Tag Archives: Social Marketing

Which Bucket Will Fund Your 2011 Social Media Program?

Posted on August 3, 2010 by Nancy Seraphin

It has been said that the dynamics of Social Media as a channel are very similar to the industry shift that occurred in the early 1990’s, when companies realized they needed a website. If you can remember back to those days, most companies had no strategic plan for how to integrate this channel into their overall marketing strategy, but because there was so much buzz about the Internet, companies jumped on the bandwagon, not knowing or comprehending that eCommerce was the wave of the future.  As you might recall, companies scrounged up the financial resources needed to fund this unproven channel. Social Media has many similar attributes.

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Freedom to Socialize

Posted on July 15, 2010 by Nancy Seraphin

When it comes to social media, overselling can be a drag to your fans and followers.

July is a month that pays homage to independence and breakaways from uninvited rule by others.  In the U.S., July 4 gave us our freedom.  France’s long sought independence from the same type of control was celebrated yesterday, July 14, Bastille Day.

It’s fittingly appropriate to discuss social media in light of France’s Independence Day. For most people, their visual interpretation of French culture is one that has an emphasis on social gatherings revolving around respect for cuisine and fine dining at a leisurely pace. Our imagery tends to be dominated by visions of people in a café, sipping espresso or wine and nibbling on something delicious while engaged in a very deep and usually passionate conversation.  In essence, social media evokes this kind of mood. It’s a more languorous way to communicate with your customers, and it is quite personal.

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Facebook Is Killing the Internet – And I Love It

Posted on June 2, 2010 by Tim Kilroy

OK, so right off the bat, let’s get over the whole Facebook privacy thing. While it has spurred some really interesting discussion, Facebook is not out to steal your credit card, your social security number or anything that is really, really private. We can talk about that later. Today, I want to take a look at how Facebook is just killing the internet…and, I love it.

Facebook is a giant monster. 4 bazillion people use it every day. And according to a statistic I just made up, every man woman and child in the United States wastes 119.7 hours each week playing Farmville and Mafia Wars.

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Facebook’s Open Graph: Pros, Cons and the Future

Posted on May 10, 2010 by PM Digital

PM Digital bloggers weigh-in on Facebook’s Open Graph.

Marketing Opportunities vs. Privacy

Suzy Sandberg:  When I first heard the details of Open Graph, I immediately went into Facebook to turn the feature off.  Facebook went with a pre-checked box to enable the Open Graph feature which requires unchecking to opt out.   We’ve seen this before — a Facebook platform change with privacy implications where the user must seek out and select new privacy settings in the application to undo a new feature.

Open Graph is getting buzz for two reasons:  one is its ability to socialize the internet in a new, unique way.  The other is the emergence of new privacy concerns, of which Facebook has already had its share of in the past.  Are the benefits of Open Graph really worth the positive buzz?  And/or how much of the privacy concerns are just noise?

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Online Marketing Meets the Presentation Layer

Posted on April 8, 2010 by Tim Kilroy

Forget about controlling your customers and dive deep into the essentials of messaging and brand.

Marketers love control. We crave it. We want to own the discussion. Setting the parameters of the interactions that our brands have with our consumers is our professional mission.

Many marketers have “grown up” in one-way media, be it television or print or catalog. In these experiences, the terms of the discussion were at the control of the marketer. By and large, we decided what our customers saw and heard.

But with the advent of the internet, our control has started to slip away. We control the presentation on our own websites (mostly), and in the early days of the internet, that was sufficient. As the dynamic nature of the internet and social media and search has evolved, it has become harder and harder to get the consumer to our little corner of the world, where their experience is shaped by our vision. Now we must attract them to that experience through multiple presentation layers that are the discovery mechanisms from which consumers self-select their interaction with us.

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Facebook CPC Ads: How Big Can They Be in the Media Mix?

Posted on March 11, 2010 by Suzy Sandberg

Facebook CPC advertising, which started to gain traction with advertisers last year, resembles the early days of paid search marketing.  Launching a campaign is done in a do-it-yourself interface, and that interface is where bidding is established, payment is done by credit card, ads are created and messages targeted.  Also akin to paid search circa 2001 is that the execution of a campaign is mostly a manual process (as of yet there is no API).

As we saw with search, there is no doubt that Facebook’s features and tools will become more sophisticated and radically improve over time.  Facebook would surely like to monetize its 450 million users, and we know there are enhancements to the program already in the works.  With the attractive CPC pricing model, Facebook and would-be Facebook advertisers are lined up and waiting to sync up with APIs or at minimum, get easy access to reporting and some kind of bid management tool.

Looking into the future, could Facebook CPC ads ever become a force to be reckoned with in the media mix, matching or even exceeding paid search as a proportion of total online spend?

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Game Changers: Everything Old Is New Again

Posted on January 25, 2010 by Suzy Sandberg

“Old media” like newspapers, broadcast television advertising and nonprofit appeals are moving in the right direction by forming alliances with social media, mobile and other emerging platforms.

Our latest “Game Changers” review of important news developments looks at recent changes that are impacting both old and new media in a positive way.  Here are four transformations worth keeping an eye on.    

