Which Social Network Will Be the Top Marketing Medium

“Social media network growth has burst out of the gate over the past 12 months, and brands that understand the nuances of each platform have greater opportunities for lead generation,” reports Brafton. “According to The Content Marketing Institute, 87 percent of B2B [business to business] brands and 84 percent of B2C [business to consumer] businesses use social media to engage audiences and distribute digital content to prospective and current customers. Marketers who want to win social marketing results have to assess which networks best appeal to their specific audiences, but clear insights on how the platforms stack up can help. The race is on to see which network claims social media marketing's coveted Triple Crown of reach, adoption and performance in 2013.” Read more.

AOL's Ad Revenue Increases

AOL is not only surviving, it is thriving. “AOL reported its best quarterly revenue growth in eight years because of strong search and advertising sales, and its shares rose sharply,” reports the New York Times. “The company said Friday that total revenue rose 4 percent to nearly $600 million in the fourth quarter, beating analysts’ estimates of $573.7 million, according to Thomson Reuters. Advertising revenue, an important measurement for the company as it moves away from subscription-based dial-up services and emphasizes its media properties like The Huffington Post and Patch, rose 13 percent to $410.6 million.” Read more.
Recently Yahoo! posted similar results. While Google and Facebook may currently dominate the Internet marketing search field, each company is looking of its shoulder seeing AOL and Yahoo! in pursuit. Significance to Internet marketing? The greater the number of suppliers of a product or service (Internet search advertising in this case), the greater the efficiency and the lower the cost for the buyer (American marketers and, in turn, consumers).

Marketers Tweet During the Super Bowl Blackout

“Baltimore ultimately held on to their lead and won the Super Bowl. But viewers and the network were distracted from the traditional game-and-ad spectacle -- if viewers stayed around instead of switching to the 'Puppy Bowl' over on Animal Planet during the interlude. CBS seemed to repeat commercials that had already aired,” according to AdAge. "'Power out?' Oreo posted to Twitter. 'No problem. You can still dunk in the dark.' The tweet was retweeted 10,000 times within one hour.” Read more.

How Grey Goose Used Social Media

"With American consumers becoming comfortable with spending significant amounts of money online, luxury brands have found new opportunities in promotional channels like social media and video content creation. Brafton reported that 85 percent of luxury brands will increase their digital marketing budgets in 2013, with 72 percent indicating they will allocate resources toward social media marketing. How effective is social media content for luxury brands, though? Does well-written copy published to Facebook or visual media pinned to Pinterest drive referral traffic and sales?" Read about how Grey Goose accomplished this task.

How to Market to Customers Via a Website

"The proliferation of content marketing compels marketers employed in various industries to consider and experiment with various types of media production. The goal: To create memorable web experiences that pull prospects in, not push them away via aggressive advertising tactics. People have had enough of the abuse, being subjected to various commercials in between their favorite shows and weeding through magazine ads to find the articles they care about most. Content marketing gives companies the chance to create their own compelling stories without third-party ads, and the practice works," according to a post on Brafton.

"According to a new report from BusinessBolts.com, which surveyed 265 marketers, content creation has become an active component to promotional strategies everywhere. In fact, approximately 74 percent of marketers say they use branded content to increase website traffic and build brand awareness. To drive traffic back to websites, content writers must optimize their media using SEO best practices, and take a narrow focus to their creative processes. The survey noted that marketers' biggest pressing question is how to leverage SEO content for greater site visibility and PageRank." Read more.

Small Businessmen Opt for LinkedIn--Ignoring Twitter and Facebook

“LinkedIn is gaining ground, now home to 200 million monthly active users, and small businesses are taking advantage. According to a survey conducted by the Wall Street Journal and Vistage International, LinkedIn is believed to be the network with the most potential for driving ROI, especially for smaller businesses,” according to a post on Brafton. “Forty-one percent believe that LinkedIn is the top network, followed by 14 percent who choose Facebook and 3 percent who give the credit to Twitter. Ken Lopez, leader of a legal consulting firm, told the Wall Street Journal that LinkedIn brings dramatically different results when compared to what his company sees from Twitter.” Read more.

Indy 500 Goes Instagram

“The hashtag -- which is intended to capture the overall experience and history of the race -- will also be used in the Indy 500's other social channels, although an exact launch date for the overall promotion is unclear. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is using Venueseen technology to capture tagged fan images on Instagram. Along with images from drivers, teams and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway itself, these photos will eventually appear plotted on a map on a microsite” (Lacy, 2013).

Lacy, Lisa (Jan. 17, 2013). Indy 500 revs up for Instagram promo. ClickZ.com. Retrieved from <Dhttp://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2236948/indy-500-revs-up-for-instagram-promo>.

Seeing Video In-Stream with Twitter

“Ooyala has showed off its Twitter Video Card solution with a campaign from ESPN. Ooyala provides a platform for online video management, publishing, analytics and monetization. The new functionality lets Ooyala customers quickly embed clickable clips into tweets for instant playback. The new feature inserts a thumbnail of the video directly into the stream, so that followers can play it without leaving Twitter. In addition to making a company's Twitter feed more interesting, embedded video can also increase discovery of other content from that publisher, according to Brian Theodore, group product manager for insight and optimization at Ooyala. 'Before, you could tweet the link to a video, but the only action users had was to click through. Video Card keeps the experience in the stream,' he said” (Kuchinskas, 2013).

Kuchinskas, Susan. (Jan. 25, 2013). Ooyala lets ESPN embed video in tweets. ClickZ.com. Retrieved from <http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2239217/ooyala-lets-espn-embed-video-in-tweets>.

