I recently read a post from Drew Kerr at PR Rock and Roll in which he said that for college students the entire world of online networking is Facebook; and I think that college students might no be the only ones with that belief, a lot of companies out there might be thinking the same way. Despite that we already know about the top 25 social networks, we might be far from knowing every single one in detail. It sounds even impossible to achieve that as almost everyday a new social network is created, in fact, most recent versions of CMS solutions include modules for building social networks. For a brand, it might be desired to maintain a strong online presence across the net, or as Brian Solis calls, the Conversation Prism. On his post, Brian presents KnowEm, an online service that not only checks the availability of your username Seguir leyendo
social media
5 Things Your Social Media Expert Should Know
Today, almost every company trying to increase its online presence wants to be part of the conversation. Most of them ask their agencies to develop strategies to “use” social media as part of their online marketing campaigns. Starting from here, the approach is wrong. As said previously, companies must not try to join the conversation, they must CREATE the conversation; and using social media must not be considered as part of the advertising activities. Until you don’t get that, you won’t be successful with social media. It is clear that you, as a Marketing head of a company, might not necessarily know all about the Social Media stuff, and thus want hire a Social Media Expert to do the job. Jason has just published at MarketingHackz his selection of the 5 things your social media expert should know: How to pitch bloggers: “Pitching bloggers requires more of a relationship than Seguir leyendo
Top 10 Social Media questions marketers want answered
Digital Inspiration posted about a set of 900+ interviews that Michael Stelzner did to Internet Marketers to find out how marketers are using social media to grow their businesses. On the report, he also found the top 10 social media questions marketers want answered, including what social media tools are most popular, how they are using social media, what are the benefits of using social media, etc. The results are interesting. Regarding the most popular social media tools: Twitter, Blogs and LinkedIn and Facebook are the favorites. As for the benefits of using social media, marketers answered the following: If you are planning to jump into the social media, you might want to take a look at the full report. Here.
How to leverage Social Media
So you are one of the thousands of companies out there that want to become Social but don’t have a clue? This is what you have to do: 1. Quit trying to “join the conversation” Read the next steps here.
2012: The Mayan Prophecy
I’m sure you have already heard about the Mayan prophecy regarding the supposed end of the World on December 21st, 2012. Despite of the veracity of this interpretation, there is already a trailer of a movie about this subject. It is interesting to notice that at the end of the trailer, instead of giving a URL for a website, they suggest you to Google: 2012. The results, as Daniel reports on his post, are a set of different websites and content even on social networks to start making buzz around the movie. As you have noticed, this is a completely new way of introducing a movie, and yes, it is viral. For details read Adverblog
Adding Twitter to your Business Model: A Real Life Example
A lot has been said about how to incorporate social media to the business. Some companies had taken the path of creating profiles for their brands and products as if they were real people and start interacting with others. On the other hand there are real executives from companies that had just jumped into the social media to start a face-to-face real conversation with consumers. Springwise brings us another example: A restaurant that has incorporated Twitter to its business model. Kogi Korean BBQ takes the taste of Korean barbecue and melds it with the portability of Mexican tacos and burritos. The company sells its food primarily through two trucks that are always on the go to new locations in the Los Angeles area—to know where to find them, customers must follow Kogi on Twitter (and more than 7,000 already do). More on Springwise.
Top 25 Social Networks
Last month Compete published a re-arranged list of the top 25 social networks: As expected, Facebook finally over passed Myspace. On the other hand, Twitter is quickly going up, last year it was at position 22 and today is at 3! It is also interesting to see the details on the time spent by users. Last month Facebook users spent 16.41 minutes in average per visit, while Myspace and Twitter users spent around 9 minutes. More info at Compete.
Using Social Media to deliver Brand Content: The Skittles example
Skittles has recently redesigned its webpage and btw amazed the whole online marketing industry with the new Skittles homepage, which is based entirely on content published on Social Media. Yes, if you want to know more about the products, within the Skittles website you are sent to a Wikipedia article, if you want to see photos, then you are directed to a Flickr profile. What about friends? Facebook. Videos? YouTube. And chatting? Twitter. You’ve got to check it out to understand the concept. It is also good to read the interesting analysis from ViralBlog.
The Evolution of Advertising & Public Relations
I just saw an interesting diagram posted by Todd Defren at PR-squared that shows the evolution of advertising vs. public relations in this Social Media era. “As you can see, PR is becoming increasingly interpersonal: there is a daily flow of interaction, responsiveness and adaptation going on amongst PR people and their ever-expanding publics. […] Meanwhile, the advertising folks are coming to embrace more and more user-generated content, but as PAID media (versus EARNED media). Advertising’s intrinsic, long-term value to the corporate brand is declining in the Social Media era. And the PR industry is the happy beneficiary.” The diagram is really insightful and yes, I agree with Todd, but the counterpart of this is that nowadays in Latin America (for example), there are no agencies that can advice corporations on a complete Digital PR strategy. Of course, you will find the traditional PR agencies that will offer some kind of “exercises” Seguir leyendo
7-Top Online Marketing Trends for 2008
Back in January, Heidi Cohen published in ClickZ her list for the 7-Top Online Marketing Trends for this year: Social media growth will come from expanded niche products. Search marketing will continue to extend its reach into other formats, including social, local, and mobile search. Analytics and related measurements will become more sophisticated. Behavioral targeting will become more widespread and will provide improved customer experiences, offering customers more relevant information to consumers and better targeted ads to marketers. Integration of on- and offline will continue as retailers update technology. E-mail communications will evolve. The market will disrupted by a new technology or a shift in how existing products are used. Moreover, she highlights some of the main metrics to measure: customers, revenues, expenses, margins, external factors and buzz. For a more in-deep explanation on each one read ClickZ