Google and Bing now have relationships with Twitter!

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Indexing Twitter with Google

Search Reflects Online Demand: Where Are Your Peaks, Valleys and Holidays?

Which consumer market will show up on Black Friday in a down economy?  That is the reeling question every retail analyst wants to know before nervously waiting in the wings as an anxious observer.

Brick and Mortars Slow, but the Internet is Up to Speed

Shoppers in Millions: 195 (‘09) compared to 172 (‘08) – 13.4% increase
Avg. Spend per Shopper: $343.31 (‘09) compared to $372.57 (‘08) – 7.9% decrease
Avg. Online Order:  $170.19 (’09) compared to $126.04 (’08) – 35% increase

Preparation Is the Key

“Google reports that as consumers prepared to shop on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, they were doing their homework online first. Searches for ‘printable coupons’ were up 50%, for example.”

While analysts will always struggle to quantify the incoming waves of purchase intent, one canonical truth of marketing is yet more true year over year:  harnessing demand online is no longer the risk, failing to do so is.  Trends online represent the “immediate now.” Opportunities identified today can be dead tomorrow.  This is why consumers crave an “always on” approach  to search, display and social media from their favorite brands, as well as how brands leverage their market presence.

As with the Holidays, they are here for a minute – like the reported $5.6 million minute at 12:59 p.m. EST – and irretrievable thereafter.  The digital mobility required to capitalize on moments like these is earned day-by-day as search and other interactive marketing channels prepare their audience with broadening digital footprints.

It is the day-to-day transference and interaction with your audience in the places familiar to them, if just in the background, that train audiences, whether they are looking to find or be found by you.

Mountain biking is a hot summer activity and bike shops tend to be busy beginning late spring and into summer, but the digital season for buying and upgrading online is during the winter months while everyone is locked up inside. Often it is a counterintuitive observation that sparks a gain in market share while your competitors are slumbering through their self-imposed “off season.”

When are, and what are you doing with, your peaks and valleys of intent?
We can help you get ahead and stay ahead.

Would you be more likely to become a fan of something that your friends and family are fans of? Of course! Facebook knows this and they’re leveraging it. Today, a new feature is available to marketers that will allow targeted ads to display who in your network is a fan of the brand.

If you have a fan page and have struggled with growing your fan numbers, this might be the fix you’ve been waiting for. You already know that you could only target those who opted to become a fan of your brand, but now you can connect to others outside of your fan base through your fan networks. Let’s say that I am fan of Pepsi. If Pepsi wants to run an ad that connects with the Pepsi Fan Page, they could easily target me as an existing fan, but now, they’ll be able to reach out to my entire network of friends who will also see that I am a fan of Pepsi. The idea is the expand marketers reach, but also to allow brands to associate with individuals in hopes of bringing in new fans. Facebook has always been careful to keep networking at the center of its operation, and this type of approach will ensure that brands aren’t able to maliciously infiltrate the network. It’s believed that this new tool will allow fan pages to not only create larger numbers, but will allow them to create more meaningful conversations and connections with users are most likely to become valued customers.

For the official information published by Facebook, Click Here

What’s for dinner this Thanksgiving? A big pile of social media, that’s what!

This week NextBee Media released the findings from its annual holiday media survey and should we be surprised that social media spending is increasing? No, probably not, but what may surprise you is that 70% of the businesses surveyed said they are increasing their social media budgets by 18% while at the same time pulling back 8% from their traditional efforts. This is big for more than one reason.

First, social media spending is positioned to see its largest media buy ever. Call it the recession, call it going green, call it saving on postage, call it better targeting, call it whatever you’d like, the reality is that social media going to take on an incredibly important role this season for retailers. It’s believed that most consumers think they will find better deals or amazing coupons online, to respond to this companies are shifting their media strategies over to the more contextualized and highly indexed areas of social networks the single place where internet users are spending nearly 20% of their online time. Retailers hope to target these frugal shoppers with discounts, last minute promotions, and gift ideas.

Second, the fact that retailers are pulling back 8% of their traditional budgets is even more staggering. We are not talking about half a percent or even one percent, we’re talking nearly 1/10 of traditional budgets getting pulled during one of the most important advertising seasons of the year. It’s also believed that the majority of shoppers will have all their gifts purchased by December 7th this year which means shoppers are looking for discounts now.

