While sitting at the Gramercy Hotel Bar with LA's entertainment lawyer/personal manager/agent extraordinaire Michael Wallach and author of best-selling "How To Get Arrested",
thanks to Verizon, we found ourselves drinking less and fondling our mobile devices more.
Needless to say, the barkeep was non-too-happy. Instead of our socializing with the gaggle of young, aspiring actresses who dropped by to rub shoulders (if not more) with "this generation's Jerry Weintraub" after they heard about his NYC visit via FB, Twitter, LinkedIn and/or 4Square, we found ourselves busy sucking down bandwidth and re-charging the batteries of our swanky new cell phones to better carouse the web. What were we thinking??
Since I wasn't imbibing and taking in the scenery, here's what I was thinking: Social networks, in and of themselves, have value, but there is more value by linking them to each other. Miraculously, this exact observation was made in today's NYT by Dell Computer's Chief Marketing Officer Andy Lack. I don't know Andy, and I don't know if he knows of me, but given his creds and his title, all I can say is that great minds think alike.
To my clients (and others) that I've counseled on the topic of best practices for social media, the simple streamlined steps of simultaneously updating/posting to your various social networks is easy to do, and based on the turn out to the Gramercy Hotel Bar, it works!
Lest I forget to remind all of you corporate marcom "gurus" that are still talking, but not yet doing the social media "salsa", even staid Tupperware is joining the dance party. See the profile in today's advertising section of the NYT.
Great ideas are worth nothing unless you execute on them.
Thursday, May 05, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Ad Font: Its Not the Size, its the Motion
Your ad agency was wrong when they told you that taller font size makes for higher recall of your message.
According to to a new study to be published by Psychological Science, font size is irrelevant; its the shape of the font, specifically using fonts that are difficult to read, that leads to higher recall.
The reasoning makes for interesting reading... view the full story courtesy of the New York Times.
According to to a new study to be published by Psychological Science, font size is irrelevant; its the shape of the font, specifically using fonts that are difficult to read, that leads to higher recall.
The reasoning makes for interesting reading... view the full story courtesy of the New York Times.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
FlashGordon Marcomm Strategy-Minority Report App Now Real
Let's face it: marcomm is always about selling, and we're always enamored by high-tech apps that stand out..this one inspired us when we first saw Minority Report..now its not just a film fantasy..
Digital billboards that display different ads depending on who is looking at them were once only found in Minority Report. But a recently launched startup aims to make targeted billboard advertising as ubiquitous as targeted online advertising.
Immersive Labs introduced its smart billboard technology atTechStars‘ Demo Day in New York on Thursday. The software combines video analytics with environmental factors and Twitter and Foursquare information to decide what the best ad to display at that moment is.
Click on title link to read the full story.
Digital billboards that display different ads depending on who is looking at them were once only found in Minority Report. But a recently launched startup aims to make targeted billboard advertising as ubiquitous as targeted online advertising.
Immersive Labs introduced its smart billboard technology atTechStars‘ Demo Day in New York on Thursday. The software combines video analytics with environmental factors and Twitter and Foursquare information to decide what the best ad to display at that moment is.
Click on title link to read the full story.
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Games People Play Can Burnish Brands Better Than Ads
Games people play can burnish brands better than advertising..according to Appsavvy..Social Media 201..
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Are you a #twit when you #tweet? Measuring #Influence
Good article courtesy of NY Times David Leonhardt...follow the path to Twitalyzer.com to determine how much time you're actually wasting vs. actually influencing by tweeting.
Whether you’re a Twitter user like Lady Gaga (millions and millions of followers) or, say, me (2,600 and growing!), you’re always aware of roughly how many people follow you. It’s just how people keep score on the site and compare themselves with friends and colleagues.
But it turns out that counting followers is a seriously flawed way to measure a person’s impact on Twitter. Even one of Twitter’s founders, Evan Williams, made the point to me recently: someone with millions of followers may no longer post messages frequently, while someone followed by mere tens of thousands may be a prolific poster whose messages are amplified by others.
