Enterprise Social Networking: Focus on Relationships (Altimeter Report)

February 22, 2012 by jeremiah_owyang

Altimeter’s latest report now on Enterprise (inside of companies) social networking is now out from Charlene Li, author of Groundswell, Open Leadership and my business partner. She conducted thorough analysis by surveying 185 users, surveyed 81 ESN decision makers and interviewed 12 technology vendors.

Key findings that attracted my eye include:

1. Long term adoption often unsuccessful beyond one department. What’s interesting is there’s lots of initial enthusiasm but a slow decline after deployment. In many cases, primary adoption occurred in the marketing/product section, IT, followed by sales and corporate communication.
2. Highest adoption of fremium tools. Interesting breakdown of vendors, with self-service Yammer in the lead, followed by Chatter and Tellingent and IBM connections.   What’s interesting is these fremium tools enter the market, get their hooks in and grow adoption and switch to premium offerings.
3. Companies are measuring in the wrong way. Lack of metrics (or measuring the wrong way) by focusing on measuring conversations or engagement –rather than measuring improvement in relationships

Who said social media will reduce emails?
What’s interesting is that enterprise social networks don’t actually reduce internal email. The report also includes an actionable plan to get started, while there’s lots of details in the bullet points (filled with real world examples from real research interviews), they include four ways ESNs drive business value, including: 1) Encourage Sharing, 2) Capture Knowledge, 3) Enable Action, and 4) Empower people.

Open Research: Use it, Share it, and We’ll Publish More
We’re continuing to publish reports, and have a growing archive on our site, and will be doing a variety of webinars in support of these research findings. If you found them helpful, we look forward to you engaging with us in the conversation, and appreciate you using, sharing, and applying the findings.

You’ll find the full report embedded below which you can download, print and share, also read Charlene’s post.

Altimeter Report: Making The Business Case for Enterprise Social Networks

View more documents from Altimeter Group Network on SlideShare

Pinterest: Essential or Beguiling?

February 20, 2012 by John Bell

Almost everything you need to know about Pinterest is conveniently wedged into this infographic from lemon.ly. It reaches women like no other social platform. It delivers more traffic than YouTube, Google+ and LInkedIN combined (kind of like saying a country is bigger than Iran, Turkey and Pakistan combined – sounds like a lot but less than Russia, Australia and Brazil combined). Pinterest is growing very fast. 

Many brands are jumping on board. This raises the obvious question as to whether Pinterest is worth the energy and effort now or whether brands should wait. Is it essential to your business? Or is it an innovative platform for you and therefore worth some resources? Or is it simply beguiling – waiting to charm or enchant you and divert you from more meaningful programs? This last risk is a big one.

In Altimeter’s latest report on Content: The New Marketing Equation, Rebecca Lieb cautions,

“Bright, shiny objects, i.e. a fixation on newer channels and technologies, can distract from foundational channels, e.g. search, written content, such as blogs, and educational content.”  

Certainly many marketers are skeptical and even disgusted with the amount of attention Pinterest has earned. As a marketer, I don’t worry about that. None of us really know whether Pinterest will become a significant platform or become the next Empire Avenue (hey, even MySpace is making a comeback!)It’s more important to evaluate this platform and the others vying for attention and resources based upon how it can help your business today.

It’s Essential

If you are an ecommerce offering catering to women, you should jump on board now. Many retailers are doing just that. The number one ecommerce retailer in this space is Etsy. The haystack nature of that marketplace seems ideally suited for the visual curation that Pinterest delivers. The most remarkable Pinterest quality is really the women. While Instagram is also big with women, it doesn’t have the same referral traffic as Pinterest. If you have a product collection well-suited to this curation, have a storefront/product page to point people to and sell to women, then Pinterest is an easier choice. While you are figuring out the value of the “engagement” metrics (pin-ing and sharing, essentially), you can still look to count the referral traffic which is already a valuable KPI for online stores. 

A Worthy Innovation   

I certainly know plenty of big brands who are going all in on Facebook. Anything else – even Twitter – is a distraction. That may be a dangerous single-mindedness. We are all pushing our organization’s ability to adapt to new customer and stakeholder behaviors. We need to learn. We need to learn how to cope with the flood of choices available to people out there. Should you be on Google+? I think that one is a good bet. It may take another six months to understand its business impact but experimentation via limited investment is the only way to figure it out. 

If you want to specifically engage women who are energized by fashion, food, home design, graphic design or hobby, then it may be worth some effort and investment. These categories do seem to dominate and you can see it in the most followed users.

If you have a collection of visual images to share that are of natural interest to people or if your brand intersects with a theme/meme already gaining traction, then that gives you one more good reason to engage. It doesn’t make sense to take this platform on if you don’t already have the picture content or the theme that lends itself to pinning (bookmarking) images.

Give yourself a time constraint like 2-3 hours a week. Pick out the likely KPIs that might show progress from click-throughs to followers and likes. Benchmark yourself against other similar brands or against ones you aspire to being compared to. Every brand should have some tolerance for innovating on new platforms. With a logical decision tree and quarterly evaluations, it’s possible to keep the level of effort reasonable. 

Just Plain Beguiling

The simplest filter is women. If you are trying to engage C-suite decision makers (let’s face it – predominantly men) you are pretty far off your target. If you have no picture assets (e.g. catalogs) or objects that capture people’s interest, then the level of effort to create them and hope they are of intrinsic interest to people just isn’t worth it. The reason we are intrigued by Pinterest is the natural growth of the platform. Our job must be to understand it and make use of it, not try and game it.

SEO Blogger is skeptical of Pinterest’s value today. He outlines a scenario to evaluate its potential based upon a crude ROI model. As a solo-practitioner, his criteria makes sense. For brands considering the platform, we are way off any ROI that matters. Simply know the platform, judge whether it is essential, innovative or merely beguiling and go from there. 

Great Pinterest pages:

• Etsy – probabaly the top page, how else can you find these must-have rings 
• West Elm – I love their collections. If I was currently shopping for furniture, thsi woudl definitely make it easier and more enjoyable
• Michael’s Stores – how else can you make sense of all the craft supplies these guys sell? 

