How To Use Social Media For Advertising. Advertising and marketing go hand-in-hand while being two very different areas of business. While marketing works to position the company for success, advertising is done with the goal in mind of getting the brand out there and promoting specific announcements, products, or services. Social media can be effectively used for advertising, and has been in the past to some success. Unfortunately, many companies try to use social media as a single-purpose tool instead of seeing the whole picture. Here are some tips on how to use social media for advertising: Don’t Advertise Directly This seems like a complete counter to what many advertising executives have grown to know for decades. Try to position your advertisement in a way that reflects the community you’re trying to grab.
People expect TV commercials to tell them about how great something is, or position it in a way that makes it look cool. Create Something Entertaining Build on What Works Be Genuine Be Quick Be Open.
First Annual Digital IQ Rankings Released: 100 Public Sector Organizations For Social Media Savvy and Online Strategy. Tuesday, 23rd November 2010 First Annual Digital IQ Rankings Released: 100 Public Sector Organizations For Social Media Savvy and Online Strategy This is the first annual Digital IQ Index from the George Washington University Business School has been released. From the Announcement: Authored by dean of GW’s School of Business (GWSB), Doug Guthrie, NYU Stern Professor Scott Galloway and a team of experts from L2, the index measures and ranks public sector organizations’ Digital IQs across four dimensions: effectiveness of an organization's site, digital marketing, social media and mobile platforms.
The index found that while digital participation was nearly widespread across the 100 public sector organizations studied, most organizations are still taking an old media approach. The categories created for the organizations analyzed are: independent agencies, executive branch, advocacy organizations, armed forces, political parties, industry associations and multilateral organizations. 1. Spling. DIASPORA* ALPHA. Django | The Web framework for perfectionists with deadlines. Groupon Files For IPO While Google Offers Could Be Its “Next Billion Dollar Business” Google took its first daily deal baby steps yesterday with the launch of its first Google Offer in Portland. It was reportedly a hit for the business owner and a success for Google.
According to CNET and ClickZ the first customer hit Floyd’s Coffee Shop within about 10 minutes of the offer going live. Overall, ClickZ reported that 1,708 vouchers out of a possible 2,000 were sold. Today’s Google Offer (a billiards club) has sold 432 out of 500 possible. So far, so good for Google. Meanwhile just about 2,000 miles away Groupon, the bellwether for the daily deals segment, just filed its S-1 form supporting the company’s forthcoming IPO.
Revenue Growth Amazing The Groupon S-1 numbers are really big: $713 million revenue in 2010 but $420 million in losses$645 million in revenue in Q1 2011 with $117 in losses This year Groupon is on track to do nearly $3 billion in revenue. Offers Google’s “Next Billion Dollar Business”? Google a Direct Competitor, Groupon Poached Google VP. How did Groupon build a 2,000+ person salesforce in 2 years. Groupon Signals Possible Future Plans With Pelago Buy. Groupon’s purchase of Pelago, the parent company of Whrrl, offers an interesting glimpse into what the local daily deals powerhouse might be up to next. With the acquisition, which was for an undisclosed amount, Groupon gets a team that’s been focused on consumer check-ins at local businesses and offering relevant suggestions — similar to the area that players like Foursquare and Gowalla are focused on. Whrrl also allowed consumers to join affinity groups and built brand communities around interests, such as the Del Monte Kibbles & Bits “I love dogs” group.
Matching that expertise with Groupon’s sales force, its advertisers, and its consumer base, would seem to be very compelling — allowing Groupon to move beyond “daily deals” in various cities to offering mobile “on the spot” deals based on anything from location, to interests, to previous check-ins. “Think of it as the end of the first act of a long and complex play. Related Topics: Channel: Local | Groupon | Top News.
Groupon May Expire Sooner Than Expected. The more I read about Groupon (GRPN) and its hyper-growth and rapid expansion, the more I kept thinking the story sounded familiar, like someone I know had lived through it before ... and then I realized that someone was me. A little more than a decade ago, fresh out of college and ready to conquer the world, I found myself squarely in the middle of the dot-com boom. I was determined to take advantage of the hysteria and used my experience (in retrospect I really knew absolutely nothing) to land a senior consultant role at Internet superstar, Commerce One. A 20 billion dollar business-to-business ((B2B)) powerhouse at the time, Commerce One built B2B exchanges in different vertical markets that allowed businesses to send "transactions" to one another.
