices and reviews with your friends. Okay, that’s not exactly true. From the sound of it, the app wasn’t easy to use and “allowed” was more like “forced,” so Netflix shut it down last week.

Director of Product Management, Tim Willerer explained the reason for the shut down on the company blog. He said:

Very few of you have signed on for this so we’re pulling it back today to regroup, which includes testing new concepts, and ultimately finding a more appealing program for all of our members.

The explanation on the Facebook app tells a different story. As you can see from the block at the top of this page, the app lays blame on “unfixable issues” and “less than delightful experiences.” Three cheers to the person who wrote that. It’s honest and sarcastically fun at the same time.

If you look at the comments that follow on the blog post, most of them complain about the entire concept of linking Facebook and Netflix. Originally, Netflix had their own in-site friends community which was abandoned, presumably because they thought the Facebook app would take off. Users also didn’t like the fact that each of their updates hit their FB stream with no option to turn all or some of them off. There are complaints about the fact that the app was broken more than it wasn’t. Even bigger are the people who pointed out that the app wasn’t well publicized and so most Netflix users didn’t even know it existed.

Not surprisingly, if you go to the Facebook app itself, you see people bemoaning the loss. The best comment in the bunch:

With all the technology today why aren’t you able to make this work?

Good question. Why couldn’t a powerhouse brand like Netflix make Facebook work? A writer at Technologizer thinks the problem lies in the subject matter.

Cultivating a network of people with similar tastes in music or movies takes a lot of effort, and most people don’t have time; . . . and watching a movie or listening to music is often a personal thing, and only folks who are really confident in their tastes will care to share. To put it another way, social networks like Ping or Netflix “Friends” aren’t natural. They’re a forced conversation that very few people want to have.

As a person who spends a large amount of time talking about TV and movies with my social media friends, I can’t buy this argument. Recommendations are a huge part of social media, so recommending what I just borrowed from Netflix should be a huge draw on Facebook.

I believe this was strictly a case of expecting too much return on too little effort. To make Facebook work, there needs to be a clear connection between Netflix and Facebook that includes the ability to pick and choose which bits of information you want to share. Obviously, the app has to work properly and it must be continuously marketed to users.

To do it right, you have to put in the time, effort and often some money. Once it’s built, it has to be monitored and nurtured. I wonder how many people who work for Netflix actually used the app on a daily basis? Want to bet, not many?

The lesson here is that social marketing isn’t a quick fix. Facebook can be a valuable tool but it won’t do the work for you.

Why Don’t People Want Roger Ebert to Make Money?

Roger Ebert, the famed movie critic, has been sending out Tweets with Amazon affiliate links in them. Are you horrified? Apparently many people are and I don’t get it. Here’s the gist of the whole affair.

Two months ago, Ebert signed up for an Amazon affiliate account and began sending out two or three Twitter Tweets a day promoting various products. Generally he points out really good deals on great movies, but has been known to promote other items like coconut water (yuck).

A reporter for ClickZ noticed the Tweets and felt that they needed explaining. ClickZ, I love ya, but why? Even though, as they say in the article, celebrity Twitter endorsements are quite common, the reporter thought this particular event was unusual and wanted to know more. So he wrote an email to Ebert asking about the arrangement. The questions asked, which you can read here along with Ebert’s answers, seem to imply some kind of hidden business relationship between Ebert and Amazon. The reporter also asks about the “financial terms of the deal.”

Terms of the deal? He has an Amazon affiliate account, just like a million other mommy bloggers, DVD and music review sites, and pretty much anyone who runs a website.

And it’s not just ClickZ. A scan of Ebert’s Twitter feed and Twitter search will show that followers are complaining about his new attempt to make a dollar. Why? When you look at the volume of information he provides, these few Tweets can hardly be called spamming. The trouble seems to lie in the fact that he’s seen as a celebrity. If your Aunt Sally sent you a link to a cheap Alfred Hitchcock box set, you’d click it without complaint.

I came up through the affiliate marketing game and I know that people have this innate desire not to click affiliate links. They’ll go out of their way to avoid doing it, going straight to Amazon and typing in the name of the product to keep from giving anyone that fifty cent kickback, as if the money was coming out of their own pockets.

As for Roger Ebert, he says he hopes the affiliate money will help pay for his website expenses. I’m sure there are people who think that this is unnecessary, that a man of his status must be financially stable or rich even, so he doesn’t deserve those extra dollars.

I say, times are tough all over and with newspapers and magazines folding left and right, journalism doesn’t pay what it used to. But even if Ebert were the richest man on the planet, he should still be allowed to take advantage of Amazon’s affiliate program just like the rest of us.

Keep linking Mr. Ebert and I’ll happily click through and buy as a thank you for your many years of providing entertaining movie reviews.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Facebook Looks to Give Your Mobile Number and Address to Developers

Ahh, Facebook. You’ve just helped Sony Pictures win a bunch of Golden Globes for their sensational betrayal portrayal of the start of Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg. The lasting impression of the movie comes from a line by Zuck’s then girlfriend, Erica Albright (hat tip to TechCrunch)

You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you’re going to go through life thinking that girls don’t like you because you’re a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won’t be true. It’ll be because you’re an asshole.

Memories. Good times.

Well, fast forward many years later and the world is dealing with actions like the latest one from Facebook that might verify Ms. Albright’s assessment. All Facebook reports about the latest development for developers that can make your mobile number and address part of the data you hand over (and most will because they don’t pay attention!)

Facebook has put in a lot of effort to getting users to enter their mobile numbers. But now the social network is giving developers access to numbers in addition to home addresses with a single click. Is this just trouble waiting to happen?

