Spending for online advertising (up 18%) will outpace print ad spending for the first time ever, Outsell Inc. reports. While movies, TV, and radio spending dropped almost 4%, search engine pages were the biggest winners here, with a 39% increase in ad revenue.
But what happens when search is fueled by social activity? We may have some new big winners on the horizon - a la Facebook, Twitter, Zynga.
In his recent Ad Age article Chris Malone suggests brands should exude competency and warmth, and consumers will respond.
He addresses “how to most effectively use new media that have aptly been named “social” — those virtual gathering places where people interact with each other and, increasingly, with brands.”
Mary Meeker of Morgan Stanley has identified a $50 billion dollar gap between time spent online and advertising dollars. Considering that 77% of U.S. adults are members of social networks (with 67% in Facebook alone) this gap represents the most significant opportunity and may come to define the Internet.
Malone points out that few (brands) have been able to figure out how to monetize all the friends, followers and fans they’ve collected. There’s no doubt we’re in the very early stages of this new media but it’s surprising how few are daring enough to experiment.
It’s also interesting to note that two forms of experimentation include the brand loyalty attributes “acts in my best interests” and “is honest and trustworthy.” Effective marketing is driven by customer service. I recommend Joseph Jaffe’s book, Flip the Funnel, for further reading on this topic.
For brands and companies that want to build lasting consumer loyalty, Malone offers the following guidelines:
I’d love to hear your strategy in the comments below.
Social Activity is the new era of advertising. Check out the full study at www.appssavvy.com/virtualgoods and see how brand advertisers are achieving 2x awareness and purchase intent.
I’ve never had a guest post on my blog before. But I’m thrilled to start with this one. It’s a great story about determination & passion and it’s by Nick Crocker who starts at Boxee today.
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In a recent post about how to join a startup Bijan Sabet said:
“There are a number of…
At the F8 Conference in April, Facebook made some of its biggest announcements since the original F8 in 2007. Facebook is socializing the Web and providing tools for developers and marketers alike to increase our ability to connect with users through social activity across the Internet. What do these changes mean for you? Here’s a breakdown of the changes and additions made by Facebook: OPEN GRAPH:The collective announcements from F8 can be grouped under the term Open Graph and represent a massive shift by Facebook toward powering the social Web. Essentially, through newly available tools and APIs, any Web site can now be treated like a Facebook fan page, complete with social functionality, the ability to “Like” the entire page or individual pieces of content, and the ability for the site owner to publish feed stories to their fans. Our Take: SOCIAL PLUGINS: Our Take: SEARCH & AGGREGATION: Our Take: ADDITIONAL CHANGES: Our Take:
LEARNINGS FROM F8
In May of 2007, Facebook opened its platform for application developers to build upon. Besides being the launch of a myriad of businesses (including appssavvy), it also became a defining moment as to how marketers viewed Facebook. This was the beginning of Facebook as a tool, and thus the question became as much, “How do I leverage Facebook?” as it was, “How do I buy Facebook?”
From 2007 until now, we’ve seen a Web-wide migration to Facebook – this change marks the beginning of a return to the Web, with sites now bringing the tools and audiences previously available only on the Facebook platform. Additionally, let the “Like” rush begin, as we’ll likely see social recommendation become a big piece of data discovery in the future.
Facebook released an expansive set of APIs and Social Plug-ins that allow Web sites across the Internet to socialize quickly and easily using the Facebook social graph. Sites like Pandora and CNN have debuted integrations allowing you to discover what music friends are listening to or what articles they find interesting. User activity is published to the Facebook newsfeed.
Social plug-ins are the quickest way to make your site personally relevant to your audience. Early reports suggest increased traffic and interaction across sites that have already integrated these.
Facebook’s new Open Graph API’s allow for new methods and possibilities for search and aggregation. With new and expanded amounts of data being made available to 3rd party sites, we’ll begin to see an increased emphasis on social information discovery. Services such as Likebutton.me have already sprung up and provide centralized hubs for a user to track their friends’ activity across the web. Additionally, Facebook’s new system for categorizing and tagging sites across the web marks the beginnings of a new standard and a truly semantic social web.
This potentially marks the beginning of a new generation of truly social search. Whereas up until now, information discovery has primarily occurred through a universal page rank, search may begin to shift towards a more social-page-rank. This is a huge move by Facebook.
Additional new or expanded Facebook services include a robust analytics package (similar to Google Analytics) that can be used on Facebook or on conventional Web sites, more details about the Facebook virtual currency platform soon to be rolled out, and refined methods for identifying site visitors by their Facebook ID and collecting user permissions.
These tools and services are all designed to encourage Web site developers to integrate Facebook features. From a user standpoint, navigating the social Web will be smoother and Facebook accounts are well on their way to becoming the universal user-IDs of the Web.
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Today at Facebook’s f8 conference in San Francisco, the company have given all attendees a small RFID tag attached to their conference badge. This tag is a part of something called “Facebook Presence” which allows you to “check-in” at various places around the conference simply by swiping your badge. Yes, it’s location.
This is actually the same thing Facebook uses for its infamous keg bot at its headquarters. Employees have been using this for a long time, now they’re letting the rest of us in on the fun. To use it, you go to this page and manually type in your tag number to link it to your Facebook account. Then, everytime you swipe your badge somewhere, it goes right to your profile.
Oh joy! So glad they are letting us in on the fun of being tracked by Facebook and having the info broadcast by the newsfeed.
Facebook’s answer to Foursquare is a tracking device.
Food reviews come to life with Eat.ly!
Great site but what makes this a game changer is how easily Eat.ly integrates with Twitter and Foursquare. Embracing the open web leads to a significantly enhanced user experience - one that makes a site like Eat.ly part of my daily life.
Check it out - www.eat.ly
