Think of it this way: one media buy with a handful of different marketing spots. Each spot can have its own creative message, and each can target a specific household type based on factors such as age, income and a host of other criteria. Never before has this level of segmentation been possible in the television advertising ecosystem.
You've starred a few. You've bookmarked a couple. You may even have read one or two. It's the time of year when a deluge of predictions come out, and we in the marketing world take no shortage of time and energy trimming the wish list tree. Flipping through some of the “bold” predictions, I scratch my head, chuckle and wonder if I’ve woken up from an elaborate dream in late 2009. So rather than waste time and tell you that 2013 will be the year of mobile or predict the next big adaptation of Facebook, Twitter or Google, I’ll take a new approach: seven things that really need to happen in marketing. These things keep getting punted into the future as we get buried in shiny new objects and attempt to shoehorn emerging channels into campaigns before we have strategies to act on.
For well over a year, people shared their beer of the moment, expressed approval or disapproval in short reviews, and amassed badges to celebrate their personal journeys through the beer world. That's great! But what does this have to do with marketing and media you say? Well, all that sharing, commenting and discovering was creating a rich community ... and lots and lots of data. Generally, the problem with data is how does it become relevant and useful on more than one level. It is helpful for me to get suggestions and recommendations on beer from friends near and far, but that is only one piece of the puzzle. What if the actual businesses behind that beer could see that data flow and understand what is really moving among their products and what is not? What if they could react in real time or address issues they find a consumer is experiencing? What if they could do this without the intermediary of Facebook, Twitter or websites? That is the essence of Untappd for Business.
This week Social Media Today picked up an earlier article from Harvard Business Review. Titled “Social Media’s Impending Flood of Customer Unlikes and Unfollows” it’s a call-to-action for brands to change their social media mindsets. Think it’s too early in the world of social marketing for brands to be set in their ways? Think again. Many brands are following an already tired formula. As quoted in the article, straight from a Facebook sales rep: “Don’t over-think any of this. …Do four things every week…ask a question, run a poll, share links, and engage with your fans. Oh, and have fun!” When he heard this, Brian Solis, thought leader on new media and the article’s author, was skeptical. So are we.
Looking to develop new leads for your business?
Wondering why new visits to your website are declining even though you use Twitter and have a Facebook profile or fanpage?
Are you blogging?
According to the State of Small Business Report from Network Solutions in conjunction with the University of Maryland School of Business (with a tip-of-the-hat to HubSpot for featuring data from the report on their blog), fewer than 40% of U.S. small businesses blog about their area of expertise. Let’s rephrase that: nearly 60% of small businesses are leaving their content on the table. And by “on the table,” I mean nowhere to be found.
So why should you care?
In our increasingly smartphone-entrenched world, the mobile application extensions of our social networking-entangled lives can make or break a user experience. Twitter as a network depends on the user development of mobile and desktop applications to keep participation thriving. In some cases, app developers attempt to provide a seamless brand experience between the desktop and mobile world, while often the very best apps focus primarily on the screen for which they are developed. For mobile Twitter users, custom design for ease of use is paramount. Beyond the individual, an organization’s conversation managers need to be properly equipped, connected and ready to go.
No matter the platform, there are literally dozens of apps to choose from, making it a painful finger stroll through any given app store. To make things a bit easier for you, we’ve compiled some of our thoughts on a few of the Twitter apps currently available.
In early January, Jason Falls wrote a really interesting piece on his blog about the value of social media and its impact on search results. It was intriguing to me as I have the task of managing the paid search efforts on behalf of Media Logic for lead generation purposes. With Google and Microsoft making real-time search (social search) a part of their fruit salad, the effort to be found and its associated value is an ever elusive target. Creating inbound marketing leads via social media content strategies is high on the 2010 agenda. In order to open the doors more swiftly agencies, consultants and internal marketing departments need to assign real value for these efforts. Why was I so intrigued by Jason’s post?
Do not wait for your customers to stumble to you based on the results of an algorithm. Tap directly into the power of the conversations that technology is emboldening your customers to have with, or about, your product or service.
Normally, when a company has its legal office fire off a “cease and desist” letter, it expects compliance – especially if it is a billion-dollar corporation. However, the days of a quick hit of the “easy button” to keep your brand’s death grip on perceived intellectual property might be over, especially if you tweak the wrong tribe.