Twitter Opens Up Self-Serve Ad Platform to 10,000 Small Businesses

February 17, 2012 by (author unknown)

Self-serve is expected to be a cornerstone of Twitter’s revenue growth, though its contribution will be small early on while it looks to scale the number of small businesses using its platform.

Social Business: We’re Just Getting Started

February 15, 2012 by jeremiah_owyang

Recently, folks suggested that social business space was getting washed out, especially with Social Media Week spreading across the globe and being hosted at many corporations. Yet despite the interesting and activity around this topic, many folks are confused around what maturity really looks like. Managing a Facebook page to promote the latest campaign isn’t really social business, it’s just social added to existing interactive marketing.

I was talking with industry peer Michael Brito (former Intel and now at Edelman) about the maturity of the space at Cisco’s social media week yesterday, and we both agree this space is just heating up. But don’t listen to us, instead, let’s review a sample from a recent Altimeter Report on Social Business of what actual corporate decision makers said in a recent survey:

Figure 1: Only the Most Advanced Companies are Conducting Social Business Holistically, Beyond Individual Silos

Figure 2: Advanced Companies are Formalizing Processes to Intake Customer Insights

Figure 3: Only the Most Advanced Companies Are Integrating Social Data into Customer Databases

Let’s take a look at this data, to understand why the social business space is still very immature:

The Industry Isn’t Mature, Few Have Reached Advanced
Altimeter’s research often segments buyers by their maturity, as it helps to forecast future behaviors and we wanted to share this today. First note this maturity breakout of these corporations (many of which are global national) that have over 1000 employees: novice are 44, intermediate 81, and advanced are 18. Percentage wise, we see that 56% of the 143 are lumped in the intermediate stages, followed by 30% of the market in novice, and followed by the remaining advanced a mere 12% of the set. What does this mean? While most companies are past the experimentation stage, they’ve yet to roll these out across the corporation or think bigger than campaigns or specific business units.

Limited Integration Across Business Units, Products, and Customer Databases
Looking at Figure 1, we can see that many companies are not even integrating this across their enterprise. We know from data that rollout usually starts in Marketing (with a segment of that being corp comm), followed by customer support who has to respond to angry clients, followed by product teams, and then low adoption for partner ecosystem and supply chain. One sign of an advance company is the ability to integrate customer feedback into the product roadmap in Figure 2. We know this is a sign of maturity as it requires both vertical approval from executives and broad approval across product lines and beyond –it’s often against the culture of many engineering groups. Lastly, in Figure 3, companies barely even have a full view of their customers in the social space, as data is siloed among brand monitoring, locked in Facebook apps, and spread among the company.

Understand What Advanced Corporations Look LIke
There’s a few criteria I look for when seeing if a company is advanced beyond the three figures presented above. Nearly all employees are using social in a safe and organized way (called Holistic). Another criteria is data is being aggregated from multiple locations and the company is able to predict and anticipate what customers are going to do. Thirdly, they stop using the terms ‘social business’ and just use the term ‘business’ as this integrates into their normal digital communications. While somewhat dated (2010) I created a list of what an advanced company looks like, although I feel it needs updating in 2012.

I look forward to hearing from you, what are you seeing: Are companies starting to mature? What are your indicators?

Is Your Product Name Turning People Off?

February 12, 2012 by Dorie Clark

Every company wants customers talking about their products. But before they can sing your praises on social media or evangelize to their friends, they need to remember your product?s name. It seems obvious, but many companies ? especially in the technology sector ? overlook this easy way to connect with their audience. That?s the thesis of Alex Goldfayn, former Chicago Tribune technology columnist and author of Evangelist Marketing: What Apple, Amazon and Netflix Understand About Their Customers (That Your Company Probably Doesn?t).

LinkedIn Shares Jump as Ads, Subscriptions Boost Revenue

February 10, 2012 by (author unknown)

Shares of LinkedIn Corp., the biggest professional-networking website, rose the most since November after it reported quarterly sales that more than doubled and forecast higher 2012 revenue, buoyed by advertising and subscriptions.

Pinterest Hits 11 Million UMVs (and 8 Tips for Brands)

February 8, 2012 by Kelly Ferraro

In case you haven’t heard, last night TechCrunch announced that Pinterest hit 11.7 million UMVs, becoming the fastest standalone site ever to surpass 10 million monthly uniques. This presents a huge opportunity for brands, as you might have already read about here.

The #1 driver of consumer purchases is word of mouth recommendations from friends, and Pinterest holds the power to drive authentic “word of eye” recommendations in a way that is changing the landscape of social commerce.

How? The landing page for Pinterest is an endless visual stream of subtle product recommendations from the very people who influence your purchasing decisions – friends and strangers with good taste. This means that there is an endless opportunity for your brand and its products to be seen by Pinterest’s 11.7 million unique monthly users as endorsements from friends in the form of repins.

Currently available stats show the average Pinterest user spends 98 minutes per month on the site, compared to 2.5 hours on Tumblr, and 7 hours on Facebook. Pinterest is most popular in North Eastern states, among females (estimates range from 58% to 70% female), and with people ages 25-44 (59% of visitors).

How it Works

In case you haven’t already joined the millions of others pinning products, here’s a quick overview of how Pinterest works: Pinterest enables users to “pin” images found around the Web into categorized collections, or boards. Think of it like an interactive, shareable scrapbook. Or as I like to say, it’s your virtual high school locker. Pinterest can capture the brand essence, personality, inspiration for product design, or company culture through visual boards. It could also be used to organically grow your brand’s reach through an influencer re-pinning strategy, to further engage with fans through themed boards, and to inspire consumers to action, perhaps through a “best board” or a “most pins” contest.

Why People Love It

“It’s lovely from a visual perspective,” says my colleague (and Pinterest addict) Sophia Aladenoye. Apart from Pinterest’s tactile and user-friendly experience, it helps people make visual mental notes of a life they aspire to, like a vision board. “Pinterest is personally helping me with my 2012 vision board exercises… helping me to more easily remember the images that represent my goals, wants or benchmarks for 2012,” say Sophia. Others claim that the site is helping them to “de-stress,” to plan their wedding, or help redecorate their home. And some say they honestly just like the fact that is invite-only and feels exclusive (or perhaps felt exclusive before its recent boost). Men are also jumping on the Pinterest bandwagon – my friend and colleague Maury posts vintage cars, and Grassroots Modern blogger Creede Fitch posts photos of modern furniture designs he finds inspiring.

