Category: Marketing

What is Social Media Marketing?

My skin is tingly. It gets this way whenever something new is on the horizon, something big.

I remember feeling this way back in college. Something called the World Wide Web was creeping onto the scene. It was still in the domain of universities and geeks. Then a roommate told me the Web was going to be commercialized. When I heard that, I looked at the web site I had just built, imagined making a career out of this, and felt my skin go tingly.

The new thing making me tingly is Social Media Marketing (SMM). Okay, maybe it’s not such a new thing. Cutting-edge bloggers have been talking about it for a while now. There was even a conference on it back in April.

But I’m starting to see traditional companies peek into SMM. They’re lifting the curtain, poking their heads in, and wondering if they should join all the fun. In high-tech marketing speak, the Early Adopters are starting to buy into SMM. Maybe even some of the Early Majority too.

So what is Social Media Marketing?

I define it as: a specialization of marketing that involves using online social media channels to promote a business’s products, services, or brand.

So what is Social Media?

Good question. Chris Garrett describes it as the “tools, websites and software that allows people to connect and share.” Scott Monty points to a very amusing video called “Social Media in Plain English” that explains it in, well, plain english:

Can you give me some examples of Social Media Marketing?

Sure. Since this field is still so young, there are a very wide range of tactics, some more effective than others. Here are some examples of SMM tactics:

Create an online video

That video above is a sweet example. It was created by the husband and wife team at CommonCraft Productions. They created a few free videos like that and “Podcasting in Plain English” and “Twitter in Plain English“. These funny videos became viral and spread onto blogs like Scott Monty’s.

The intent? To promote the services of CommonCraft, who’ve created explanation videos for clients such as Google (GOOG), Salesforce.com (CRM), H&R Block (HRB), and others.

Offer a free product/service to a blogger

The book publisher Kogan Page hired a marketing firm to send out free books to various bloggers (including me!) in the hopes that some of the bloggers would write favorable mentions or reviews. This can be tricky as some bloggers may write scathing reviews. I tried to be balanced in mine.

The intent? To generate more sales for Kogan Page’s books.

Get your website listed on a link aggregation site

The link aggregation site Digg.com can be a massive traffic generator. If your website is featured on Digg.com, you can get an onslaught of users visiting your site. A couple of years ago, Richard MacManus found a way to game Digg.com and almost guarantee being featured.

The intent? To get a lot of visitors and new customers. However, the effectiveness of this tactic is debatable, as incoming visitors don’t always convert into customers. It can still give you SEO benefits, though. But be careful about gaming Digg.com, as that can start a community backlash against you.

Create a common-interest group on a social network

Facebook allows you to create common-interest groups, such as the “Louis Vuitton” group or the “Chocolate = Love!” group. You could create one of your own, based around your brand, product, or service, and speak to your customers directly. It’s like an informal, ad hoc focus group, but much cheaper.

The intent? To speak and listen to your customers directly. “It’s like free market research” says one entrepreneur who’s tried this tactic.

Write catchy content

Some call this linkbait, others call this just plain catchy content. Last year, Johnny Virgil wrote a hilarious blog entry about the 1977 JC Penny Catalog he found in his wife’s grandfather’s attic. His entry was so catchy and viral that it spread like a really bad showtune that gets stuck in your head for hours.

The intent? Well, Virgil wasn’t trying to sell anything, though he’s placed Google ads and a PayPal donation button on his site since then. But as a marketer, such a tactic could generate significant pageviews on your site, and hopefully some sales too.

Facebook Marketing Can Help in Unexpected Ways

To the non-web marketers out there: If you have any teenagers in the house, you can bet they’re on Facebook or MySpace (NWS). But did you know that, for the sake of your business, perhaps you should be too?

This past February, Entrepreneur Magazine included a piece about one small business owner’s unexpected findings through Facebook:

After Alicia Rockmore’s Ann Arbor, Michigan-based organizational products company, Buttoned Up Inc. scored shelf space at Target, Rockmore began doing research to keep the big red bull’s-eye happy. A friend invited her to join social networking site Facebook, so she created an individual profile touting her business. She hit pay dirt when she found an existing group of Target customers on Facebook.

