The estimates of how many advertising messages we are exposed to in a day varies considerably, from 400 to over 5,400.

 

They key phrase here is “exposed to,” not “pay attention to.”

 

In fact, one-third of the American population between the ages of 17 and 35 say they do just the opposite, according to CRM Magazine, and avoid ads altogether.

 

The promise of capturing the attention of this highly prized demographic is an important motivator for News Corp’s recent announcement that it will allow advertisers to deliver precision-targeted banner ads based on user-created data through the expansion of MySpace’s advertising platform.

 

The move offers a clear value proposition to New Corp., which requires a return on its massive investment in MySpace. It will also be appealing to advertisers, who invest an estimated $500 billion on advertising annually, and don’t wish to see that spend reach closed eyeballs.

 

With the new move from MySpace, advertisers can now pinpoint exactly who they want to reach, based on data collected from users' personal profiles, the groups they join and the messages they post for their friends.

While the value to News Corp. and the advertisers is obvious, it may be a more dubious proposition for the users, suggest some commentators, such as Kathryn Montgomery, a professor at American University and author of the book “Generation Digital: Politics, Commerce, and Childhood in the Age of the Internet.”

Montgomery told the New York Times that: “Despite all of the assurances that the industry gave to regulators and the public, it sounds as if their business plans sort of fly in the face of the promises to operate without exploiting young people.

“If you are hanging out with your friends and talking about who you are, what rock stars you like, and so on, you don’t assume that someone is sitting there and taking down every word you’re saying and putting it into some kind algorithm,” she said.

Citing performance increases of more than 300 per cent in terms of things like click-throughs versus ads that are targeted through demographics, Travis Katz, international marketing director for MySpace, tells the Globe & Mail that his company is simply applying the user-generated principles of social media to its advertising approach, especially for smaller advertisers. “It's really the idea of empowering all of these users – small business, independent film makers, musicians – to leverage social networks and do advertising in a way that is efficient, smart and easy to use.”

 

That’s an extremely valuable proposition for the advertiser. Now let’s see if users agree.

 

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How pervasive are social media tools (such as blogs and podcasts) becoming? Here are some of the numbers (taken from my CNW seminar series Social media (Web 2.0): are you in?):

  

·         There are approximately 55 million English language blogs – 45,000 new blogs created every day

·         44% of web users in the U.S. read political blogs

·         20% of Canadians say they read blogs on a regular basis

·         Three of the top 8 most trafficked sites on the Internet are social media sites that didn’t exist a couple of years ago (e.g. YouTube.com)

·         13% use RSS (real simple syndication ) for reading

·         29% of U.S. adults who own MP3 players have downloaded podcasts (The Pew Internet & American Life Project)

 

Listen to the complete webcast of my and Brent Holliday’s presentation Social media (Web 2.0): are you in?

 

Also includes a link to the Social media checklist handout and the presentation slides.

 

Tips for adoption

 

James Robertson has a number of tips for adoption:

 

• Create a prototype or pilot.
• Use stories to articulate (and capture) needs.
• Build on existing platforms.
• Use case studies from similar organisations.
• Be passionate about the right things.

 

See James’s complete list of tips for adopting enterprise 2.0.

 

My own tips for adopting social media tools:

 

• Social media is reinventing the Internet, creating a space where your audience can talk about you in a whole new way. On a regular basis, monitor the social web to see what is being said about you.
• Ensure you’re aware of which community websites (e.g. YouTube) are growing in popularity and evaluate how they might change the way people talk about your organization.
• Planning is an essential requisite for success. Develop a plan that is based on a thorough assessment and contains measurable success indicators.
• Leadership must set the tone. Your executives must be leading the dialogue and controlling the message.
• Relevant, up-to-date and valued content that supports, promotes and details your products, services and competitive advantages.
• Know the link between your website, sales and customer service. What is your website worth?
• Understand the ingredients of a good blog. Benchmark and cherry-pick from the leaders (e.g. Boing Boing, IntranetBlog.com, etc.)
• Keep pace with the trends and best practices, technological advancements and latest developments. Subscribe to newsletters from leaders such as CNET, eMarketer and Prescient Digital Media.