The New York Times and Paid Content

The New York Times announced last week that it will begin charging for online content starting in January 2011.  The Wall Street Journal, Consumer Reports and a handful of other publications already charge for some or all of their content.  PM Digital’s Chris Paradysz predicted in a prior blog post that this would become a trend in 2010 – the NY Times move announced this week supports that.  As a long-time reader of the NY Times, I have watched the steady shrinkage of the paper.  Some of this has been due to cost-cutting and, more recently, fewer advertisements.  Circulation is down, too.  Surely the NY Times needs a new business model to withstand these circumstances. Should the paper ever wither away and shut down, it would be a real loss of quality content.  I support the Times’ new fee structure and definitely plan on paying for it.

Text Donations and the Evolution of Payment

Texted donations brought millions of dollars in aid for Haiti.  American Red Cross’ 90999 and UNICEF’s 20222 raised considerable sums though this method.   Based on the amount of individual donations received through texting, it appears that the simplicity and speed millions experienced in making their donations this way is appealing.  Another success driver is ease of advertising, which was done widely on TV.  Also notable is that the 90%+ abandon rates typically seen with website  donations were not a factor with the texting method. 

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10 for 2010: What Matters Most for Natural Search Success in the New Year

Posted on January 5, 2010 by Tim Kilroy

As the New Year turns, it’s normal to look ahead. So here is my list of what’s coming up in the world of natural search for 2010.  In lieu of predictions, however, I’d like to offer up something a bit more actionable: a rundown of key areas that will require online marketers’ focus and attention to maximize natural search success in the coming year.

1.  Mobile Matters – I have actually been beating the mobile drum since I worked on mobile search in 1997, but this year, mobile really matters. (Google and Apple have spent almost $1 billion in the last quarter to buy mobile ad networks…that should tell you something!) The growth of mobile is torrid and with the rise of the smartphone and ubiquitous 3G, mobile search is working. In 2010, you will see an appreciable amount of traffic from mobile browsers. Are you thinking of how you can present yourself to the mobile user? If you aren’t now, you should be.

2. Images Matter – Visual search is hot. There have been dozens and dozens of early stage visual search engines that have been no better than demo-ware. But Google Image search has exploded, and we see that our clients are driving traffic through images searches. (If you are looking for a red dress, doesn’t it make sense to look for the red dress in pictures?) And with the advent of Google Goggles, image search will continue to explode. Are you optimizing your images to be relevant and available for image search?

3. Not Being a Dog Matters – Do you remember this incredible cartoon which touted the invisibility of who you are online? Well, the world has changed dramatically since then, and your reputation as a marketer is now well known on the internet. In 2009, I suggested that reputation was about to become an important part of the online world, and 2010 that will become even more valuable. How you behave as a marketer, how you share information with customers, and how you engage with customers will have an impact on your search visibility in 2010.

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DMNews Interviews Chris Paradysz on Marketing Trends for 2010

Posted on December 29, 2009 by PM Digital

DMNews recently interviewed Chris Paradysz, CEO, PM Digital, and asked him to elaborate on the some of the key trends he saw for direct marketers in 2010.  The original DMNews interview can be found here.

DMNews: Search marketing continues to command the lion’s share of online budgets. How will we see that channel evolve this year?

Chris Paradysz: Consumers have radically improved their search and online sophistication as a result of having less cash but still buying what they need to live, feed and clothe their families, pay their bills, enjoy their passions and manage their health.  Search phrases are more targeted because they know more about how to get what they’re looking for.

DMNews: Does that make it more competitive for marketers?

Chris Paradysz: Definitely. Consumers are only willing to pay for the value they perceive and no more.  If they don’t like what they’re offered, they click away to a place where they can get it at the price they want.  From better targeting at the shopping engines to features like private sale sites, the top retailers are adapting. At the same time the squeeze is on consumers, the search engines have brought enormous changes to their technologies.  With the newly released Google Caffeine, for instance, posts from YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other social media are getting instant, top billing bringing an even more urgent real-time experience to searchers.

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The Outlook for 2010

Posted on December 28, 2009 by Chris Paradysz

The facts, the stats, and the true in-the-trenches business experiences from 2009 now tell us a lot about what to expect for 2010.  Below is a quick review of some of the key things online marketers should look for in the coming year.

A Slow Recovery

There will be continued slow recovery in US consumer spending, especially for large purchases due to a lack of discretionary cash (not income, per se), increased savings rates and a general adjustment to this new “now”.  2008 changed buying behavior to a “no”-first shopping mindset and 2009 cemented a value-only, thrifty approach.  2010 won’t change this.  Unemployment, under-employment and slow-growth for the private sector are the engines that are choking back substantive improvements in consumer confidence.  While there are certain job sectors re-igniting hiring, most industries will only begin to replace the attrition they forced during the lean 2008 and 2009.

Pent-Up Demand from the Jet-Set

For the super-wealthy demographic, expect that luxury items will be back in vogue as pent-up demand for jewelry, cars, homes, boats, fashion, at today’s reduced costs, increases.  Unfortunately, this is unlikely to offset the dramatic fall-off seen from the much larger affluent group that accounted for much of the demand growth during the run-up to the recession.

Personal Fulfillment for the Rest of Us

The definition of discretionary has changed relative to consumer purchases and buying behavior.  Where, pre-recession, this meant items people didn’t need but wanted, the recession and its epic duration have people focused on their hobbies and passions to relieve stress and to add back pleasure in their lives.  No longer considered discretionary, these hobbies and their related items and services have become part of the indispensable.  I anticipate revenues from home improvement, home-based interests like gardening and exercise, and passion hobbies like crafts, music, fishing, etc. stay in vogue and continue to capture wallet share.

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