“They talk about what they like, what they hear is coming from Target,” says Rockmore, 42. “It’s like free market research.”

That’s my favorite price. Free. Aw yea.

This is part of a new phenomenon called “social media marketing“, where you use social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to reach out to current and potential customers. Sites like this aren’t just for teenagers anymore. If used correctly, they can augment the power of word-of-mouth marketing and make your brand louder and stronger.

It’s a tricky new field though. If you come across too corporate and have no personality, or have a truly awful product, it can backfire. Some companies have faced harsh criticism and negative publicity doing this.

That’s why Rockmore’s approach is a safe middle ground. Even though she created a profile to promote her business (which can attract loyal fans as well as competitors and detractors), she didn’t see the value of Facebook until she found a group of consumers similar to the demographic she was trying to reach.

There are hundreds of groups on Facebook. All are formed by motivated people covering any number of topics, hobbies, and interests, such as:

There’s bound to be a group that fits your target demographic on Facebook. Once you create an account and find a few relevant groups, join them and monitor their discussions for a couple of weeks. Get a feel for the temperament of the participants. You may be able to gleam lots of information just by reading their rants and raves.

When it comes time for more direct information, you can be more proactive and write a message to the group. Ask them for their opinion or suggestions. Be careful not to come across too corporate though, or you might be labeled as working for “The Man.” Also keep in mind basic netiquette, which are a set of informal do’s and don’ts in online communication.

You may be thinking, “That’s great for Rockmore, but my customers don’t use Facebook.” If that’s true, then you’re right, don’t waste your time or brain cells. But if there are potential customers sitting there right now, tweaking their Facebook profiles and complaining about your products, then maybe it’s worth it.

Currently, about 84% of Facebook’s members are between 14 and 26 years of age, according to MarketingHub.info. About 30% of their members have a household income of over $100,000, according to iMedia Connection. There’s some more data on Emergence Media too.

Does that sound like a demographic you want to reach? If so, then perhaps, for the sake of your business, you should get an account. And if you’re not sure how, just ask that teenager of yours.

Debating the Amazon Kindle

I’m having a fun ole’ debate over the Amazon (AMZN) Kindle right now. It’s taking place in the comments of a previous post between myself and Nicholas Zakas, a published author, seasoned programmer, and all-around intelligent guy.

I like debates. They give me a chance to hone my opinions and positions on various topics. I’ll do my best to defend my position, but more often than not, I’ll learn a new viewpoint that adds to my knowledge of that topic.

My post was about how great the Amazon Kindle was going to be. I likened the Kindle to Apple’s (AAPL) iPod. Nicholas commented that:

The iPod was successful largely because people wanted to replace their large portable CD players with something that could play more…it wasn’t techies that make the iPod the sensation that it was, it was the non-techies.

This implies it was the iPod’s ease-of-use that made it such a commercial success. While I totally agree, I think it was more than just the iPod’s simple & friendly form factor that made it great. It was also:

  1. iPod’s branding and Apple’s great overall brand
  2. The “complete package” that iTunes integration offers to the iPod

He argued that while this is true for iPods, it’s different for books:

There’s something about the tactile relationship between readers and their material that makes it hard to give up. I remember when people predicted that newspapers would go out of circulation when people could get their news online…

True, but the same was once said about records when first CDs came out. There was a time when people predicted the TV would replace the radio. And later, that interactive TV would replace regular TV. I’ve never believed that newspapers would go out of circulation, but I do believe their role will change—and has already changed. It’s no longer the single source of up-to-date news. People primarily go to the TV for that now. (Those that go to the web for up-to-date news are still in the minority, though it’s growing rapidly.)

He also made a comment about the Amazon Kindle falsely gaining a first-mover advantage, though the Kindle isn’t the first e-book reader on the market; there are quite a few already. While he’s probably just not as familiar with the e-book market, we both agree that first-mover advantage isn’t a panacea for success.

To that, he followed up with a simple mathematical point:

Considering you can get great books for under $10 nearly anywhere, what would you do? Buy a $400 machine to output text, or buy 40 books? I love tech as much as the next computer geek, but even I would go for the latter.