How Brands Can Leverage Pinterest

1) Create a new social commerce touch point

With 11.7 million UMVs and counting, Pinterest presents an opportunity for brands to expand their audiences by going where the masses are. Consumers are always a step ahead of brands and its important for brands to follow behavior rather than dictate it. Your brand’s presence on Pinterest will create another consumer touch point and a way to be discovered by new people. The visual Pinterest boards would help invite new people into the fabric of your brand by setting a mood or encapsulating a lifestyle, helping users to imagine how your brand’s products, services or culture fit their lives.

2) Grow influencer networks

Brands can leverage Pinterest to find influencers with whom to engage. You can expand your influencer networks by following influential Pinterest users and boards, and repinning items to our own Pinterest boards, giving credit to the influencer. Brands may also choose to engage with influential bloggers and have them curate a board on their Pinterest page.

3) Identify and engage super fans

Pinterest may also be a way to identify natural brand advocates or “super fans.” You can search for your brand’s products and discover who is most frequently pinning about your products and engage with those people. Surprise and delight super fans by rewarding them with products they pin to their boards. Eventually you may create a fan-curated board that allows super fans to add their pins.

4) Increase brand loyalty by sharing your brand’s culture

Pinterest is a fun, inspirational and highly visual atmosphere and your brand has an opportunity to engage fans in new and creative ways. Consider creating boards that align with product or service themes, for example, West Elm categorizes its boards by colors from its design palette, such as “Aquamarine.” Or create a board that reflects your company’s dedication to a CSR initiative. Or, compile pictures of everyday fans and influencers engaging with your brand, such as a board that features pins of people across the globe wearing a retail brand’s clothing.

5) Host contests for further engagement

Perhaps you can host a contest for fans to create the best Pinterest board with your products, and reward the winning fan with items from her board. Or, invite other users to co-create boards on your page around certain themes, and reward the winning team with product or a brand experience. For example, a travel brand can ask Pinners to create mood boards that reflect a destination like the French Riviera, and then reward the winning board with a trip.

7) Inspire repins (and purchases) through bold visuals

As mentioned earlier, the #1 driver of consumer purchases is word of mouth recommendations from friends, and Pinterest holds the power to drive authentic “word of eye” recommendations through a repin endorsement. To accomplish this, you’ll want to make sure that you have high resolution, professional quality, close-up photos to leverage. Photos of products should be taken in a way that enables the viewer to imagine herself wearing the product, engaging with an item, or taking part in the setting. Photos should taken in a way that makes them stand out in the visual stream that is Pinterest. For example, a bold-colored photo or a gray-scale photo might set itself apart from the photo stream.

Promote your culture first, products and services second

The trick with Pinterest is to leverage the “soft sell” and promote your brand culture over the products or services themselves. Pinterest is committed to maintaining a non-promotional atmosphere, and the hard sell could get you kicked off the platform. So to create the right atmosphere, think about what your brand has to offer and what the images say to people and what you want to ask, for example:

• A tech brand: “Do you like innovation? We’re innovative too, and here’s a photo of our developers making our first-ever app for iPhone.”

• A fashion brand: “Do you like bold, basic colors? We love everything bright and bold, and this painting by Matisse captures our upcoming line’s color scheme.”

• A home furnishings brand: “Do you enjoy a clutter-free living space? So do we, and here are three books we love that talk about a clutter-free home.”

• A credit card company or bank: “Do you imagine yourself living a lifestyle of luxury? Here’s a picture from the beach in the Virgin Islands where you could be right now.”

Through play and inspiration, Pinterest might just empower you to become the architect of your brand’s culture.

What do you think about Pinterest for brands? Do you think users will stay engaged once brands join?

Special thanks to Chris Heydt and Sophia Aladenoye of Ogilvy for their contributions.

Article: Does ‘Liking’ a Brand Drive User Loyalty?

February 8, 2012 by (author unknown)

59% of consumers have ‘liked’ a Facebook brand page in the past 6 months

Five Trends: How Brands Integrated Social, Mobile, and Web into 2012 Super Bowl Advertisements

February 6, 2012 by jeremiah_owyang

By Altimeter’s Jeremiah Owyang, Brian Solis, and Zak Kirchner

Findings: Five Trends Indicate Cross Channel Integration a Mainstay. Super Bowl ads, while only representing the nation’s largest consumer facing ads are a bellwether for advertising trends for the remainder of the year. To best understand these trends, Altimeter Group’s research team analyzed each Ad in real time, and conducted analysis to best understand the advertising trends for 2012.  Using Chicago as a middle ground, we reviewed all ads from kickoff till the game clock expired and found that trends out of 87 advertisements.

• Trend 1) Brands Heavily Invested in Promoting Traditional Websites
• Trend 2) Surprisingly, Many Did Not Promote a Call-To-Action
• Trend 3) Only a Sixth of Ads Explicitly Promoted Social Media
• Trend 4) Hashtag Marketing Emerged to Stimulate Continual Engagement
• Trend 5) Cutting Edge Marketers Teased with New Marketing Tactics, including Shazam

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Above Graphic One: 2012 Superbowl Ad Analysis: Less than one-third of Ads don’t promote cross channel

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Above Graphic Two: 2012 Superbowl Ad Analysis: Less than one-third of Ads don’t promote cross channel

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Rather than push for fans and followers on social sites, brands invested in promoting traditional websites, and experimented with new forms of engagement like applications, Shazam, and even promoting hashtags. We found five trends:

Trend 1) Brands Heavily Invested in Promoting Traditional Websites
We found that 49% linked to a corporate website URL, also 9% linked to a microsite URL for a total of 57% of all Ads linking to traditional URLs. This standard deployment comes at no surprise, as a call to action is often needed for advertising ROI, and traffic surges are often the most common way to measure this. Surprisingly, despite many game watchers having multiple devices on in tandem to the TV, a whopping 32% did not have any online references to either a URL, or even a social site.