So who are the most influential people on Twitter? We asked the people at Twitalyzer, an independent research firm, to study the question, and they came back with something called the Influence Index. It counts the number of times somebody’s Twitter name is mentioned by other users (including retweets, which occur when one user rebroadcasts another’s message). The Influence Index doesn’t merely measure who’s talking on Twitter, but it also measures how much someone is affecting the conversation. Look below at how low Lady Gaga’s influence score is, for example.
Among the discoveries: It helps to come from one of the four countries where Twitter is most popular — the United States, Brazil, England and Canada. That may explain why there are three unfamiliar names, at least to most Americans, in the Top 10: Stephen Fry (a British actor), Luciano Huck (a Brazilian television star) and Rafinha Bastos (a Brazilian comedian).
Eric T. Peterson, the chief executive of Twitalyzer, points out that some of the most influential users also make a big effort to respond to much less famous people with personal messages. Kim Kardashian falls into this category. President Obama, as you may have guessed, does not.
One last thing: Twitalyzer’s public Web site doesn’t let people calculate their own influence scores. But you can get your impact score, which is a 0-to-100 index that combines influence, number of followers and frequency of message writing. To calculate that, type your Twitter name into the box here.
A Better Way to Measure Twitter Influence
By DAVID LEONHARDTIllustrations by La Tigre
Whether you’re a Twitter user like Lady Gaga (millions and millions of followers) or, say, me (2,600 and growing!), you’re always aware of roughly how many people follow you. It’s just how people keep score on the site and compare themselves with friends and colleagues.
But it turns out that counting followers is a seriously flawed way to measure a person’s impact on Twitter. Even one of Twitter’s founders, Evan Williams, made the point to me recently: someone with millions of followers may no longer post messages frequently, while someone followed by mere tens of thousands may be a prolific poster whose messages are amplified by others.
So who are the most influential people on Twitter? We asked the people at Twitalyzer, an independent research firm, to study the question, and they came back with something called the Influence Index. It counts the number of times somebody’s Twitter name is mentioned by other users (including retweets, which occur when one user rebroadcasts another’s message). The Influence Index doesn’t merely measure who’s talking on Twitter, but it also measures how much someone is affecting the conversation. Look below at how low Lady Gaga’s influence score is, for example.
Among the discoveries: It helps to come from one of the four countries where Twitter is most popular — the United States, Brazil, England and Canada. That may explain why there are three unfamiliar names, at least to most Americans, in the Top 10: Stephen Fry (a British actor), Luciano Huck (a Brazilian television star) and Rafinha Bastos (a Brazilian comedian).
Eric T. Peterson, the chief executive of Twitalyzer, points out that some of the most influential users also make a big effort to respond to much less famous people with personal messages. Kim Kardashian falls into this category. President Obama, as you may have guessed, does not.
One last thing: Twitalyzer’s public Web site doesn’t let people calculate their own influence scores. But you can get your impact score, which is a 0-to-100 index that combines influence, number of followers and frequency of message writing. To calculate that, type your Twitter name into the box here.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
A Brands Best Spokesperson Is...
As noted by marcom advisory JLC Group , happy employees (and not necessarily your sales execs), followed by satisfied customers, are a brand's two most powerful torch carriers when it comes to promoting your brand.
Consistent with that erudite observation, WSJ's Sarah Nassauer's headline story in today's paper "A New Sales Model:Employees" might not be a new revelation per se, but her story profiles several companies (Zappos & J.Crew) leveraging that theory, with one of today's most powerful branding applications; both of these companies are producing [hopefully viral] online videos that profile employees either modeling or demonstrating their companies' products/services. This strategy completely conforms to ad industry's scientific theory that "real people", as opposed to actors or celebrity spokesmodels prove to be a brand's best influencers.
Coincident to WSJ article's reference to brand-based online video schemes, the NYT Business section today dedicates a half page "viral video strategies of the week" to Thinkmodo and the strategy they devised and implemented on behalf of upcoming film "Limitless"... The Youtube driven shorts have apparently attracted 500,000 viewers in the last four days alone. Let's hope that the film comes out real soon, otherwise the recall rate is at risk of melting down faster than a nuclear power plant.
