After having a conversation with a brand marketing manager this weekend about how she and the other marketing managers at her company interact on campaigns I’ve come to the following conclusion: “Integrated Marketing is like Communism. It sounds great on paper, but doesn’t work in reality.” (Update: Unless you you are JoinRed.com)
The What Have I Been Reading Reading List:
- Putting the Fun in Functional - Using Game Mechanics for Social Software – An excellent presentation on how successful social media sites like MySpace are like a game (via: Web Strategy by Jeremiah):
- Collecting: Impressive collections = bragging Rights
- Points: Redeemable points drives Loyalty & Social Points expree svalues of the “game”
- Feedback: Draws attention through movement & change and accelerates mastery
- Exchanges: Are structured social interactions
- Customization: Increases Investment and creates barriers to exit
- 6 Minds on Why Blogging Matters: Including - Peter Blackshaw of Consumer Generated Media: “Advocates for Blogs, myself included, talk a mean and persuasive game of customer intimacy, community, engagement and so-called “participation.” The problem is that that vision is often at extreme odds with the company or brand’s existing listening infrastructure: consumer affairs (call center, feedback forms, online surveys).” Eric Kintz of Marketing Excellence: “Marketers have become fixated on big influencers in the second part of the twentieth century: national newspapers, broadcast TV networks and star radio personalities. Now the pendulum is swinging back and marketers should start paying attention to Bloggers-influencers. Marketers will need to identify first the new key Blogger-influencers in their space… and treat them more and more like some of the other influencing constituencies such as analysts or journalists.” Also included are: Dan Greenfield of Bernaisesource, Will Waugh of Marketing Maestros, David Churbuck of Churbuck and David Armano of Logic + Emotion
- Advertising & Social networks: Bakespace, Classmates and Dates, oh my. Finally an article that explains the different advertising options in social networks (without me having to search). See also: The Score: Social Networking Sites
- Viral Seeding of Video Clips Beats Video Banner Advertising – I just came across this post about a Benchmark test from Universal McCann stating that ,“viral seeding drove 14 times more views than video banners.” While the view of the writer is obviously skewed toward Viral (it is from a Viral company), it would be good to see the actual study.
The I Also Glanced Over Reading List:
The Too Cool: Goes to IBM’s use of In Banner Video Chat: You can video chat with sales reps via the banner ad. LiveBanner, is from AVivocom.
“Liberty you’re so free / Why don’t you come for me / Take me away from the Rat Race” – Liberty Jones – The Shakes
Posted by: Natasha “That Girl From Marketing” Robinson
My Imaginary IM Message to News Media and Blogs today : OMGICRASAGAYT!
Translation: Oh My God, I Can’t Read Another Story About Google and YouTube!
The What Have I Been Reading Reading List:
The I Also Glanced Over Reading List:
“You’ve got a new horizon its ephemeral style / A melancholy town where we never smile” - Feel Good Inc - Gorillaz
Posted by: Natasha “That Girl From Marketing” Robinson
The study of the month goes to: Tapping into the Super Influencer: What You Need to Know to Engage the Elusive Young Customer(PDF), found via: Some 13-34s Show High Brand Loyalty: “CNET and Starcom questioned more than 10,000 young people through ethnographies, followed by online surveys and conversations. A small but significant portion of the respondents–between 15 and 20 percent–fell into a category dubbed “Brand Sirens.” Those sirens have a profound network effect on marketing through their ability to influence friends and family via word-of-mouth, viral video and applications such as instant messaging and Blogs, among other media.”
Lots of good stuff in the study, including: How To Insert YOUR Brand Into THEIR Conversations:
- Recognize that word of mouth driven by technology has greater impact than ever before
- Pitch the niche
- Follow the content that they are passionate about
- Give them control
- Connect with honesty, humor and social responsibility
- Rethink Reach: The New Reach and Frequency: Audience (influencers/sirens) X Number of conversations generated by them
Side Note: Some this did remind me of the Leveraging Social Media session from Search Engine Strategies. Such as what Gary Stein said about Marketing to Cliques (You can download his presentation at that link):
- Tightly define your group - What do these people think about
- Don’t be afraid to show features - Let the group come to their own conclusion about what they want to use – more features better
- Support the community
- Clone the tactic with like groups when you know what works
As well as what Scott Meyer of About.com gave as the definition of Success in Social Media: Engagement + Authenticity * Target Audience Reach
See also:
- BuzzLogic Platform Maps Top Online Influencers: “The Web-based application joins other ‘listening’ platforms now offered by companies like Cymfony, Nielsen BuzzMetrics, Waggener Edstrom and Umbria. BuzzLogic hopes to differentiate itself from those offerings by focusing on identifying the top handful of influencers — not merely the most popular, in terms of traffic or inbound links — within customer-specified ‘conversations’.”
- Call for Comment: Social Media Disclosure: “Most consumers believe that content in environments like MySpace or YouTube has been created by non-marketers (Do they?). WOMMA’s goal is to establish actionable guidelines and best practices for marketers working in this media. Join us Wednesday, Sept. 27, at noon EST for a full telephone briefing on the issues surrounding social media disclosure. Call 1-512-225-3050 and enter code 495675# to participate.”