  Digg this         Post to del.icio.us       Post to Slashdot

If you spend any time on the Internet, you will have at least a passing interest in blogs. But if you’re responsible for communicating your corporate message and managing your advertising budget, you need to be using this social media actively. Recent statistics demonstrate that blogs are an extremely cost effective way to reach an influential audience at a fraction the cost of traditional media vehicles.

 

The phenomenal growth in the number of blogs has been well documented, and recently released statistics from comScore Media Metrix, demonstrates that this explosion in content has driven a corresponding increase in usage. They report that the traffic to blogs continues to grow, up 56% over the past year to 58.7 million visitors, and that represents 34% of the total Internet audience.

 

 As with many Internet-related trends, a younger demographic plays a key role in driving the numbers. Users between the ages of 12 and 17 are 21% more likely than average to visit blogs.

 

However, certain blog niches (like politics) have a median age of 45 and median income of $85,000, and a high level of C-level executives.

 

Effective blog advertising

The stat about blog niches was provided by Henry Copeland, president of blogads.com, in a discussion with B.L. Ochman on MarketingProfs.com. According to Copeland, the appeal of this new media has driven a 300% growth in blog advertising in the past year. He adds that, if used well, blog advertising can allow companies to establish significant brand awareness for as little as $25,000 to $75,000.

 

The article makes a strong case for the importance of utilizing blogs for corporate marketing, and provides a number of useful examples about how the media can be used to achieve spectacular—and cost effective—results. But it also cautions that advertisers must adopt a blog mindset it they want to succeed with blog advertising.

 

“With click-through rates in traditional online advertising dropping, inexpensive blog click-throughs are as high as 1%,” writes Ochman. “Advertisers are starting to appreciate the influencer constituency on blogs, where the distinct advertising value of these audiences ‘isn't their eyeballs, it’s their mouths,’ Copeland says.

 

“Successful blogs are edgy, have a sense of humor, and are recognized experts in a narrow niche. Blog audiences look at traditional ads, like ‘Click here, get 20% off,’ and say ‘screw this, I've seen it everywhere,’ Copeland says.

 

 

In his discussion, with Ochman, Copeland offers the following guidelines for effective blog ads:

 

                            

Effective corporate blogging

Given the significance of blogs for on-line communications, every company should be incorporating them into their communications mix. Not only is a corporate blog an inexpensive way to deliver information, best practices in corporate blogging have become obvious and are easy to apply:

• Establish your credibility as an expert.
• Know your target audience, connect with them and engage them.
• Use an informal, conversational style.
• Keep your information real and relevant.
• Provide links.
• Respect your competition.

 

Microsoft provided a high profile example of the benefits of corporate blogging with Robert Scoble. His blog attracted millions of readers and his departure captured mainstream media attention. For instance, in its coverage of Scoble’s move to a video blogging start-up, Forbes.com wrote that: “To err is human, to blog, divine? For the last three years, one man has shown how a blog, plain-spoken and irreverent in its tone, could be a tool to significantly help soften the monopolistic bullying image of a corporate giant like Microsoft.”

 

Scoble epitomized the practises mentioned above, winning praise for himself and his company. He was clearly an expert who connected with his tech savvy audience, wasn’t afraid to respect Microsoft’s competition—praising nemesis Google, for example—or to criticize his own company. As a result, writes Forbes, “industry watchers came to appreciate both Scoble's honesty and his inside look into the traditionally insular world of software development.”

 

Related items

Content in the Web 2.0 World

The latest in social networking

Blogging the intranet

 

U.S. consumers are becoming more and more comfortable shopping online. And they’re spending more – particularly on clothes and luxury items.

 

eMarketer predicts consumers will dramatically increase their spending at online retail shops from $877 per consumer in 2005 to $1,512 per consumer by 2009.