Trend 2) Surprisingly, Many Did Not Promote a Call-To-Action
In a surprising move, brands did not have a direct call to action. In fact, 32% did not link to any social site or URL as listed in trend 1. For example Chrysler’s Imported from Detroit showed the logos of their car lines, but did not have any URLs. Likely this is due to high brand recognition of brands, and the goal was to drive awareness, consideration –but not drive leads or intent on a website. Why did brands do this? We believe for a few reasons: to drive conversation among friends, or to make an impactful statement, or lastly because we live in a Google world, consumers can readily find URLs without being prompted.

Trend 3) Only a Sixth of Ads Explicitly Promoted Social Media
We define this instance as Ads that showed their social networking accounts like Facebook, Twitter, or even hashtags in text, or sometimes even written on signs in the ad content itself.  Unlike previous Super Bowls where consumer generated ads were infused with traditional ads, we saw less than expected integration of content from the crowd. This year, we didn’t see any explicit mentions of content that was created by the crowd. Furthermore we found low integration with social media, in fact, 16% of brands linked or mentioned their social networking accounts. Among them 11% linked to Facebook, 2% to Twitter. We did not capture any integration with Youtube, Linkedin, or Google+.   Despite the low explicit mentions of social in the Ads, nearly all of the ads are cross-posted on YouTube.

Trend 4) Hashtag Marketing Emerged to Stimulate Continual Engagement
While Twitter helped to promote their platform with the Twitter Ad Scrimmage (which lists more hashtags than we saw in-Ad), we found that 6 ads explicitly promoted hashtags (total of 7%), and only 2 brands promoted their Twitter accounts (2%).  Interestingly, when hashtags were deployed, we found that traditional URLs nor a request to fan or follow. To highlight, General Electric’s Ad focuses on how their technology is a key component of the beer value chain, pointed only to a hashtag “#whatworks” rather than promote a URL or a social networking account. I asked GE’s Twitter account why they did this and they responded to me in Twitter “@jowyang It’s all about shared conversation tonight (and tomorrow). We want to hear from people. #whatworks” This sea change in tactics is an indicator of how brands want to extend the experience beyond the expensive 30 second Ad to an ongoing permanent discussion. Additional hashtag engagement was found by Budweiser pushing #makeitplatinum (in two ads, by our count), Audi’s #SoLongVampires, Best Buy’s #betterway, and underwear line using #beckhamforhm.  These investments appeared to pay off as both Budweiser’s “#makeitplatinum” and Audi’s #SoLongVampires became trending topics minutes after their ads published, there was no indicator that either were sponsored.

Trend 5) Cutting Edge Marketers Teased with New Marketing Tactics, including Shazam
Beyond promotion the traditional website, microsite and social media account, brands have started experimenting with promoting new forms of marketing engagement for a total of 11% total incidence. To extend the experience, 3 ads promoted applications (often showing on an iPhone like Citibank’s Ad), 3 promoted SMS interaction, and GoDaddy promoted a QR code. We found that brands were integrating Shazam, a music finding application. In particular, Elton John in an Q1 Pepsi Ad was the first to promote this integration, encouraging further interaction by downloading media. Although not emerging, in the traditional sense, Etrade even promoted their phone number, which likely drove direct engagement. Brian Solis notes that this extends the experience and audience now becomes more engaged by downloading and consuming media beyond the game day.

Summary: Promoting Traditional Websites Still King –Social Integration Nascent
A majority of efforts had a focus on making a market impact by asserting new positioning, and linking to traditional websites and microsites.   Unlike previous years which pushed CGM in Ad content, or a direct push to fan and follower, brands in 2012 were more focused on engagement in social media, extending the life of the campaign.  A set of brands didn’t promote any cross-channel engagement, instead focusing on a powerful message, which we should expect to be a trend as brands can be found in every channel, esp aided by search.    New forms of marketing are emerging that result in integrating data from applications, as well as mobile experiences, that we’ll continue to see pioneer through the year.

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Methodology:
Altimeter Group, a research advisory firm, had a team of researchers including Jeremiah Owyang, Zak Kirchner, and a third party oursourced resource for independent data collection take note of each advertisement and notate if they linked to a URL, (corporate website or microsite) mentioned social media, or used other tools in the Chicago area, which is mid-country. Secondly, Altimeter retrieved a list of brands that were advertising and was able to retrieve Facebook fan and Twitter follower numbers in order to compare pre versus post (stay tuned). Scope of ads captured were post-kickoff, to end of game when game clock expired. We did not use ads mentioned by NBC during the game highlights. We found that some ads were localized for the Chicago market vs other markets, however the ratios and trends cross-country are likely accurate.  In the spirit of Open, we’ve made the data public on Google Sheets.

Update: AdRants has commented on the data. Update: This data mentioned on USA Today.

For the Future of YouTube Ads, It’s All About Context

February 1, 2012 by Mike Isaac

YouTube SVP Salar Kamangar speaks about the future of YouTube at the AllThingsD media conference. Photo: Asa Mathat/AllThingsD

LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif. — It must have been frightening to be among the first advertisers for YouTube. Since the site’s inception it’s been seen as the wild west of digital content platforms, with millions of users uploading anything from pirated material to the patently offensive, and of course, the plainly ridiculous (think: stupid pet tricks). To slap a branded ad on a piece of user-generated content in the site’s early days, frankly, was a risky business proposition.

For advertisers today, however, there is strength in dog and cat b-roll. It’s about context, not content.

Salar Kamangar, senior vice president of YouTube, says as much. “We’re focusing on the kind of ads that appear in YouTube videos,” Kamangar said at the AllThingsD: Dive into Media conference on Tuesday.

Think of it this way: An advertisement for say, dog collars, may run in the $2 range of CPMs — or cost per thousand of ad impressions — in a normal YouTube video. But after the most recent YouTube redesign, the same ad could command as much as ten times that number when packaged as part of one of YouTube’s new “channels.” Slapping an ad on one of a million dog videos on YouTube may not be costly, but putting that same ad inside of a canine-themed channel? That’s valuable real estate.

Kamangar estimates that in the current media marketplace, only 20 percent of revenues come from rental and DVD services, with 40 percent stemming from subscription-based, premium services and the the remaining 40 percent coming from ad spend. Over the next decade, Kamangar expects that ad spend number is only going up.