This might be the big push social media marketing has been waiting for. The landscape of social media will change dramatically after this holiday season if retailers get the ROI they are looking for, but there is also fear among social networks that this new push will make social communities feel crowded by advertisments. We saw this happen with Myspace a few years ago when it was overrun by advertisers. Users jumped ship to Facebook and Twitter to escape the unchecked and unregulated spam that Myspace openly allowed at that time.

I’ll retouch on this topic once the dust settles in mid-January, but for now, all we can do is get our appetites, email accounts, and status updates ready for the sea of advertisments coming by way of our favorite social networks this Thanksgiving.

When is this market going to turn? Has it already? What indicators should we look to? Everyone has their own set of answers to these questions. Here’s another.

In the past, we would have notice an up swing in traditional media spends as a sign of a positive change, but we haven’t been through this serious of a recession since the world of online was considered a legitimate medium. The truth is, online still only accounts for a very small portion of media spends, but it’s obvious that more and more budgets will be given to online as consumers turn off their TV sets and close the magazines to view content online.

According to eMarketer, online ad spending is up 11% from the first quarter, and ROI on that spend is up approximately 6%. While the actual dollar amounts are still low, a 11% increase is a great thing to see considering how the last 18 months have been going. More encouraging is that ROI is up 6%, which will hopefully cause marketers to look to online as another tactic to add to their arsenal.

Another interesting fact - 22% of all online ads appear on social networks according to Neilsen, with Myspace having a slight edge over Facebook as of September 29, 2009. The more surprising number is 3.5%. That’s the percentage of online spending used on social ads. This is huge. 22% of the ads on the web are being purchased using 3.5% of internet ad dollars! The jury is still out on the true effectiveness of that investment, but being able to speak to very specific targets on the place where Neilsen also reports that American consumers are spending 17% of their internet time is something to take into consideration. Imagine if you could get that type of exposure on television!

Business Week is also reporting an increase in search spending over the past two consecutive quarters by 7.7% This is reflected in Google and Bing as well who both showed at least a 9% increase in search revenue.

Back to the question of indicators. Is this is a sign of recovery? Yes and no. The problem is we aren’t necessarily seeing an increase in actual dollar spending in overall budgets yet. This could simply be a shift in spending. It’s clear that online is beginning to recover nicely, whether this will spider out to other mediums, we’ll have to wait and see.

Building a efficient and productive social campaign takes a lot of work, but sometimes we get carried away and lose focus, so today we are bringing it back down to scale.

Why are you putting so much effort into social in the first place? Social is a great place to connect with people, and we all have big dreams of our brands going viral and having the whole world know about us in a very short amount of time without doing much heavy lifting. This is possible, but the reason you got on the social train in the first place was to talk to people in a more personal and casual way than you do in your traditional efforts. Keep this in mind.

I’ve said before that your social efforts are like a dinner party - full of different conversations that are relatively short, consist of many different topics, and have an ever-changing dynamic. It’s important to go to the party well dressed and smelling nice, but don’t wear a tuxedo and don’t be so formal. This is an environment where you can really get to know people and talk about something other than work.

Social efforts need to be interesting. It doesn’t matter if it’s a blog, a Facebook profile, or a YouTube channel, your content needs to be interesting. These sites aren’t the place for you to put on the game face and make a million sales. This is a place where you make people smile laugh for a moment, or make them think for a minute or two, not a place where you try to tell them everything you can on their first visit.

It’s a two-way street, don’t forget. It’s hard to not do all the talking, but people want to talk also, so listen. Here, you can learn about what’s really important to your target, so let them speak, let them engage, and let them know that those are important things to you. If people feel valuable, they’ll want to keep in touch and they’ll defend you when you make a mistake.

Don’t try to be all things to all people. Social efforts can defiantly have a more broad impact than other mediums, but that doesn’t mean you should be trying to get everyone to fall in love with you. Get connected to the groups, discussions, blogs, and profiles where your targets are congregating. Don’t try to take control either, just be a contributor to the community and join in on the ongoing conversations. With a little time and a good strategy, you’ll become a trusted expert in those spaces and users will start to look to you more often for solutions.