The report shows that, although the average annual growth rate of retail e-commerce sales will slow from the 26% seen between 2001 and 2005, it will remain robust at 18.6% from 2006 to 2009.

"Online shoppers, who have faster online connections and more Internet experience, are venturing beyond the safe purchase categories of books, videos and toys that marked the first e-commerce success stories," wrote eMarketer Jeffrey Grau, senior analyst, in the report.

The retail sector of computer hardware and software is on the cusp of becoming the first category to derive a majority of its sales online, 54.5% by 2010, according to eMarketer calculations. But the categories of jewelry/luxury goods and health and beauty are making the deepest inroads into total sales, with online purchases expected to about double their percent of total category sales by 2010.

Apparel, perhaps more than any other category, demonstrates the maturity of online sales and the comfort level of consumers. Apparel e-commerce as a percent of total retail sales is expected to climb from 5.9% in 2005 to 11.4% by 2010, as specialized niche sites, high-end e-tailers and attention-grabbing technology converge to bring consumers online to buy clothes.

See U.S. Retail E-Commerce

There’s nothing remarkable about the fact that I received The Simpsons opening sequence – with real people from four different people. Receiving the link from more than one person means I know more than one person who engages in one of the most common web-enabled applications: forwarding funny e-mails.

 

What is remarkable is how simple and inexpensive marketing on the Internet can be, provided one grasps how people use it and how much value they place on well crafted, humorous and original content.

 

A study by Sharpe Partners revealed that 89 % of adult Internet users in America share content with others via email. The study on viral marketing also found that 63 % of the respondents share content at least once a week and as many as 75% of the respondents forward this content to up to six other recipients.

 

In addition to capturing the frequency of content sharing, the study also showed that the most popular content is humorous material, with 88 % forwarding jokes or cartoons.

 

Content Shared by US Internet Users (%of respondents)
Content	% Sharing
Humorous/jokes/cartoons	88%
News item/article	56
Health care/medical	32
Religious/spiritual	30
Games	25
Sports/hobbies	24
Business/personal finance	24
Sexually provocative content	12
Source: Sharpe Partners, Inc, January 2006

 

The Simpon’s video,a  viral marketing campaign by UK satellite broadcaster BSkyB, was viewed millions of times in less than a week, according to Reuters. Meticulously created by Sky and ad agency Devilfish, the video was intended as an on-air promotion until they had an insight about the viral power of the Internet.

                             

“If we had only showed it on air, you might turn to someone and say that was really cool,” BSkyB communications director Matthew Anderson told Reuters. “Putting it online, there’s a fantastic discussion between millions of people—it’s bringing the Simpsons to them instead of having them tune in.”

 

We all have to monitor emerging trends and technology like social networks and increasingly powerful content management systems. But we can never lose sight of the importance of helping people engage in basic interactions. Like sharing a good joke.

               

Building a brand is tough. And it’s getting tougher. Advertising Age numbers reveal that, for example, the number of brands on North American grocery store shelves has tripled since 1991 from 15,000 to 45,000 products. At the same time, the number of your competitors with websites likely has grown ten-fold (or perhaps even greater) since 1995.

 

On the Web, the power of Google has leveled the playing field between the haves and the have nots – big brands can’t necessarily spend their way to a better brand, and new kids on the block are constantly emerging from seemingly nowhere.

 

A recent McKinsey article (Better Branding; subscription only) highlighted the dilemma for marketers: “Building strong brands isn’t getting any easier. An explosion in the number of brands—as well as a proliferation of ways to communicate them, from hundreds of cable channels to the Internet, product placement in movies, and even mobile-phone display screens—has made it tougher to get messages through,” writes McKinsey’s Nora A. Aufreiter, David Elzinga, and Jonathan W. Gordon in Better Branding. “In addition, converging product-performance and service levels in many industries have made it more difficult to sustain existing brands. Meanwhile, the economic downturn has hamstrung marketers by cutting their budgets.”