Speaking of online--for you marketing/sales execs overseeing online and e-commerce initiatives--keep your fingers on the pulse of increased brick and mortar retail lobbying efforts to turn up the volume on imposing sales tax on products sold over the Internet.
Consistent with that erudite observation, WSJ's Sarah Nassauer's headline story in today's paper "A New Sales Model:Employees" might not be a new revelation per se, but her story profiles several companies (Zappos & J.Crew) leveraging that theory, with one of today's most powerful branding applications; both of these companies are producing [hopefully viral] online videos that profile employees either modeling or demonstrating their companies' products/services. This strategy completely conforms to ad industry's scientific theory that "real people", as opposed to actors or celebrity spokesmodels prove to be a brand's best influencers.
Coincident to WSJ article's reference to brand-based online video schemes, the NYT Business section today dedicates a half page "viral video strategies of the week" to Thinkmodo and the strategy they devised and implemented on behalf of upcoming film "Limitless"... The Youtube driven shorts have apparently attracted 500,000 viewers in the last four days alone. Let's hope that the film comes out real soon, otherwise the recall rate is at risk of melting down faster than a nuclear power plant.
Speaking of online--for you marketing/sales execs overseeing online and e-commerce initiatives--keep your fingers on the pulse of increased brick and mortar retail lobbying efforts to turn up the volume on imposing sales tax on products sold over the Internet.
Friday, March 11, 2011
#SocialMedia & #Financial Services: Buy-Sell-Hold?
For brokers, savvy traders and fund managers: the trend is your friend; don't fight the tape.
That said, when it comes to regulated industries, this compliant author reminds you: bears and bulls profit; pigs get slaughtered.
For those that have been following this blog on a regular basis, you know that we've dedicated many posts over the years to the topic of social media, and that we've profiled various strategies used by various brand marketers across various industries.
More recently, and because this author frequently resides at the intersection of Madison Ave. and Wall Street, we've poignantly observed the social media initiatives (lack of, poorly executed, and best execution) demonstrated by financial service industry players.
There's an increasing number of expert observations on this very topic (see links below), and illustrative of the need for smart thinking, its interesting to note that social media czar Neil Edwards, the serial entrepreneur and former CEO of mobile game maker Cellufun, has recently switched gears; he's now offering expert social media guidance to major banks, brokers and fund managers.
Perhaps the most resonating recent observation extracted from a March 8 article in Financial Planner:
"..But many in the industry still find social media as an effective way to connect with and enhance their relationship with clients. At the recent TD Ameritrade Conference in San Diego, Christopher Van Slyke, a partner and co-founder of Trovena, LLC, spoke about how Facebook has been a boon for his business.
“Why is Facebook the third largest nation on Earth,” he asked the packed room attending the Social Media Bootcamp run by Marie Swift of Impact Communications. “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Facebook allows you to leverage who you know. If your business is relationships and your relationships are better because of social media than it has helped.”
editor note: this article profiles the planned social media initiative by SecondMarket, the electronic exchange platform facilitating the trading of non-public shares in companies such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, etc ...Yet another story from today's WSJ profiles the initiatives of online poker casinos that are gearing up again to help win the legislative battles that are brewing in states from Nevada to New Jersey..
If they were really smart, they'd call Neil Edwards before doing something that might backfire..
That said, when it comes to regulated industries, this compliant author reminds you: bears and bulls profit; pigs get slaughtered.
For those that have been following this blog on a regular basis, you know that we've dedicated many posts over the years to the topic of social media, and that we've profiled various strategies used by various brand marketers across various industries.
More recently, and because this author frequently resides at the intersection of Madison Ave. and Wall Street, we've poignantly observed the social media initiatives (lack of, poorly executed, and best execution) demonstrated by financial service industry players.
There's an increasing number of expert observations on this very topic (see links below), and illustrative of the need for smart thinking, its interesting to note that social media czar Neil Edwards, the serial entrepreneur and former CEO of mobile game maker Cellufun, has recently switched gears; he's now offering expert social media guidance to major banks, brokers and fund managers.