Impact of Rich Media Ads

"One thing that's become apparent throughout this growing stage is that interactive display ads outperform static display ads. Rich media ads provide six times higher engagement rates and are much better at capturing your audience's attention. On top of this, rich ads offer more than 150 measurable elements so that you can track what's working and what's not," according to a ClickZ post. "Brands that use interactive, rich media ads see a 300 percent to 1,000 percent increase in ad interactions. That's one of the reasons that probably explains why the use of video in online advertising is predicted to grow by 55 percent in the U.S. by 2016." Read more.

Will Google Users Revolt?

"Over the past six weeks, critics of [Google's privacy change]... have amassed a number of arguments. Google, they say, cannot make this change because it violates a 2011 consent agreement between Google and the Federal Trade Commission regarding privacy. More recently, it has been suggested that Google’s new privacy policy violates EU rules, according to ABC News." That is a portion of the post from Marketing Vox. Read more.

Following Viewers, Marketers Turning to Smaller Social Networks

"While Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have been at the top of the social media heap in the US for several years now, new services and relaunched versions of older ones are rapidly gaining popularity among consumers and marketers," according to eMarketer. "One such site is Pinterest, where users and marketers alike can create online “pinboards” that showcase their taste and creativity. "    Read more.

Social Network Ad Revenue Continues Climb

"eMarketer expects global social network ad revenues to climb nearly 50% this year to $7.72 billion, up from $5.2 billion in 2011. Just under half of all revenues will come from a single market, the US." Read more.

Sunday's Grammy's Helps with Marketing--Sort Of!

"Sunday night's Grammy Awards crept into web conversation on Monday morning, dominating search and social trends just as the Super Bowl did one week ago," notes Brafton."Based on data from Google trends, "grammys 2012" was among the most frequently searched terms throughout Monday, with the awards show accounting for nine of the 10 most popular search terms overall. As is the case with most other major events, content marketing campaigns that leveraged this topic likely saw increased interest from their readers. Moreover, social media marketing likely benefited from the Grammys as well, with the event trending late Sunday and into Monday morning. Pop star Adele was one of the most frequently discussed topics." Read more.

Merchants Pay for Favorable Reviews

" In the brutal world of online commerce, where a competing product is just a click away, retailers need all the juice they can get to close a sale," according to a New York Times post. "Some exalt themselves by anonymously posting their own laudatory reviews. Now there is an even simpler approach: offering a refund to customers in exchange for a write-up." Read more of the New York Times post.

Consumers Pissed about Privacy

"For the past two years, each company {Google+ and Facebook] has experimented with different ways to divine more and more about how people live their lives on the Internet, without sparking a revolt," according to a post on USAToday Tech. "But the plans the rivals announced on Tuesday, which critics say could dramatically rev up their respective abilities to gather intelligence on individual Internet users, seem to have struck a chord. An informal and unscientific survey of Web users by USA TODAY found a majority speaking out against the new business practices announced by Google and Facebook." Read more of the USAToday post.

Online Spending Up

"U.S. marketers spent 14% more on search engine ads, and 7-8% more on mobile ads in Q4 2011 over Q4 2010. The search ad spend was 'bolstered by aggressive spending by retailers,' observes Efficient Frontier, the Adobe-owned digital marketing company that compiled the data. While search spend grew 14%, retail specifically grew by 18% and 40% in Q4 over Q3. Meanwhile, cost-per-clicks (CPCs) dropped 5% due to a rise in mobile advertising where clicks are less costly" (Search Engine, 2012). Read more.

Search engine ad spend up 14%, mobile up 7%. Media Buyer Planner. Retrieved from http://www.mediabuyerplanner.com/entry/109659/search-engine-ad-spend-up-14-mobile-up-7/

Display and Search (Including Social) Ad Spending Increasing

"Despite the still-shaky economy, marketers continue to increase their investments in search engine marketing, according to several reports. For paid search, strong third-quarter spending increases of more than 20% were tallied in reports from Covario, Rimm-Kaufman Group and Efficient Frontier/Context Optional, and Facebook Ads' cost-per-click rose due to increased competition there. The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) said in October it expects digital channels to continue to increase their share of the marketing budget from 19% in 2011 to 21% in 2012. The two largest components of Internet advertising — search and display — will both grow by more than 18%, the DMA said" (Plug-ins, 2011). Read more.

Plug-ins: search marketing (Dec. 1, 2011). Direct Marketing News. Retrieved from http://www.dmnews.com/plug-ins-search-marketing/article/217274/.

Tips for Analyzing a Social Media Campaign

"To build your brand encompassing the shorthand marketing messages that create emotional bonds with consumers built into your social media marketing, break it into its component parts and consider how to apply each to your social media execution and content." That's the beginning of a seven-step ClickZ program for building brand awareness on social media. Read more.

Google Adds +1 Button to Display Ads

"Beginning in October, the search and ads giant will affix +1 buttons to ads in its behemoth Google Display Network," reports ClickZ. "Mobile and desktop ad units across the network will carry the +1 badge, which is the Google equivalent of Facebook's 'Like' button. Importantly, small footnotes at the bottom of each ad will show how many others have '+1'd' it. In cases where an individual's Google+ friend has +1'd an ad, the ad will reflect that and possibly show the friend's Google profile image." Read more. In theory, this will 'send' every ad for which someone has clicked the +1 button into the social networking world--bypassing giant Facebook.

Social Networks Still Growing

"In 2011, 63.7% of US internet users will use social networks on a regular basis, amounting to nearly 148 million people. Although the pace of growth will be less dramatic in the next few years than it was in 2009 and 2010, usage will remain strong and shows no sign of declining. Marketers and media companies alike now know that in order to reach their audience, they must have a presence on social networks," goes the post on eMarketer.com.