 

All of that clutter and competition makes it harder to stand out in a crowd. Cash fueled advertising campaigns may create awareness and recognition, but not necessarily build a ‘better’ brand. The brand is all encompassing – from product to service to perception. Understanding your target audience, your users and their expectations and needs, and delivering accordingly, is tantamount to success.

 

Easier said than done.

 

Understanding the user audience requires an analytical approach to consumer research. Although research itself cannot build a brand, the adoption of both old and new analytical approaches to understanding customer behavior and preferences can build sounder strategies for enhancing the corporate brand and winning the hearts and wallets of consumers.

 

“The solid analytics at the heart of the new approach may not only require new skills in the marketing department but also highlight steps that other parts of the organization—from product development to operations to customer service—must take to help deliver the brand,” say Aufreiter et all. “Moreover, some marketers may worry that adopting more quantitative techniques will compromise their creativity. In our experience, though, getting analytical about customer needs and the brand identity helps channel the imagination into areas in which it makes a difference. And the ability to avoid costly trial and error and to build a better brand more efficiently is too compelling to pass up, particularly in challenging economic times.”

 

The good news, however, is that the web is still a relatively new media, when compared to, for example, the ultra competitive retail world. Yet the Internet, as we are coming to know by experience, can propel no names and young kids working in garages into branding superstars.

 

Brand building

 

It goes without saying that building a web brand is far more complex than marketing. A number of key contributors must be carefully mixed and executed to create a valued resonation:  

 

• Site design
• Usability
• Site layout
• Content quality
• Product value
• Order fulfillment
• Customer service

 

Of course these are not the only contributing attributes to the web brand. Some attributes, what Mckinsey calls “antes”, are auxiliary or added benefits that some customers might, for example, expect from a competitor. Think of Amazon.com’s free deliveries – now commonly offered by many of its competitors. Or a hotel website that offers 360 degree pictures of their rooms and property.

 

Successful brands deliver on both customer expectations and also differentiate from the competition.

 

 

Those web brands that have high relevance and a high degree of differentiation from the competition include Ebay, Google and MySpace.

 

Understanding your users

 

Notwithstanding more complex methodologies such as pathway modeling (see Successful Brand Repositioning: Aspirations vs. Achievable Strategies) and conjoint analysis that you may not be looking to digest in a 45 second blog read, there are a number of key measurement tools you should know and use…

 

• One on one interviews
• Customer surveys
• Focus groups
• Usability testing
• Call center tracking
• Market segmentation
• Benchmarking
• Etc.

 

A multiplicity of tools is recommended using both quantitative and qualitative tactics. Depending on your site’s position in the evolutionary curve, some tools and tactics are better than others (see When to use what research tools and Measure your efforts).

 

Moments of Truth

 

Brand is built and reinforced at web touchpoints or moments of truth. Moments of truth would include the initial impression of the site (color and design), product information, checkout process, search engine use, etc.

 

It goes without saying that there are a lot of touchpoints in a standard web transaction – whether or not e-commerce is involved. So, to leave on a practical note after many wasted paragraphs on Mckinsey influenced brand theory, here are some practical suggestions for reinforcing you web brand:

 

•         Prominently display your organization name/logo (upper left corner is now considered standard)

•         Organization’s “tag line” or “value proposition” should also be prominently featured

•         Design that differentiates from competitors

•         Emphasize the most frequently used and high-priority tasks/information

•         A single “Home Page” that is clearly distinguishable from all other pages

•         “About Us” and “Contact Us” sections are clearly labelled in the global navigation or footers on all pages

•         Sections and categories designated with customer-oriented language

•         Site offers multiple navigation paths to priority content and tools

•         Primary navigation area is prominently situated and similar items are grouped closely

•         Straightforward, informative language

•         Succinct grammar, with consistent capitalization and design standards

•         Concise instructions for necessary tasks

•         Search engine optimization (strong page titles, active links, keywords, etc.)