It’s part of Google’s broad push into recreating the popular video site, as the company aims to transform YouTube from more than just a site for one-off video views, and into a destination media platform. The front door of YouTube was completely overhauled in December, with a feed running down the center of the page personalized to each user’s channel choices. In theory, YouTube wants to marry the TV experience of channel surfing with the 24/7 access to online content that the web brings, without alienating users into getting caught up on the whole online part. Essentially, the masses are comfortable with the medium we’ve seen since the 1930′s with the advent of the traditional television.

“We’re trying to catalyze channel creation,” Kamangar said. “We’re channel-izing YouTube, the product.”

But part of the problem for YouTube is beefing up its polished content ecosystem. In other words, convincing the big boys in Hollywood that web-based video production efforts are worth their time. Traditional ad spend on online media is peanuts compared to the tens of billions advertisers spend on traditional television media campaigns. But eMarketer estimates spending of over $3.1 billion in 2012, a 40 percent jump from the 2011. And for content providers — who participate in revenue sharing with Google on the video ads — want to go where the money is.

YouTube isn’t hurting for users — over 800 million people use the site — and it certainly isn’t lacking in video views, with more than three billion YouTube views occurring each week. The problem, in fact, is getting those eyeballs to stick around for longer.

“The minutes viewed on YouTube are still very small,” Kamangar said, referring to the amount of time a single user spends viewing the site on a given day. “Right now, we’re in the ball park of a couple percent.” For advertisers and content creators alike, that’s problematic.

But Kamangar and company are trying to fight this with creative approaches to their ad products, instead “focusing on the kind of ads that appear in the videos,” Kamangar said. YouTube introduced, for example, its Adwords for video product ‘True View,’ in which users can watch ads, and skip them if they decide they don’t want to watch them. If a user skips the ad before passing a certain threshold of time — say, five seconds — the advertiser doesn’t pay. That keeps both parties happy — users aren’t needlessly leaving the site because of cumbersome ads, while advertisers aren’t paying for ads that aren’t being watched.

Couple this with ads that make sense to a particular niche channel — like dog-focused ads in a dog-themed YouTube channel — and theoretically, you’ve got happy ad guys and happy content companies. At least, that’s what Google wants.

It is, of course, too soon to tell if this will work. But Google has made it clear it is in this for the long haul.

“It’s about catalyzing something that would otherwise happen,” Kamangar said. In other words, he believes that, one way or another, an online, streaming media destination platform is inevitable. And YouTube wants to be the one to bring it to you.

Photo: Asa Mathat/AllThingsD

Sh*t We Say: Lessons from a Long-Tailed Meme – Part 2

January 31, 2012 by Blake Bowyer

(Part 2? Yeah, check out Part 1.)

In case you missed it, Ron Paul supporters, ASU students, and VFX artists were among those that joined the fray since my last post. The variations continue to proliferate further down the tail, satirizing – and entertaining – more niche audiences. What does this add up to? Segmentation.

While I easily enjoy Sh*t ASU Students Say even though I’m not a Sun Devil – and haven’t even been to the campus – the video resonates better with those who were. Beyond that, the video’s arc is more relatable to students who enrolled in the past 5-10 years and drink socially – perhaps even deeper for students who were in the Greek system and enjoy campus takeout.

The point is, there’s a clear difference in the type of viewer who’s going to watch the video halfway through for a chuckle and a viewer who’s going to share across social networks. Those pearls of info are demographic, psychographic, and behavioristic qualities – in some ways digital has obscured their importance.

As segmented as some brands’ social media programs get these days.

On-platform segmentation

On Facebook you can get granular with ads – age, gender, interest, etc. – but what’s the deepest a brand can go with a non-paid Wall post? Zip code – better than nothing, but hardly ideal. What’s the most specific you can get with a non-promoted tweet? Well, there isn’t any targeting at all. A brand can use hashtags, but hardly a guarantee it reaches the right followers and non-followers. The list goes on.

When considering the lack of earned and owned targeting, should we have been so shocked by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute’s recent study showing 1.3% of users who Like a Page also engage with it? There are a host of reasons – and it’s not panic time – but a lack of targeted relevance is likely a large factor.

Is there hope? You probably saw the Pinterest infographic shared far and wide yesterday. The standout points are a 429% traffic increase since September and a higher referral rate than Google+. The larger question is how we account for the platform’s explosion – my takeaway is self-segmentation. Users can very specifically choose what content they consume from brands. For example, a user may be more interested in HGTV’s Design Happens Blog board than its Party Planner board – and the user can choose.

Of course, we can’t always expect audiences to do all the work – that’s kind of our job – but content segmentation is likely a contributor to the platform’s growing popularity. This is also why diligent brands should use Google+ to group users and serve-up relevance by the Circle-full.

What are the lessons?

Segment your influencers – While mega-buckets like green and lifestyle are easy defaults, your influencers should be as refined as your audiences – and pitched with the same specificity. This involves additional research, but is worthwhile in the long-run. This principle is emphasized in our and freshly-updated Ogilvy Social Media Engagement Code. We will always work hard to have good reason to connect our brand or program with a particular influencer or fan.

Diligent application of paid - Sometimes paid feels like a dirty word in our idyllic world of social media and word-of-mouth comms, but it’s a huge value-add when used properly. If a brand has a strong, relevant message it feels will resonate with ASU students or VFX artists, paid could be invaluable in getting the value exchange to a receptive audience.

Be targeted in your research - Broad statistics about social media won’t get you far. You may see large trends, but it doesn’t say much about your audiences. Believe it or not, MySpace is still relevant to stand-up comedians and forums are strong in industries like health care. Research + expertise for insight. As quickly as the digital world changes, intelligence must also be refreshed regularly – and with rigor.

As we continue to hear what sh*t all kinds of people say, more lessons about marketing in a digital world will come to the surface. Including when a campaign has run its course. Exhibit A @ 1:29. (It’s still hilarious.)

Are there other lessons you took away from this meme? What niche do you think is underserved in social media?

Facebook report from: http://www.marketingscience.info/.*Image credit: Despair.com. +Inspiration credit: @AlexisPond.

