Making the Web More Social for Marketers

"The NFL, Pepsi, Hearst, and Carnival Cruise Lines have signed on to use ReachBuddy, an app extension tool unveiled this morning by social software company Buddy Media. The offering builds on Buddy Media’s ProfileBuddy, which helps marketers create Facebook apps. ReachBuddy will allow the NFL, for example, to deploy its apps on NFL.com or other properties," according to ClickZ....Pepsi, a beta partner, has already put ReachBuddy into action. It recently created an app to distribute video on Pepsi.com around the Fox reality TV show The X Factor, which the beverages and snacks company has been sponsoring." Read more.

Toyota Launches New SN Contest

"If you love playing games on Facebook and if your interested in winning a trip to Japan, Toyota has just the just the thing for you. The carmaker yesterday debuted "Social Network Racer," a contest centered on a video game where players worldwide will compete while "test-driving" a new concept sports car that will premiere at the Tokyo Motor Show in December," reports a post on ClickZ. "First reported by AllFacebook.com, the campaign goes through Dec. 31 and is running solely on Toyota's Facebook page for the initiative. The game, which requires Flash Player 11 for 3D, lets players create and host races, and also uses each player's Facebook profile information." Read more.

Snapple on Facebook Upsets Women

"Dr Pepper Snapple Group has upset some female consumers on Facebook with a new ad campaign," according to ClickZ. "Utilizing the tagline "It's Not For Women," the Plano, TX-based company was a national Facebook advertiser on Tuesday while pushing the new Dr. Pepper Ten product, a 10-calorie diet soda aimed at men." Read more.

Timberland Goes Mobile with Marketing

"Timberland is striding into mobile in a big way, with a mobile-optimized website that went live in late August and a series of live events featuring enhanced product information via QR codes kicking off on October 19.
'e’ve been hearing about the emergence of mobile for some time. Smartphones obviously changed everything quite dramatically and we felt that getting a mobile-optimized site was the next logical step,' says Heather Frost, North American commerce manager for Timberland. She adds that the company already has seen positive results in sales since the mobile site went live," reports ClickZ.

New Motion Picture Uses Facebook

DMNews reports that "Universal Pictures launched a Facebook scavenger hunt on Oct. 12 in support of its film Tower Heist. The movie studio is working with interactive agency The Branding Farm and technology company Ifeelgoods on the campaign." Read more.

Google Earns $2.5 Billion in Mobile Ad Sales

"Google is on track to earn $2.5 billion this year in mobile ad sales, Larry Page told investors during Google's third quarter earnings call today," says ClickZ. "That growth is led by mobile search activity, with mobile display ads a lesser factor." Read more.

Google Losing in Terms of Display Advertising

"Google sits on a huge pile of search intent data, but does not use it directly to improve display ad targeting - a business the company admits is integral to its future. What gives?" That's the post on ClickZ. "The question has been raised by some people in Google's display ad operation, according to sources. These staffers have expressed frustration that they can't leverage Google users' search queries to create customized ads outside the search environment. Use of such data would result in more personalized offers, better ad performance, and ultimately more revenue for Google." Read more.

Ranking of Websites Share of Market in September

Ranking of websites in Sept. 2011 (comScore, 2011)

Smartphones and Tablets Gaining Steam

comScore, Inc. , released the report Digital Omnivores: How Tablets, Smartphones and Connected Devices are Changing U.S. Digital Media Consumption Habits. "Key findings highlighted in the report include:

• "Mobile phones drive digital traffic around the world, while tablets are gaining steam. The share of non-computer traffic for the U.S. stood at 6.8 percent in August 2011, with approximately two-thirds of that traffic coming from mobile phones, and tablets accounting for much of the remainder.
• "Increased WiFi availability and mobile broadband adoption in the U.S. are helping drive connectivity. In August 2011, more than one third (37.2 percent) of U.S. digital traffic coming from mobile phones occurred via a WiFi connection. This percentage grew nearly 3 points in just the past three months. On the other hand, tablets, which traditionally required a WiFi connection to access the Internet, are increasingly driving traffic using mobile broadband access. In August, nearly 10 percent of traffic from tablets occurred via a mobile network connection." Read more.

L'Oreal Turns to Content Marketing

BraftonNews reports that "Global cosmetics company L’Oreal is implementing a multi-faceted content marketing campaign to target consumers in the U.S., Advertising Age said in a report on Thursday. As part of a plan to increase its consumer base by 1 billion in the next 10 years, L’Oreal believes a content marketing strategy that focuses heavily on original articles and SEO will help boost its web visibility and conversions. According to Advertising Age, L’Oreal is allocating a separate budget for its content and web marketing strategies – leaving its traditional marketing dollars largely unaffected." Read more.


Advertising Age notes that "L'Oreal is dramatically increasing its digital spending in the U.S., boosting its outlay for original content development as it shifts some of its focus from brand and product awareness toward consumer evaluation and advocacy online, said Marc Speichert, the company's U.S. CMO, in a media briefing in New York on Thursday." Read more.

15 Steps to Judging a Social Network Marketing Campaign

People cannot measure the success of a social network marketing program merely by touting the number of "likes," notes ClickZ. "A big step toward a practical approach to social media marketing involves an understanding of customer social preferences and needs along with how the business will meet those needs through social media engagement." Read the 15 steps to judging the success.