•         Clearly communicated and supported customer service and privacy policies

•         Deliver on your promises

 

Last word of note: branding is not a one-off exercise. Web branding is a continual, fluid journey that requires constant attention, tweaking and care.

 

Here is some additional reading (all the articles are more than a year old but all have offer good lessons – both implicit and explicit):

 

Don't Shout, Listen (Fast Company)

On the Web, Branding Is Back (Business Week)

Web branding is more than skin deep (Gerry McGovern)

Controversial, perplexing for marketers and beloved by their users, social networking sites have become a critical trend for web strategists to monitor.

 

In an article called “Social Networks as a Marketing Channel,” eMarketer provides powerful stats on the popularity of the sites and helpful links to articles about companies that are developing business models around collaborative publishing.

 

The article contains comScore Networks data showing that the two leading social network sites, MySpace.com and Facebook.com, attract more than five million unique visitors a month. The number of visitors to Facebook.com increased by 14% in December 2005, while MySpace.com saw a 34% increase.

 

Such growth, and the seismic shift in online behaviour it represents, is sure to attract the attention of mainstream media. Along with the skepticism for which big media is known. ABC News Radio, for example, is conducting an in-depth series of reports on social networking. Included in their coverage is an interview with Nate Elliot, an analyst for Jupiter Research.

 

“Certainly there are a large amount of people spending a large amount of time on this site,” says Elliot. “When you look at the huge numbers they throw out there — 50 [million], 60 million registered users — those are a mirage….”

 

Elliot says that 12 percent of Internet users in the United States say they’re registered at an online networking site, but over half say they don’t go back and only 18 percent visit networking sites weekly or more often.

 

Those who have been following the growth of social networking know that pesky analysts poking holes in their numbers has not been the main concern. Predators, scam artists, employers and campus authorities have discovered that the sites contain a treasure trove of personal data that can used against the social networkers.

 

In “Big Brother is Reading Your Blog,” BusinessWeek provides a number of examples of how this private information can be abused, and how the sites’ users are responding. These include:

• Avoiding getting “dooced” (fired for comments on blogs) by adding fictional information to postings to throw employers off the scent.
• Aggressively using the privacy controls supplied by the sites.
• Searching sites for evidence that campus police are monitoring them, baiting the authorities with bogus events and then surprising them when they show up.
• Moving to sites that promise greater safety, such as YFly.com that has a “report the creep” button on every page. If users suspect an adult is on the site, they refer complaints to a team of volunteers at the high schools represented on the site who will verify the person’s identity.

 

Whether or not these social networking sites are actually delivering the numbers they claim, there is no disputing two important facts:

1. The hardcore users are making innovative use of technology, their imaginations and fundamentally important social models to make them work.
2. People are already monetizing the opportunity, whether it’s the vendors of social networking software products or services, or the founders of MySpace who sold it for US$580 million.

If anyone doubts that content is king on the Internet, they have obviously been ignoring the rapid emergence of Consumer Generated Media (CGM). Whether a company has built its business model on content creation and dissemination, or selling deodorant, it must incorporate an understanding for CGM into its web strategy.

 

Not that getting it right is easy.

 

The New York Times reported that, after proclaiming grand plans to bring elaborately produced sitcoms, talk shows and other television-style programs to the Internet, the head of Yahoo’s Media Group, Lloyd Braun, is sharply scaling back those efforts. He said the group would shift its focus to content acquired from other media companies or submitted by users.

 

“I didn’t fully appreciate what success in this medium is really going to look like,” Braun a former Hollywood executive told the Times. “This is not about creating one-off hits like in my old business. That is not going to create a sustainable competitive advantage over the long term.”

 

His answer? CGM. “I now get excited about user-generated content the way I used to get excited about thinking about what television shows would work.”

 

In an article in CRM Magazine, Alexandra DeFelice provides a number of interesting case studies of major brands who are not only excited about CGM, they’re making it work.