Perhaps the most resonating recent observation extracted from a March 8 article in Financial Planner:
"..But many in the industry still find social media as an effective way to connect with and enhance their relationship with clients. At the recent TD Ameritrade Conference in San Diego, Christopher Van Slyke, a partner and co-founder of Trovena, LLC, spoke about how Facebook has been a boon for his business.
“Why is Facebook the third largest nation on Earth,” he asked the packed room attending the Social Media Bootcamp run by Marie Swift of Impact Communications. “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Facebook allows you to leverage who you know. If your business is relationships and your relationships are better because of social media than it has helped.”
editor note: this article profiles the planned social media initiative by SecondMarket, the electronic exchange platform facilitating the trading of non-public shares in companies such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, etc ...Yet another story from today's WSJ profiles the initiatives of online poker casinos that are gearing up again to help win the legislative battles that are brewing in states from Nevada to New Jersey..
If they were really smart, they'd call Neil Edwards before doing something that might backfire..
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
#Social Media Does Sell: Shares In Company
In response to blowback we rec'd from powerhouses Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan re: most recent posting "..consumers don't respond to brand pitches via social media."....we've been asked to clarify.
In view of the fact both of these global investment banks have acquired direct and/or indirect stakes in Facebook, Twitter (respectively) and un-named other social media enterprises via investment funds created by those banks, it should be perfectly clear that social media does sell, even if only what is selling are private shares in these companies to 'institutional investors' at prices that remind us grey beards of the Internet bubble(s) that inflated and popped back in the ancient times of the late 20th century.
According to this a.m.'s NY Times, Twitter's valuation is now north of $4.2 billion +/-, up 30% in the past six months alone. Twitter's 2010 revenue of $100 million (unconfirmed because its not a public company), is derived mostly from advertising deals. Taking off our CMO hat and putting on our CFO hat, that means Twitter is worth 45x revenue.
Having worked on Wall Street in a prior life, and notwithstanding the extraordinary profit margins leading web and social companies enjoy (Zynga purportedly delivers 45% net margins, GOOG 30%, YHOO! north of 25% profit margins, etc), this writer can only say "WOW!" re: Twitter's seemingly preposterous valuation.
For argument sake, let's give Twitter the benefit of the doubt and estimate that ad sales will increase 50% a year for the next few years, unless of course some 20 yr old introduces a better mousetrap before hand.
Come 2013, Twitter might therefore deliver $500 million in gross revenue, and let's say their profit margin narrows to 40%, providing a bottom line $200 million in profit. Obviously, we can't predict what the market valuation might be three years from now, but when reflecting on the 150+ year history of organized financial markets, enterprise valuations of 20x gross profit is pretty pie in the sky, when considering GOOG's valuation is about 5x its gross revenue.
Let's give JPMorgan the benefit of the doubt--its not as if they're buying a stake in Twitter without having a hedge in place (including the ability to quickly move any proprietary position into a 'fund' they manage for investors. Or maybe they're intrigued by the black box apps that are interrogating stock market-related Tweets and using the data to make intra-day bets on global markets. Presuming JPMC's people can get themselves an inside track on tweets a few seconds before they get published, their several hundred million dollar investment in IT, regardless of the 'valuation,' is certainly justifiable. If only Bernie Madoff were still on the outside!
In view of the fact both of these global investment banks have acquired direct and/or indirect stakes in Facebook, Twitter (respectively) and un-named other social media enterprises via investment funds created by those banks, it should be perfectly clear that social media does sell, even if only what is selling are private shares in these companies to 'institutional investors' at prices that remind us grey beards of the Internet bubble(s) that inflated and popped back in the ancient times of the late 20th century.
According to this a.m.'s NY Times, Twitter's valuation is now north of $4.2 billion +/-, up 30% in the past six months alone. Twitter's 2010 revenue of $100 million (unconfirmed because its not a public company), is derived mostly from advertising deals. Taking off our CMO hat and putting on our CFO hat, that means Twitter is worth 45x revenue.