Keeping your efforts simple and focused is the lesson for the day. Be friendly, be discreet, and have fun!

We’ve been touting social marketing via bloggers here for a while, not just because they are an inexpensive medium, but because they have a way of personalizing a product or service in a way that most of us have a hard time achieving, not to mention they have a loyal and trusting audience.

The web has been buzzing this week about bloggers who endorse a product or service and the consequences that may ensue if they fail to disclose they have received compensation or something for free from the company they are promoting.

We believe in doing the right thing - it’s easier to do the right thing then correct a mistake. So keep going after blogger endorsements, but make sure you notify them that they must disclose any free products you send their way. Taking that little extra step on something that is not legally your responsibility will reflect well on you and will show the blogging world that you want to keep their services around for future use!

Everyone, businesses and consumers alike, are looking to save money. Here are some free (that means no cost) tactics to add to your arsenal of marketing solutions. You can roll these ideas out on the web to help build your brand today!

#1 Be the expert. The truth is, you’ve spent some serious time researching your industry, developing strategies, and building a quality product, but if you aren’t trying to establish yourself as the expert in your field, consumers aren’t going to listen. Show people you know what you’re doing and that you are ready to meet their need better than anyone else.

#2 Give your target something to laugh about. Arguably some of the most memorable advertisements have an element of humor. People love to laugh and they’ll be more likely to talk about something that is funny around the water-cooler than something that just says “buy my product”. Put together some short videos for YouTube or work on some witty pieces for your website - this is how viral begins!

#3 Personalize your email efforts. When was the last time you opened an email from sales@mycompany.com? Never. Anything that’s this generic or has something about getting us to spend money in the address doesn’t take long to make its way to the trash. Don’t stop your email campaign, but try to be smart about it. Send a message from a personal address that includes a full name. Don’t send these emails out everyday either. Would you open an email everyday from one of your favorite companies? Limit these emails to no more than one a week. Keep them casual, simple, and to the point.

#4 Network with the people that matter. Using one of the many social networks to get your brand out there can be one of the most cost effective tactics - but only if you’re reaching out to the people who matter (industry experts, industry journalist, associations, and core targets). If you are in the paint business, you probably shouldn’t spend too much time reaching out to high school cheerleaders and their thousands of friends. The world of social networks is vast, so focus your efforts. This will also show your customers that you’re not interested in trying to be all things to all people and that your goal is to meet their needs and desires.

These are four simple steps that aren’t going to cost you any money and you can start them today. Do these and you’ll be laying the ground work to do something bigger and more extensive in getting your brand noticed.

Social networking won’t save you, but that doesn’t mean it should be ignored or go unused. The truth is, going to social networks to revitalize your brand probably won’t work on its own. Just because you can make small talk with your consumers, share some fun photos, and tweet until you’re blue in the face doesn’t mean your brand will become as good as gold. Yes, connecting via social marketing efforts is good, and you should do it, but don’t put all your hopes in this vast new and ever changing world. Obviously there have been brands who have had great success on the social fronts and have made some notable waves (Virgin America, Dunkin’ Donuts) but the majority of brands today have to use multiple channel and many layers to truly create a buzz.

Here’s what you should know about social marketing - it’s changing the way consumers think about brands and how they relate to them. It seems that each of our lives so are wrapped up in this world of social networks that whatever we do, whatever we say, whatever we buy, those become part of who we are, part of our web identity. If you only drink a certain brand of liquor, or only fly on a certain airline, or wear a particular clothing line, those things come through on social networks and the brand becomes part of your image.

From a marketing perspective, it is important to approach social marketing with the goal of connecting to the consumers lifestyle, not just trying to make as many friends as possible or create a viral buzz. Those are great for the short-term, but if you want to be ahead of the curve and remembered in the long-term, it’s time to start thinking about connecting on a personal level with consumers, they’ll return by promoting your brand through their own web identities. Networks will change, but the ground work has been laid that is changing the way consumers look at brands, advertising, and in which brands they will give loyalty to.