 

For example, Kao, the manufacturer of Ban deodorant, created a contest asking, “What would you ban?” It generated roughly 50,000 website visitors, about 10 percent of whom entered ads they had created online. Nine semifinalists were selected and given promotional materials to try to get people to vote for their ads. Within two weeks, those nine individuals generated 150 percent more traffic than all the company’s advertising had in the previous few months.

 

“As consumers are inundated by ads, marketers will need to stand out by finding better ways to reach them. Simply put, companies must develop methods that are interesting and compelling to consumers,” writes DeFelice.

 

She also offers seven tips for fostering creativity:

 

1. Stay grounded, but consider alternatives. Alternate channels are a complement to other forms of marketing and rarely can be used as a standalone effort.

2. Get buy-in. Make sure your corporate culture will allow you to experiment.

3. Set goals. Have a sense of what you want to accomplish before trying it. Understand overall ROI versus return on brand equity, which helps build future consumer loyalty or shift customer attitudes. Know how to put the metrics in the context of your company’s broader measurement strategy.

4. Budget. Allocate roughly 10 to 15 percent of the overall marketing budget for innovative techniques and alternative channels.

5. Test, test, test. It’s imperative to know what works and what doesn’t as well as which metrics work and which don’t.

6. Keep watch. Get proof of performance so that you know if things are going according to plan.

7. Think strategically. Don’t get caught up in cool ideas. Choose alternate channels that make sense based on your strategy.

 

 

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Delloite Research has released its latest TMT Trends: Technology Predictions 2006. It refers to it as “The technology sector's top trends.”

 

Immediately I am skeptical since the intent is to predict the future which 98 times out of 100 is pure unabashed marketing. So I decided to see what DR considers the top 10 trends…

1. Search engines will challenge email as the leading digital application.
2. Research and development will become more collaborative as business, government and academic institutions increasingly work together on new innovations.
3. Offshoring as a way of minimizing costs and optimizing efficiencies will continue to grow in popularity.
4. Classrooms of the developed world will incorporate more digital aids in their instruction.
5. Open source will pose an ever-greater challenge to the established software model, impacting both providers and end users.
6. Governments will increasingly regulate the Internet.
7. Technological advances such as speech recognition and voice synthesis, along with improvements in artificial intelligence, will change the way humans interact with computers and computers interact with each other.
8. Products will become less static with the launch of many more devices, from cameras to cars, that can be upgraded remotely.
9. The gap between those with digital technology and those without will widen and put undeveloped countries at an even greater disadvantage.
10. Those technologies that permanently change human behavior will continue to be the most profitable.

Did anyone catch the first trend statement, “search engines will challenge email as the leading digital application”?

 

Does anyone really believe that? Who aside from those that hold the title or role as a researcher spend more time doing search engine queries than email? I can’t name a single one; not one. And I’m a power Google user undertaking 20-30 searches every day. Knowledge workers I know, those that have a computer at their desk, most average more than 75 e-mails a day. Some clients and colleagues process 500 or 600 emails a day. That’s extreme but I know of no client or colleague that processes less than 50 emails a day. I know of no client or colleague that comes close to undertaking that many search queries.

 

My point: we are being inundated by marketing messages every day and those messages are rapidly growing in frequency and rate. Some organizations are getting more clever in packaging their marketing. This report is a perfect example. DR is full of very smart people and very clever marketers. This report is superb marketing (I’ll admit that my company Prescient Digital Media does a little bit of this too. However, despite the name you'll not find me spending too much time on predicting the future, except for specific client endeavors).

 

Caveat emptor (buyer beware) – not everything you read is the truth.

 

NOTE: It is my goal to be as honest as possible in my writings and severely limit if not completely eliminate any commercial messages within articles if it has no relevance to the readers (you’ll also note that I have forsworn any Google ads on either of my blogs or websites). Sometimes however I may separately promote an event or a job opportunity that might be relevant to the user but has no direct compensation relation to the author. Though if you suspect me of trying to use any of my articles as a direct sales tool then feel free to call me on it.

 

© 2006 Toby Ward - Prescient Digital Media