Having worked on Wall Street in a prior life, and notwithstanding the extraordinary profit margins leading web and social companies enjoy (Zynga purportedly delivers 45% net margins, GOOG 30%, YHOO! north of 25% profit margins, etc), this writer can only say "WOW!" re: Twitter's seemingly preposterous valuation.
For argument sake, let's give Twitter the benefit of the doubt and estimate that ad sales will increase 50% a year for the next few years, unless of course some 20 yr old introduces a better mousetrap before hand.
Come 2013, Twitter might therefore deliver $500 million in gross revenue, and let's say their profit margin narrows to 40%, providing a bottom line $200 million in profit. Obviously, we can't predict what the market valuation might be three years from now, but when reflecting on the 150+ year history of organized financial markets, enterprise valuations of 20x gross profit is pretty pie in the sky, when considering GOOG's valuation is about 5x its gross revenue.
Let's give JPMorgan the benefit of the doubt--its not as if they're buying a stake in Twitter without having a hedge in place (including the ability to quickly move any proprietary position into a 'fund' they manage for investors. Or maybe they're intrigued by the black box apps that are interrogating stock market-related Tweets and using the data to make intra-day bets on global markets. Presuming JPMC's people can get themselves an inside track on tweets a few seconds before they get published, their several hundred million dollar investment in IT, regardless of the 'valuation,' is certainly justifiable. If only Bernie Madoff were still on the outside!
Thursday, February 10, 2011
#Social Networking Doesn't Sell...
Consumers Don't Buy It from Facebook, Twitter or other social network apps...
We don't typically re-publish lengthy articles, but this one from Keller Faye Group's Ed Keller deserves a shout out. The article points out a point that we've been making for the better part of four years in the course of weighing the value proposition and utility of social networks vis a vie promoting consumer brands.
By Ed Keller
Each week we all see trade press stories outlining the latest and greatest ways that marketers are using social networking technologies to connect better with consumers. One story last week jumped out to me, both because of the headline, and also the source.
"Razorfish: Facebook, Twitter Don't Make Customers Feel Valued" wrote MediaPost, followed by this lead: "While marketers have flocked to social platforms like Facebook and Twitter, consumers still don't view them as important ways to engage with a brand, since they don't meet their expectations. Most people still prefer to connect with brands through more traditional methods, such as email, company Web sites or word-of-mouth."
To reach this conclusion, Razorfish surveyed consumers and asked them to prioritize what was important to them when engaging with a brand, and then asked them to rate how well each of various consumer touchpoints do when it comes to engagement – from the consumer's perspective.
The study found that consumers have the following priorities when it comes to brand engagement, in this order: feeling valued, trust, efficiency, consistency, relevance and control. In other words, says Razorfish, "In a world full of engagement touchpoints, the most important things to everyone are to feel valued by companies they do business with, and to feel the companies they engage with can be trusted."
When it comes to touchpoints, which do the best job of delivering against "feeling valued" and "trust"? According to Razorfish, "the most important consumer engagement channels are transactional email, company websites, traditional word-of-mouth, and face-to-face conversation with a company representative." The least important: "social networking services . . . be it LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or the even newer location-based social networking services."
"Gasp" says Razorfish, in commenting on these findings. Gasp indeed.
Are businesses making a mistake by investing in social networking strategies? No, says Razorfish: "We believe consumers do not use some of the hot new channels to interact with brands because brands are neither fully nor consistently using them to deliver on the Engagement Elements, particularly in social media." And, says Razorfish, over time this may well change. But for now, they say, "These surprising findings taught us to assume nothing when it comes to why and how consumers interact with brands."
What I found noteworthy about the Razorfish study was the important reminder it provides to marketers that despite the massive attention being paid to the consumer's use of Facebook and other social media and mobile applications, they still use those technologies relatively infrequently when it comes to their interactions with brands. This is a topic I have written about previously, and Razorfish reminds us that this remains true today – even after Mark Zuckerberg was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year and The Social Network is garnering all sorts of awards.