More Americans Accessing WWW from Mobile Devices

ClickZ reports that "Americans are spending more time than ever surfing the Internet away from their desks. Mobile devices and tablets were responsible for nearly 7 percent of all digital traffic in the U.S. in August, according to a new study from ComScore." Read more.

APA Again

Apparently some of us have been mixing up MLA and APA. (Some have even created their own versions of citation.) Here's the correct version as reported on the Purdue University website called Owl:

For a works cited page listing:
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date of publication). Title of article. Title of Online Periodical, volume number(issue number if available). Retrieved from http://www.someaddress.com/full/url/

If there is no date of publication, put (n.d.). If there is a month and day, (Year, Month day).

For in-text citations:
(Author's Surname, year).

If the website does not list an author:
(Two words from title, year).

In-text citations should appear as follows:
....the end of the quotation" (Author's Surname, year).

If you have any additional questions, go to http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/.

Oscar Mayer Spells App 'Sandwichemos'

"Meat products brand Oscar Mayer added an app to parent company Kraft Foods' Spanish-language Facebook page on Oct. 7 that is geared toward Hispanic consumers. The brand worked with digital agency 360i on the initiative," according to a DMNews post. "Those who interact with the 'Sandwichemos' app are asked to assign a sandwich ingredient to a family member. They can then share the completed sandwich on Facebook." Read more.

Audi Tunes into Drivers' Frustrations

Do you want to get an idea of how complex a social network/Internet marketing campaign can become? Read the following from ClickZ:

Audi knows that buyers of high-end autos are quick to rant about potholes and lousy drivers, so TV ads for the newly launched 2012 Audi A6 commiserate with those feelings. But how to channel that misery on the digital front? The answer is the Road Frustration Index, which quantifies the real-time status of traffic, accidents, weather and unhappy tweets on the roadways in major U.S. cities.
The branded index (visit site), still in beta, is presented in the form of a map that’s designed to make it easy to compare current driving conditions in various cities. To turn the idea of a misery index for drivers into a reality, Audi of America and its digital agency AKQA connected with MIT’s SENSEable City Lab. The lab has worked with Audi for years on researching intelligent city transportation through the use of data. AKQA collaborated with the lab to craft the algorithm that drives the index and to refine the index infographics.  Including social media sentiment makes the RFI more subjective - and potentially a more riveting marketing tool - than a straightforward collection of facts. Drivers’ feelings are captured from keywords on Twitter, such as "traffic jam." And Twitter sentiment doesn’t always follow conditions. For instance, on the evening of Oct. 5, outspoken drivers in Philadelphia ranked very frustrated even though their road conditions did not rank as particularly bad.

Read more.

Facebook and Twitter Gaining in Advertising

ClickZ reports that Facebook's "partner, Nielsen, reported on Monday that broad targeting (e.g., adults aged 18 to 54) for ads across the web - excluding Facebook - is far more effective than narrow targeting (e.g., women 18 to 34). The former tactic hits the mark 72 percent of the time, according to a Nielsen blog post, while narrow targeting only produced the same result at 35 percent. David Fischer, Facebook VP of advertising and global operation, ...[then added that] Facebook ads that use broad targeting hit the mark by more than 95 percent, while narrow targeting on the social site achieves at least 90 percent. Meanwhile, Adam Bain, Twitter's chief revenue officer, said at the IAB MIXX conference on Tuesday that his company now has 1,600 brand advertisers. This includes the micro-blogging site's Promoted Tweets, Promoted Products, and Promoted Trends products. Around the same time last year, Twitter only had a handful of paid advertisers." Read more.

Consumer Packaged Goods Like "Like"

"CPG [Consumer Packaged Goods] brands dig the like button. According to comScore, Mars, Kraft, Procter & Gamble, Sara Lee and other CPG giants are incorporating links to Facebook, like buttons, and other social sharing elements in their display ads. Mars, Kraft, and Energizer top the August 2011 chart, which shows the share of advertisers' total display impressions that incorporate social capabilities or are intended to push users to their social pages," according to ClickZ. Read more.

Brand Awareness Improves with Good Social Media Marketing

Brafton reports that "businesses that claim success with social media marketing have found that brand awareness, prospect and client engagement and recruiting are the areas most positively impacted by the channel, SelectMinds found in a recent study." Read more.

Global Advertising Spending Probably Down for 2011

"ZenithOptimedia has revised down its 2011 global advertising spending forecast by half a percentage point due to slower economic recovery in developing markets and continued fears of a double-dip recession," reports DMNews. "Still, total ad investment this year is expected to improve 3.6% to $466 billion, up from $450 billion last year, with digital media continuing to drive growth. In the U.S., total ad spending on major media is projected to grow 2.2% this year over last year." Read more.

Companies Getting Series about Social Media

"A new study by Booz & Company and Buddy Media, shows that social media is coming into its own as a customer service tool, a way of conducting market research and even a way to handle internal communications," according to a MarketingPilgrim post. "It all points to the fact that companies of every size are getting serious about social media and that means more money and resources going to support the cause." Read more.