These transactions could be any business related electronic document, such as a purchase order, invoice or shipping notice. "Most of her stock options just vested and she cashed out. that was the broker calling to tell her she can retire. How Yelp Crushed Citysearch & Yahoo Local … & Why Google Is Stealing Yelp’s Playbook. A fascinating study published last year compares the reviews and reviewers at three local business websites: Yelp, Citysearch and Yahoo Local. And, in explaining how Yelp overtook the other two, it also hints — in my opinion — at how Google is trying to beat Yelp by using Yelp’s own playbook. Citysearch and Yahoo Local were the two dominant websites for online business reviews early in the 2000s. Yelp has far surpassed both now and has the biggest review collection on the web; it reported passing 17 million reviews last month, and doubled its regular rate of reviews with about two million added just in the first quarter of this year.
Why has Yelp succeeded where the others have failed? Zhongmin Wang, an economics professor at Northeastern University, looks at that question in his study, Anonymity, Social Image, and the Competition for Volunteers: A Case Study of the Online Market for Reviews (PDF download, 320k). [They] “made minimal attempts to attract reviewers. No Anonymity Friends. Yelp | Digital Media Wire. IfOnly Raises $12 Million for the A-list Experiences AllThingsD reports that IfOnly has raised $12 million to expand its “marketplace for experiences” offerings. The San Francisco-based company is led by longtime entrepreneur Trevor Traina. The website focuses on providing events with top luminaries in sports, cooking and entertainment. .
Read More Yelp Acquires SeatMe Yelp Inc. TechCrunch: Yelp Announces A New ‘Revenue Estimator’ For Small-Scale Businesses TechCrunch reports that Yelp has just announced a brand new feature designed to showcase and assess the value that the listing and review site offers up small businesses. 2 comments Crashlytics Acquired by Twitter Crashlytics, a crash-reporting tool designed to help mobile app developers for both iOS and Android, announced in a blog post today that it is being acquired by Twitter. Yelp names former press secretary Robert Gibbs to board one comment Yelp IPO gets five-star reviews. Is There a Social Media Tech Bubble? [INFOGRAPHIC] Valuations of social media companies are starting to remind us of 1999. But are they overvalued? Now that Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion, LinkedIn's IPO valued the company at $8.9 billion after its first day of trading, and Facebook's estimated value is pushing $100 billion, you might be starting to wonder if buying into user numbers rather than revenue is a good idea.
Social media site G+, a community of professionals, entrepreneurs and academics, put together this detailed infographic that lays it all out in front of you. Take a look at these valuations and let us know in the comments if you think this is getting out of hand: (Click here for enlargement) Infographic courtesy Gplus.com. Finding Answers Online: Social Networks Vs. Search Engines. Now more than ever, people are flocking to the Internet to find information. Newspaper circulation has gone down at a rapid rate, while the era of smartphones, tablets, and the Internet continues to grow. In February 2010, Search Engine Land reported that there are 34,000 Google searches per second.
That is a lot of people looking for information. Search engine queries and information read on blogs, social networks, and other websites make up the majority of answers to questions online. With the continuous growth of technology, one thing remains the same since our grandparents’ grandparents were alive: public opinion and sharing your experiences with others. The Internet gives us this same platform, but with a larger audience and at an accelerated rate. Instant Gratification Online People use the Internet to find information because in many cases, it provides instant results. A study between Microsoft and MIT entitled “What Do People Ask Their Social Networks, and Why?
Search Sends More & Better Traffic To Content Sites Than Social Media, Study Says. Search is the number one source of external traffic for content sites, handily beating social media by more than 300%. That’s according to the Content Discovery and Engagement Report, Q1 2011 from Outbrain, makers of a popular widget platform that’s used on dozens of major publisher sites such as USA Today, Slate, Newsweek and others. In looking at traffic from 100 million sessions in the first quarter of this year, Outbrain found that search drove 41% of external traffic, with other content sites (31%), portals (17%) and social media (11%) coming behind.