Social Media and Travel

January 27, 2012 by Scott Monty

If you’re like me, you spend a good deal of time on the road. Whether it’s at an airport, on a train or in a car, you’re mobile and your digital life is mobile too.

The pervasiveness of tablets and smartphones (in addition to the already ubiquitous laptop) is growing daily. Just this week, Apple announced that it sold 37 million iPhones and 15.4 million iPads in the fourth quarter of 2011 alone. It means that more of us are doing things on the web (or mobile web, as the case may be) while we’re on the go, and there are certain things those of us in the digital world look for when we travel – at least with regard to infrastructure.

The Airlines
To my knowledge, Southwest was the first airline (or at least the most prominent early on) to get involved with social media. Their blog, Nuts About Southwest, has been a perennial leader in the corporate blogging space. They’ve made great use of Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and more and have always led with a very human and very customer-centric approach.

JetBlue made a name for itself in the social media space after a difficult travel situation thanks to severe winter weather in 2007. Their CEO David Neeleman was direct and honest in his approach, the video of him was sincere and emotional, and JetBlue made it clear that it put customers first. And to think that my colleague Morgan Johnston at JetBlue had started his job on that very day…

Delta got a late start in social media (and was the subject of its fair share of complaints, including a dramatic rant ), but now has @Delta and @DeltaAssist looking after its customers on Twitter. Not to mention some personal interaction from a certain member of the crew from their famous safety video.

That finger wag gets me every time.

The other airline that’s going above and beyond in social media is Virgin America. Based out of Silicon Valley, they’re in the thick of the action from a technology standpoint. And their use of Groupon, Loopt, Foursquare and more prove it. But their always-on monitoring is essential when it comes to catching consumer complaints, especially after their switch to a new reservation system last year.

Overall, customers want interaction – they want to be heard, certainly, but they also want action – when they take to Twitter to voice a concern. According to an eMarketer article, the expectation that a company will respond increases by age cohort from 38% of 18-24 year-olds all the way up to 65% of those in the 55+ age category. And it clearly matters in terms of satisfaction:

If you’d like to see a comprehensive roster of airlines on Twitter, check out @Kayak’s list of some 160 or so.

Staying Powered – and Connected
I’ve been in the unfortunate circumstance of leaving for a trip without power cord for a device. There are two points of good news: many times, you can charge your phone directly from your laptop using a USB port; and quite often, the hotel will have a power cord for your phone that you can borrow from their lost and found collection (I was once told by a concierge that phone cords are like currency at most hotels).

There are a few gadgets that I’d recommend as well. If you’re travelling internationally, it’s essential to have an all-in-one adapter that has attachments for every major country’s electrical sockets. And because the hotel where you’re staying or the airport may not have many readily available sockets to charge your laptop, phone, tablet, etc., it’s handy to have a cord with 4 outlets, an all-in-one charging station, or even a PowerSquid that will allow up to 5 others to connect. You’ll be the most popular person at the airport! (Note on all of the links in this paragraph: http://cmp.ly/5).

Then again, a number of airports have recognized that passengers travel with gadgets and need places to charge.

Thanks, Delta!

If you happen to have a non-3G iPad or a laptop without an air card, you depend on local wi-fi networks for connectivity. I’ve been in my share of airports that have had plenty of network access, but I didn’t want to spring for a Boingo account to get connected. For that reason, it’s helpful to know which airports have free wi-fi. Here’s a quick list for your reference:

Airports with free wi-fi:
Boston (BOS)
Charlotte (CLT)
Cincinnati (CVG)
Denver (DEN)
Fort Myers (RSW)
Honolulu (HNL)
Indianapolis (IND)
Kansas City (MCI)
Las Vegas (LAS)
Oakland (OAK)
Orange County (SNA)
Orlando (MCO)
Palm Beach (PBI)
Phoenix (PHX)
Pittsburgh (PIT)
Portland (PDX)
Sacramento (SMF)
San Antonio (SAT)
San Diego (SAN)
San José (SJC)
Tampa (TPA)
Washington Dulles (IAD)
Washington Reagan (DCA)


But it goes farther than wi-fi and charging stations. FareCompare has developed a list of the top 12 airports for social media power users, with a list of the top airports that are also known to take good care of their customers. I’ve reproduced the table here.

City	Airport Code	Twitter Hits	Outlets per Gate	Other Amenities
Atlanta	ATL	14.7 million	8.1	Charging stations, work desks
Baltimore	BWI	7.92 million	7.3	Charging stations
Dallas	DFW	2.7 million	7.2	Charging stations, work desks
Detroit	DTW	3.4 million	6.7	Charging stations, Boingo data ports
Fort Lauderdale*	FLL	120,000	2.65	Fast, free Wi-Fi
Los Angeles	LAX	153 million	5.3	Charging stations, internet kiosks
Minneapolis	MSP	2.11 million	Varies by terminal	Charging stations, iPad kiosks coming 2012-13
New York City	JFK	8.45 million	Varies; Terminals 2, 3, and 5 have the most	Charging stations, work desks, iPad kiosks
New York LaGuardia	LGA	1.05 million	7.2	Charging stations, iPad kiosks
Salt Lake City*	SLC	8.97 million	5.4	Charging stations, work desks
San Francisco*	SFO	110 million	13.6	Charging Stations, lounge areas, work desks
Seattle	SEA	6.68 million	2.7	Charging Stations, fast Wi-Fi

* Airport has free Wi-Fi

The Airports
I’ve had experience with some airports that are downright personal. For example, I traveled to Kansas City last year and was pleasantly surprised at the greeting and send-off that I got from the Kansas City International Airport (@KCIAirport) on Twitter:

Followed by a warm greeting waiting for me at home (@DTWeetin):

When you’re travel-worn and checking in on Foursquare or commenting on a queue, sometimes it’s heartening to realize that there are teams of people looking out for you. For example, Logan International Airport (BOS) in Boston has a team of five people handling their social media; @LAX_Official gives travelers in Los Angeles tips, newsletter and other helpful information. For a roster of over 130 airports on Twitter, see @Kayak’s list.