The lesson is not for brands to stop deploying strategies that employ the new and emerging technologies, but rather to remember that truly "social" brands need to engage with consumers through a variety of touchpoints, and the "traditional" ones cannot be ignored in favor of what's new and emerging. Being "social" is less about channels and technology, and more about a philosophy, and a way of doing business—based on two-way communication, consumer engagement, and tapping into your customer's social networks, in the physical as well as virtual worlds. A holistic approach is required, one that seeks to connect with consumers in all the ways they value—including both the old ways and the new.
We don't typically re-publish lengthy articles, but this one from Keller Faye Group's Ed Keller deserves a shout out. The article points out a point that we've been making for the better part of four years in the course of weighing the value proposition and utility of social networks vis a vie promoting consumer brands.
By Ed Keller
Each week we all see trade press stories outlining the latest and greatest ways that marketers are using social networking technologies to connect better with consumers. One story last week jumped out to me, both because of the headline, and also the source.
"Razorfish: Facebook, Twitter Don't Make Customers Feel Valued" wrote MediaPost, followed by this lead: "While marketers have flocked to social platforms like Facebook and Twitter, consumers still don't view them as important ways to engage with a brand, since they don't meet their expectations. Most people still prefer to connect with brands through more traditional methods, such as email, company Web sites or word-of-mouth."
To reach this conclusion, Razorfish surveyed consumers and asked them to prioritize what was important to them when engaging with a brand, and then asked them to rate how well each of various consumer touchpoints do when it comes to engagement – from the consumer's perspective.
The study found that consumers have the following priorities when it comes to brand engagement, in this order: feeling valued, trust, efficiency, consistency, relevance and control. In other words, says Razorfish, "In a world full of engagement touchpoints, the most important things to everyone are to feel valued by companies they do business with, and to feel the companies they engage with can be trusted."
When it comes to touchpoints, which do the best job of delivering against "feeling valued" and "trust"? According to Razorfish, "the most important consumer engagement channels are transactional email, company websites, traditional word-of-mouth, and face-to-face conversation with a company representative." The least important: "social networking services . . . be it LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or the even newer location-based social networking services."
"Gasp" says Razorfish, in commenting on these findings. Gasp indeed.
Are businesses making a mistake by investing in social networking strategies? No, says Razorfish: "We believe consumers do not use some of the hot new channels to interact with brands because brands are neither fully nor consistently using them to deliver on the Engagement Elements, particularly in social media." And, says Razorfish, over time this may well change. But for now, they say, "These surprising findings taught us to assume nothing when it comes to why and how consumers interact with brands."
What I found noteworthy about the Razorfish study was the important reminder it provides to marketers that despite the massive attention being paid to the consumer's use of Facebook and other social media and mobile applications, they still use those technologies relatively infrequently when it comes to their interactions with brands. This is a topic I have written about previously, and Razorfish reminds us that this remains true today – even after Mark Zuckerberg was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year and The Social Network is garnering all sorts of awards.
The lesson is not for brands to stop deploying strategies that employ the new and emerging technologies, but rather to remember that truly "social" brands need to engage with consumers through a variety of touchpoints, and the "traditional" ones cannot be ignored in favor of what's new and emerging. Being "social" is less about channels and technology, and more about a philosophy, and a way of doing business—based on two-way communication, consumer engagement, and tapping into your customer's social networks, in the physical as well as virtual worlds. A holistic approach is required, one that seeks to connect with consumers in all the ways they value—including both the old ways and the new.
Monday, February 07, 2011
Email and Blogs: Yesterday's Apps
The jury is in: two of the leading apps that unleashed the power of the web are dead (or soon to be dead).
Maybe not news to some that spend more than 15 seconds following trends in marketing communication, but anyone with a sense of intuition can see the writing on the walls...which are now typically limited to #'s and no more than 100 or so characters.