(Outbrain lists AOL Search under the “Search” category, but AOL itself under “Portal.” Ditto for Yahoo search vs. Yahoo. Other portals include Yahoo and MSN.) Not surprisingly, Google was the primary source of referral traffic to sites in Outbrain’s network, directing almost nine times more traffic than the average site referrer. Search traffic is also quality traffic, according to Outbrain’s study. Does LinkedIn Beat Twitter In B2B Social Media? I help both B2C and B2B companies with Social Media and other types of Internet Marketing. In my development of Social Media strategies and tactics for B2B companies, I’ve come to a shocking conclusion: Twitter is overrated. I realize this is a controversial opinion for Social Media enthusiasts. Believe me, I drank the Twitter Kool-Aid throughout 2008 and 2009. I’ve posted more than 16,000 tweets to my 32,000 followers. The Bias of Most Social Media Gurus If you only listen to Social Media “Gurus”, you would think Twitter is the most important Social Media site.
What I discovered while consulting with B2B companies and formulating B2B Social Media strategies that fit their sales, marketing, and PR worlds is: Most popular Social Media strategies were created for B2C companies. This emphasis on Twitter doesn’t make sense when you consider the facts. B2B marketing and sales prospecting needs to focus on the right people, and that is: key decision makers and executives. Flickr Photo credits: LinkedIn Lauches a Social News Site. If Digg and its myriad imitators were part of “social news 1.0″ then a recent wave of personalized news sites, including Flipboard and Zite for the iPad, among others represent social news 2.0 (sorry).
You can add LinkedIn today to that list. This is a breakout product for the company that could become highly successful and build much increased levels of engagement and potentially even revenue. Whereas many of the personalized or social news platforms have little or no brand recognition, LinkedIn’s brand is much more visible and widely known. LinkedIn Today is entirely consistent with that brand.
It’s at once obvious and seems to come out of nowhere. Until very recently LinkedIn appeared to be a staid and stodgy network beside the sexier and faster-moving Facebook and Twitter. However, Linkedin Today may change all that. The creation of LinkedIn Groups and Twitter integration made LinkedIn somewhat more “engaging” and increased usage frequency. Carter Group CEO Says LinkedIn Better Than Twitter for B2B Marketers. B2B companies are planning dramatic spend increases for Social Media.
Many of the common Social Media strategies that work for B2C companies do not work for B2B marketing and sales efforts. Myrtle Beach, SC, March 15, 2011 --(PR.com)-- Carter Group CEO Brian Carter claims that most Social Media gurus over-emphasize the importance of Twitter in B2B marketing. In a new March 2011 blog post entitled "Does LinkedIn Beat Twitter In B2B Social Media? ," Carter shares insights and strategies gained from his work creating customized social media training for B2B marketers.
"We surveyed the most popular books and blogs on Social Media and found that 95% of the advice was for B2C companies specifically, and only 3% of the material mentioned tactics focused on getting sales," said Carter. The business information service eMarketer predicts B2B Social Media spending will grow from $11MM in 2009 to $54MM by 2014. "Most B2B businesses have only dipped their toes in the water," explains Carter. Using LinkedIn to Get More Sales. LinkedIn Finally Officially Unveils Self-Service PPC Ads. After more than two years of beta testing, LinkedIn’s self-service PPC ad offering, now called LinkedIn Ads, officially launched today.
The service, launched in beta in July 2008 under the name LinkedIn DirectAds, originally offered targeting by geography, job function, industry, company size, seniority, age and gender. Now, with the official wide release, advertisers will also be able to target by exact job title, company name or LinkedIn Group. Related Topics: Channel: Search Marketing | Search Marketing. LinkedIn Goes Public.
FB. Twitter. Placecast and AT&T Launch Geo-fenced Mobile “ShopAlerts” Mobile carrier AT&T is introducing location-based “ShopAlerts” with Placecast in four US cities: NY, SF, Chicago and LA. This is opt-in “push” marketing via SMS or MMS tied to “geo-fences.” Privacy is a non-issue because of the opt-in dimension. Once a user has opted-in, which can happen on AT&T’s site, Facebook or many other places (e.g., display ads online) that person will receive alerts (offers, promotions) when he or she physically enters the designated local area, which is defined by the advertiser (e.g., a mile from retail store XYZ). Initial advertisers that have signed on include HP, Kmart, JetBlue, SC Johnson, Kibbles ‘n Bits, Nature’s Recipe and the National Milk Mustache “got milk?”
Campaign. Nearly 100 percent of mobile phones today can send and receive SMS messages, thus giving a program like this much greater potential reach than mobile Web or app-based advertising. Yellow Pages Industry Association Changes Name To Focus On “Local Search” NO PROBLEM's Blog.