What’s your experience with regard to social media and travel? Do you have any other examples of airlines, airports or other entities who get it right, campaigns that resonated with you, or personal touches that made the difference in an otherwise difficult circumstance? Please leave a comment with your input.

Image credit: ~Oryctes~ (Flickr)

Sh*t We Say: Lessons from a Long-Tailed Meme – Part 1

January 26, 2012 by Blake Bowyer

“It’s an English basement.”

That might not mean much to you, but it probably made you chuckle if you fall into one of the two groups:

1. Current or former D.C. residents
2. Viewers of Sh*t People In D.C. Say

Of course, this video is one of many variations of the Sh*t Girls Say series – which has a cumulative YouTube viewership of 20+ million and growing. You know the premise: Stereotypical expressions from people of a certain ilk, organized by gender, hobby, lifestyle, or geography. There are takes on skiers, hipsters, suburban moms, and even sh*t nobody says (a personal favorite) and the meme’s ’success’ reminds me of basic marketing program goals: generating word-of-mouth, stimulating co-creation, and targeting segmented audiences.

$1,400 for a converted sunroom? Not bad – better than an English basement.

First: Why do we care about sh*t other people say?

As a meme – both intentionally and by accident – these videos satisfy several of the 7 Drivers of Word of Mouth synthesized from Emmanuel Rosen’s work: there’s a good story, people can show their involvement, there is an implicit invitation to participate through their involvement, ’supporters’ can be creative, and, most crucially, there’s a clear value offering – comedy.

The power of these elements is not only clear in the 20+ million video views of the original – and millions more on the variations – but the number of amateur aueters who created their own. An absurdly unscientific calculation using YouTube shows 200+ videos using a basic search – let’s safely presume 50 are duplicates and 50 are spam. Even at 100 and with absolutely no prize, that’s higher participation than most branded video submission challenges get – save Survivor applications and Doritos’ Crash the Super Bowl.

What’s the lesson?

This concept – again, presumably by accident – encourages marketers to revisit basics about constructing effective programs to generate word-of-mouth and cultivate co-creation. Here are a few quick ones:

• Establish a proper barrier to entry for a desired output – if you’re inviting the masses, you better make it low.
• Make it real - do a participants’ efforts really matter or is this just a marketing program? The former will help cultivate stronger long-term benefits.
• Allow for creativity – while some of the videos are mocking groups, I would confidently presume that most of them were created by skiers and D.C.-ites themselves.
• Let your co-creators own it – while everyone involved knows this is a marketing effort, no one’s interested in making a 6-minute branded video – nor does anyone want to watch one – so ensure the brand is seen through the lens of its fans, advocates, and consumers, not the opposite.

In Part 2, I’ll explore the concepts of segmentation as it applies to long-tailed messages and why – even if you don’t live in The District – Sh*t People in D.C. Say is still funny.

Why do you think this meme has become so popular? What are the other takeaways do you see that apply to marketers?

Social media: What next?

January 20, 2012 by (author unknown)

By now, most will acknowledge social media is here to stay. What can we expect and how do companies stay ahead? A digital strategist and former social media manager of The New York Times shares her views.

Why SOPA Won't Work: We Are All Pirates, Copyright Holders Included

January 19, 2012 by (author unknown)

Interactive marketers aren’t the only ones who’ll suffer if SOPA passes. Copyright owners: I think you’re going to have to find another way.

Five Key Things to Know About CES

January 12, 2012 by (author unknown)

The Convention Center is for pure technological sensory overload. Unless you’re marketing consumer electronics products or are part of that value chain, it’s not going to affect your job.

How Many Twitter Feeds Should You Have? 3 Questions to Ask

January 12, 2012 by Liz Caradonna

Recently, I’ve been involved in helping a client launch a new Twitter feed. This will be their sixth or seventh account on Twitter, all the previous of which are still active and serving specific functions. The process has sparked several discussions among the team — not for the first time — about a question we’ve all encountered: how many different Twitter feeds should a brand really have?

Unfortunately there is no universally applicable answer. Not only is every brand different, but the answer may differ for the same brand over time. What I can offer is a short list of questions you should ask when determining the ideal number of Twitter feeds for your brand:

1. Who will be tweeting?
   It’s not always safe to assume that the time involved in moderating and posting to one account will scale effectively to multiple feeds, especially if you’re planning to monitor publish on a very different schedule for each. Conversely, if you’re planning on having different staffers manage each feed, you’ll want to consider how closely these people work together. Will you need to build an additional process for knowledge-sharing and ensuring brand consistency across each account? All of these factors will have an impact on the resources needed to maintain an additional Twitter feed.
2. What will you be tweeting?
   Can you clearly articulate the difference in focus, scope, tone and content between each feed? Perhaps more importantly, can your community managers all do the same? Successfully managing multiple Twitter accounts while avoiding miscommunication will require you to delineate very clearly what the content and approach will be for each. What types of content will overlap between two or more feeds, and how do you plan to handle that (syndicating, re-tweeting or adapting)? What criteria and process will you use in cases where a follower starts a conversation with one of your accounts that should be handed off to a different account? These decisions may require more depth, detail and discussion than you have anticipated.
3. Who will be following you?
   It’s important to consider the reasons your audience might benefit from you having several Twitter feeds, and not just your own reasons for having them. Even if all of your feeds are equally interesting and valuable, it’s possible that your followers won’t want to follow more than one of them. Some of the best cases for multiple Twitter feeds can be made for scenarios where the intended audiences for each are very distinct (customers vs. job seekers, for instance). But if you find yourself in a situation where the intended audiences for two of your feeds are nearly identical, you may want to hold off on launching that second account and instead consider expanding the scope of the current one.

These three questions are a great starting point for identifying some of the pros and cons you’ll need to weigh against each other depending on your brand’s situation, but they are by no means an exhaustive list. What are some other considerations you’d suggest for a company wondering if they should expand their Twitter footprint?

Twitter birds image via Scarletbits

Why CMOs Need To Get Real About The Policy Implications Of Big Data

January 10, 2012 by Steve Olenski

Big data. Just those words alone are enough to send a collective shudder up AND down the spine of CMOs the world over.