Email: As reported in today's NYT "..the number of visitors to web-based email sites (Gmail, Yahoo!, etc.) declined 5.9% from Nov 2009 to Nov 2010, according to comScore. That decline reflects the spread of email devices (e.g. iPhones) which do no need to log onto the Web to see messages; the number of people who use mobile devices to check e-mail rose 40% during the same period.."
More predictive: 24% fewer people age 12-17 used web-based email during the same period. This means that the new generation rising up through the ranks into adulthood, and presumably jobs (lets hope!), will have adapted completely different forms of communication than the current workforce.
Other than using email to transmit corporate communications and the most formal correspondences, Facebook (and other social networks), txt'ing and Tumbling on Tumblr will displace email altogether by the year 2015.
Bloggers are bygone. From 2000-2009, we told our corporate clients "if you don't have a blog, and if you're not maintaining it consistently, your competitors will be eating your lunch.." This was (arguably) sage advice.
If you're accustomed to changing your underwear, its time to change your 'blogging" strategy; tumble over to Tumblr; a move advocated by Web guru Rex Sorgatz, along with tens of dozens of the most highly-regarded internet gurus. Why?
Simple Math: Social media has killed the ironic or iconic blog "headline"; exponentially more traffic today comes from headlines distributed on Facebook, Twitter and other short-form media-communication apps.
On the topic of simple math: We've insinuated, if not insisted that intuitive marketing strategies will soon be displaced by quant-based predictive applications.
Lo and behold, according to Sunil Gupta, a Harvard Business School professor who teaches digital marketing, "Marketers are moving away from intrusion strategies that use ads running in the middle of TV programs to a more cooperative model in which they try to stimulate discussion across social networks. In the traditional world, marketing used to focus on the middle part of the bell curve and reaching out to them. Now, the way to reach out to the middle part is through the extreme ends of the curve..."
If you're a marcom guru that's over 40 and you don't already have a mobile device that keeps you connected and in touch, its not too late to get on the bus before it rolls over you. And it will, trust me.
Maybe not news to some that spend more than 15 seconds following trends in marketing communication, but anyone with a sense of intuition can see the writing on the walls...which are now typically limited to #'s and no more than 100 or so characters.
Email: As reported in today's NYT "..the number of visitors to web-based email sites (Gmail, Yahoo!, etc.) declined 5.9% from Nov 2009 to Nov 2010, according to comScore. That decline reflects the spread of email devices (e.g. iPhones) which do no need to log onto the Web to see messages; the number of people who use mobile devices to check e-mail rose 40% during the same period.."
More predictive: 24% fewer people age 12-17 used web-based email during the same period. This means that the new generation rising up through the ranks into adulthood, and presumably jobs (lets hope!), will have adapted completely different forms of communication than the current workforce.
Other than using email to transmit corporate communications and the most formal correspondences, Facebook (and other social networks), txt'ing and Tumbling on Tumblr will displace email altogether by the year 2015.
Bloggers are bygone. From 2000-2009, we told our corporate clients "if you don't have a blog, and if you're not maintaining it consistently, your competitors will be eating your lunch.." This was (arguably) sage advice.
If you're accustomed to changing your underwear, its time to change your 'blogging" strategy; tumble over to Tumblr; a move advocated by Web guru Rex Sorgatz, along with tens of dozens of the most highly-regarded internet gurus. Why?
Simple Math: Social media has killed the ironic or iconic blog "headline"; exponentially more traffic today comes from headlines distributed on Facebook, Twitter and other short-form media-communication apps.
On the topic of simple math: We've insinuated, if not insisted that intuitive marketing strategies will soon be displaced by quant-based predictive applications.
Lo and behold, according to Sunil Gupta, a Harvard Business School professor who teaches digital marketing, "Marketers are moving away from intrusion strategies that use ads running in the middle of TV programs to a more cooperative model in which they try to stimulate discussion across social networks. In the traditional world, marketing used to focus on the middle part of the bell curve and reaching out to them. Now, the way to reach out to the middle part is through the extreme ends of the curve..."
If you're a marcom guru that's over 40 and you don't already have a mobile device that keeps you connected and in touch, its not too late to get on the bus before it rolls over you. And it will, trust me.
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