The What Have I Been Reading Reading List:
- Verizon Plans No-Holds-Barred Blog To Engage Consumers : “DeVard acknowledged that Verizon is playing catch-up in the fields of online and social networking. ‘We were asleep at the wheel a bit.’ Verizon will spend 15 percent of its marketing budget online this year, and she said that may not be enough. DeVard said it is critical to allocate a percentage of the marketing budget to experiment with innovative tactics so you can understand how they work for your brand. See also: Blog Ads Must Get Buzz To Work: “New clues about online ads suggest we ‘don’t tell the audience what they should believe, or give them a question that they can answer themselves.’”
- Creative that Makes Friends with Social Networks: “Social Media is a Hungry Mouth, and if you get the audience on your side, you have to feed it. …The notion that the Internet is no longer about creating destination points, but is increasingly about creating content for circulation.” See also: Rules of Engagement – How Brands Join Conversations: “Question from the audience: How do you jumpstart a conversation when it doesn’t exist? Answer from panelists: Send bloggers samples to get them talking about your brands, create widgets that people can interact with on the site, know your influencers.’ Reprise Media, Thank you for Blogging the Online Media, Marketing & Advertising Conference!!! BTW: Make sure to check out this oldie but goodie:User-generated content uncovered: Power to the people
- A Viral Campaign Done Right Ain’t Cheap, Easy : “Here’s the bottom line: mounting a viral campaign requires not only social media, which provides remarkable new tools, but also integration with offline marketing, from street teams and guerilla marketing, to billboards, TV, radio, and print. New media marketing is simply not a substitute for all others. It’s a tool: one of the best ever created. But doing it right ain’t cheap, or easy.” See also: Advertisers Seek Safe Havens on User Sites
The I Also Glanced Over Reading List
Posted by: Natasha “That Girl From Marketing” Robinson
Are Microsites the Brochure sites of yesteryear? Like a new toy for Christmas, we wait with anticipation for it to arrive, someone pays a lot of money for it, and once it arrives we play with it, show it to all our friends, they “ohh” and “ahh” over it and then soon all the shine is gone and we move ont the next one… and someone wonders why they paid so much for a toy that no one longer plays with. Of course, at less than 100k companies can afford to build and burn microsites (I’ll save my thoughts on how companies can build and burn sites, yet balk at the price of SEO services for another date.).
When I think of the microsites that will have a long shelf life, I think of Dove’s Campaign For Real Beauty and Converse’s ConverseGallery.com. What do these microsites have in common? They have moved from simply being glorified brochures to giving people a way to interact. Is the point where I mention Consumer Generated Content or Social Media Optimization (SMO post count:2)?
The What Have I Been Reading Reading List:
- Consumers exposed to both display and search ads convert at higher rates – “Consumers exposed to both display and search advertising converted at a 22% higher rate than those using search alone, according to a study from the Atlas Institute. Atlas also found that search-click-only users converted at a rate 3.3 times higher than the display-click-only group. Combined display and search clicks converted at a rate 4 times higher than display click only.” See the full PDF: The Combined Impact of Search and Display Advertising
- Gender Marketing Web Design Differences – “If your target is men, make them happy now because they’ll probably forget you before the next page loads or they leave the store. …Women want to know more up front than a man does; men are more willing to gamble a bit in the hopes of a greater reward. Women will gather together but will make their individualized decisions in the end. Men, on the other hand, will make ‘individual’ decision based on following the herd” See also: The Power of Personas
- Top 21 Signs You Need a Break from SEO – (via the Daily Searchcast - And yes Danny, you have gotten funnier) “The S, E, and O keys on your keyboard are broken. When your son tells you he wants to go play in the sandbox, you fear you won’t see him again for eight months. And this one is actually a great idea. …your brilliant idea for 2007 is to create an alter-ego for yourself called ‘SEO Shaft.’ Your blog’s tagline will be ‘Can ya Digg it?’” I’ll add my own: You need a break from SEO when you read a post about an SEO idea and then buy the domain.
See also: You Know You’re Working Too Hard…
The I Also Glanced Over Reading list:
The Too Cool: Goes to Graffiti Research Lab. I have a love of Graffiti and Street Art - my previous logo for this site should have given a hint (I need to find a way to incorporate that here) - so this is too cool. From the website: “The Graffiti Research Lab is dedicated to outfitting graffiti writers, artists and protestors with open source tools for urban communication. The goal of the G.R.L. is to technologically empower individuals to creatively alter and reclaim their surroundings from commercial and corporate culture. G.R.L. agents are currently working in the lab and in the field to develop and test a range of experimental technologies for the state-of-the-art graffiti writer. This site documents those efforts with video documentation and DIY instructions for each project.” WHAT!!! How cool is that?! (via: PSFK)
“They say I should be more focused / and be more patient /and find a better way to let off my fustrations” - Doin Me - Little Brother
Posted by: Natasha “That Girl From Marketing” Robinson
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