Look Out, Google: Online Brand Ad Spending May Pass Search in 2012

January 9, 2012 by Robert Hof

Direct-response advertising has dominated the online ad business ever since Google perfected search ads following its IPO in 2004. That has kept many brand advertisers from diverting much of their budgets from traditional media, in particular television, to the Web. This year, however, that may be about to change.

A Taxonomy of Tech Bloggers –Who Will Lead Beyond The Golden Age?

December 29, 2011 by jeremiah_owyang

In order to understand the movement in the ever-changing tech blog space, let’s dissect the market to identify trends.

Whether folks agreed or disagreed, the assertion that Tech Blogs are evolving from the Golden Era to the next, continues to resonate as a healthy discussion. I saw responses from many of the blog management teams (Techcrunch, Mashable, RWW, VentureBeat, BoingBoing, and more) both agreeing and disagreeing, as well as traditional journalists at Wired chiming in.

Recap: Four Trends Why Blogs Are Evolving Out of Golden Age
In the previous post, it was identified there are four distinct trends why tech blogs are changing:

1. Corporate acquisitions stymie innovation.
2. Tech blogs are experiencing major talent turnover.
3. The audience needs have changed, they want: faster, smaller, and social.
4. As space matures, business models solidify –giving room for new disruptors.

The Next Generation Blogs Will Have The Following Traits
Then, it was identified four future trends on what the next-generation blog will look like, in summary: 1) An opportunity for new stars to emerge, 2) Yet, the rise of personal brands will be harder, 3) New models to emerge, long form content not the only way, and finally 4) that a new mix of media will emerge.  To further the discussion on what these trends will mean to this industry, let’s explore even deeper to identify where we should expect to see innovation from.

A Taxonomy of Tech Bloggers
This classification will help to shape who are the players are who should defend, those that are on the fast move, and those that could clinch a new seat as an established tech blog.  To understand, let’s segment the market by class, Ill give examples, and explore at a high level their strengths and challenges.

Classification	Example	Strengths	Challenges
Big Media Blogs	These blogs have transcended others and have been acquired by traditional media companies: Techcrunch (AOL), Huffington Post (AOL), RWW (Say Media), Engadget (AOL), ZDNet (CBS)	Access to new resources, funding for larger staff, and ability to tap into new revenue opportunities through existing advertising and distribution network of parent company.	Will be challenged to quickly innovate, redesign, and hire top talent who may be seeking the upward moving startup lifestyle.
Established Blogs	These blogs are dominant players in the space, and are either self-owned, or part of a blog network, among them includes: Mashable, Gizmodo (Gawker blog network), GigaOm, Venturebeat, The Next Web (European base), BoingBoing, All Things Digital, (created in house at Dow Jones), Enterprise Irregulars	Have solid coverage, strong editorial teams and processes and have established their business model.	Some may be content to forge their own destiny and not exit, yet some may seek to be acquired and exit, They will constantly be threatened by the tier above them scooping them, and challengers below trying to out-manuveur them.
Challenger Blogs	These players could quickly move into the Established category: The Verge (Vox Media) who left AOL’s Engadget’s to start this visually rich new site with high production video.	These players have tried a new approach, and are seeking to gun at the Established by trying a new format, editorial process, and may have connections to scoop stories.	While many root for the underdog, they may not have the resources the Established blog networks have, and will be forced to find inventive ways to get what they need, and Established blogs may not link to them.
Emerging Blogs	Silicon Angle (by my former boss John Furrier), Kernel (launched earlier this month), Uncrunched (Former Techcrunch writers), and the rumored blog Sarah Lacy may be planning.	These up-and-comers are the ones to watch. These folks will innovate, try new editorial approaches, formats, and providing storytelling styles.  In some cases, these blogs may find a niche and own it.	While all team blogs started here, this segment likely has the most challenges: Struggle to get scoops, lack of resources, and fight for advertising revenues, and Established blogs may not link to them.
Career Individual Bloggers	These individuals have learned to make blogging a career, and may be funded, sponsored, or work for a tech company, notable examples include: Chris Pirillo (multiple sponsors), Robert Scoble (Rackspace employee), Louis Gray (Google+), and many others.	Autonomous and masters of their own destiny, they’re able to do their passion at blogging, while earning a living.	Difficulty scaling a personal brand into a network, beholden to those that fund them, and difficulty in scooping stories from team blogs who may not link back.
Individual Bloggers	Millions of talented bloggers (like you!) worldwide that chime in on topics related to personal technology, careers in tech, and the industry overall.	Passion baby, Passion! What a great outlet to get your voice heard.  Most in this space started off here, or still maintain a personal blog.	Will be challenged to directly monetize through traditional advertising, but often this medium is used for career growth, promotion of books and speaking, or access to events.  This crew is challenged to maintain their blog, while holding a full time job.

Be a Savvy Blog Reader:  Know How Hierarchy Dictates Behavior.
The behaviors of each tier of blog depends on where you are in the taxonomy.  For example, those at the top of taxonomy are in dominant positions and will to sustain that.  As such, they will: have higher quality production in content, ability to scoop stories, may not link to original sources, all in order to maintain their lead.  On the flip side, those on the bottom of the taxonomy will also have different behaviors: they may give their own editorial spin, find long tail specific stories that mainstream doesn’t pickup, and can give deeper coverage in interviews the top players will not.

Watch the Challengers and Emerging Blogs as Post-Golden Tech Blogs.
Who will emerge as a victor in the post-Golden Age?  The established will seek to keep the up and comer challengers down, as well as the Emerging category.  In particular, the Verge is demonstrating a new approach by a fresh visual layout, high production video, and an experienced editorial team with insider connections.  Secondly, the Emerging blogs continue to grow organically, or have carved a niche that will keep from growing into a mainstream tech blog. As players towards the bottom move up, we’ll see a new “Platinum Age” (Sarah Lacy term) of Tech Bloggers emerge.

Above all Else, Look for Passion.
One of the attractive aspects of this medium is how the individual writer brings forward their point of view, their personality, their opinion.  As such, this has made blogging hold our attention as the rules of traditional journalism have been challenged  Despite the business aspects of running either an individual blog, or a big media blog, we should always look, interesting content, unique points of view, and of course, passion.

I look forward to your thoughtful comments as our industry continues to mature.