The timing of the post couldn’t have been more questionable — just as most people were leaving work on the west coast and Facebook employees were beginning their weekly happy hour at Cafe 6. Granted, the company’s job is to make this post appear as though it’s just another day at the social network, in an effort to play down the significance of this new functionality. Over the weekend a number of publications began discussing the issue, the most sensational of which comes from Sophos, which writes “Rogue Facebook apps can now access your home address and mobile phone number.”

The Facebook Developer’s blog post occurred in that classic late Friday slot that everyone uses to bury the news they really don’t want anyone to know but can point to later and say “We told you that!”.

User Address and Mobile Phone Number
We are now making a user’s address and mobile phone number accessible as part of the User Graph object. Because this is sensitive information, we have created the new user_address anduser_mobile_phone permissions. These permissions must be explicitly granted to your application by the user via our standard permissions dialogs.

The box that users will see will look like this.

Of course, Facebook and developers alike are banking on the Pavlovian response of most of Facebook’s great unwashed (those who are clueless about how Facebook plays loose with their privacy) to push the blue button without really paying attention to what they are doing. That’s a nice touch. Deviant but nice.

So when does this kind of stuff become disturbing enough for people to turn away from Facebook? Are we so far down this path that there may not another competitor to come along and do something that is a compromise between what advertisers need and what is prudent for users?

Is it the scale that Facebook has achieved that forces them to do this kind of thing and make it look like some back alley deal? Are there such great pressures to live up the valuation that now we will see greater and greater moves toward totally disregarding online privacy and safety?

Will Groupon CEO Video Apology For Deal Gone Wrong Be A Regular Deal?

The “Can’t do anything wrong these days” company is Groupon. With the talk of a $15 billion IPO in the offing and the fact that they have been handed the crown of the “Next Big Thing” (or “Greatest Indicator of a new Bubble” depending on who you listen to) the video below from CEO and co-founder Andrew Mason can give some insight into what many feel is happening with Groupon deals more often than we know.

The background is that a ‘Groupon’ went pretty poorly in Japan and Groupon is trying to silence the storm in Japan and get everyone back to ‘Groupon normal’. Right now it’s not. Here’s Mason’s apology.

To his credit this is the right thing to do. The trouble is that most of the world will now be looking for similar apologies for “Groupons Gone Bad” (it’s like Girls Gone Wild but even lamer if you can believe that). The reports about Groupon’s success are all over the place while reports of bad Groupons (don’t you just want to roll up a newspaper and whack it on the nose and yell “Bad Groupon!”) get swept away as anomalies. Groupon knows that its fate rests in the hands of SMB’s and more delivering on promises that maybe they can’t keep.

To fight that TechCrunch reports

Groupon has started educating its customers on ‘capacity planning’ to avoid problems like these to occur in all new countries it operates in, he adds.

Missteps like this of course highlight the difficulties Groupon faces, and will face in the future, as it tries to manage its rapid global expansion.

So I don’t feel anything toward Groupon good or bad. I have taken advantage of some deals that fit me and it has worked out fine. Other deals though seem suspect because there seems few better ways for poor businesses to drive cash flow that they wouldn’t have otherwise (even though it is at great cost to them) than to gather up a gaggle of bargain hunters who wouldn’t have come by anyway. As a result, I stay away, especially on the restaurant side because I am not interested in helping a sinking food ship move their inventory into my belly.

So what is your take on this video as well as the real prospects for Groupon? Is this more hype than reality? Is this such a young vertical that Groupon’s IPO and valuation are a chance to simply ‘make hay while the sun is shining’?

Let’s hear it.

Top Internet Marketing Techniques

Anyone who works in business on the Internet knows the landscape is always shifting and changing so you need to keep on top of new developments to make sure you’re current. At least that’s the way it goes with a lot of the latest techniques that are coming along like social media, but there are some more traditional values in the Internet marketing world that hold true and can still be considered old standbys.

Like everything else you need to learn to walk before you can run on the Internet and that means you need to start by having a professional web design put together so you can put your best foot forward when you venture out into the global economy.

It’s still the case the best websites are the simplest and the old adage about content being king is still true because you need to have a good blend of the visual and the written to sell your customers on your goods and services. You want your landing page to be concise and easy to use as well because many studies have shown you only have up to nine seconds to hook your customer and if they need to go looking for the right tab or button to take them where they want to go for too long, the chances are they might just click away.

Of course there are things you need to look at outside your website to get it noticed and one of the great techniques that has been working for years and is showing no signs of abating is article marketing. You need to find a good content writer that understands the nuances behind the requirements most of these article syndication places have. Once you do, you can start positioning yourself as an expert in the field and pointing several links back to your website to get both reputation and traffic in a one-two punch.

E-mail marketing is another of those traditional techniques that still seems to be in widespread use today. It’s important to keep in mind here that you want to have a responsive opt in e-mail list of clients and prospects you can send a newsletter to.

Once again, it’s in your best interest to use a professional content writer so your newsletter has a professional edge that will draw prospects and clients to it.

You should also be aware research has shown that men and women use the Internet differently and this can affect your content choices once you narrow down your niche market. For example, men are more apt to stay updated on political news while women are more interested in health-related issues. Women are more spiritual in the type of content they search for on the Internet while men are more likely to buy travel reservations online.

While this information may have nothing specifically to do with the kind of newsletter or Internet marketing techniques you use, it’s still a good idea to understand the background of the people you will be targeting so you can adjust the kind of language you use accordingly.

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