Good point. If you’re someone who will only buy forty $10 books, you’ll hardly see any cost-savings benefit in the Amazon Kindle. But if you’re someone like me, who’s been known to spend upwards of $800 on books a year, the Amazon Kindle may be worth it.

But then this goes into the question of target demographics, which Nicholas also pointed out:

Tell me who [the target consumers] are for Kindle? People who read books like books, not just the text. The divergence between book readers and technology couldn’t possibly be greater. People often read books to escape computers and technology.

I can’t disagree with that. As a bookworm myself, I also love the tactile feel of a book. However, I used to love the tactile feel of a CD booklet too. Every time I’d listen to a CD, I’d read the booklet for the lyrics or linear notes. Or maybe just stare at the album cover art. I loved doing that. When MP3s first hit the market, I didn’t see the appeal because they felt so ethereal and amorphous. There wasn’t anything I could hold in my hands.

Then I hit a tipping point and realized that the portability and physical space savings of MP3s offset the benefits of having CD booklets for me. The same went for digital movies and DVDs. Now, I love digitizing all of my media.

What may tip the balance of books to e-books are the younger generations of consumers. They’re already growing up with the Internet, mobile phones, and MMORPGs (with their virtual goods) as everyday items in their lives. It’s foreign for them to imagine a world without technology like that. They also don’t place as much value on CD booklets, DVD boxes, or books in the same way the older generations do—younger generations seem all-to-eager to accept digital media.

Just like newspapers, there will always be a role for books. When you’re chilling in a log cabin or on a beach somewhere, you’ll probably want a good solid book in your hands. But if you’re on a train commuting to work, it may be more desirable to hold a device that will allow you to read any book, newspaper, or blog you want.

Potential Initial Niche Targets

One last thought. If Amazon were to approach the e-book market with Geoffrey Moore’s advice in mind (as he writes in Crossing the Chasm), they could target graduate students as an initial niche. With graduate textbooks costing hundreds of dollars, they may find it more cost-effective and easier to lug around a Kindle rather than seven 5lb textbooks. The price point of the Kindle would have to drop from its current $359.00, however. But that is inevitable as they streamline their production costs.

Undergraduate students could be a viable initial niche as well, though more research would need to be done since many undergraduates just purchase used textbooks to save money. If a cheaper Kindle could tap into this market, the purchasers may actually be the students’ parents.

Another initial niche could be any profession that requires access to large volumes of books at any given time, such as lawyers. Imagine the mountains of books a lawyer has to go through. Now imagine being able to search through all of that easily through a single handheld device. Not bad, huh?

This is easier said than done, of course. There are lots of tricky book publisher contracts to negotiate. Without the necessary content, these niches are impossible to reach. But still, it’s not hard to imagine these users wanting a device like the Amazon Kindle, yea?

Top Gear, Fifth Gear, and Now: Just Plain Ole’ Gear

Top Gear and Fifth Gear I’ve been drooling all weekend. Drooling over videos of BMW’s new M3 and it’s convertible counterpart. Can I just say: HOT!

The M3 video is a clip from the British show Fifth Gear. That, and the original BBC car show Top Gear, cover all kinds of cool cars. Unfortunately, the shows are only available in the UK, unless you have a satellite TV that’s able to pick up the BBC.

Both shows are popular among car enthusiasts. YouTube may have made them even more popular in this country by introducing them to US audiences (correct me if I’m wrong about that). The shows generally feature cars from BMW, Mercedes Benz, Audi, Jaguar, Porsche, Aston Martin, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Maserati, Bentley, as well as a few from Honda, Volkswagen, Dodge, Ford, and General Motors. There’s been some criticism that the shows don’t feature enough “affordable” cars, however.

After talking to a friend about these shows, my mind started wandering. And wondering. Since these shows are so cool, why aren’t they in the US? Or perhaps: what if there were a US version that included American hot rods, pick-up trucks, and SUVs, since those are generally more popular in the US? What if there was a segment for off-roading, where pick-up trucks and SUVs could battle it out on rocky terrain and hills?

As with all seemingly good ideas, I was not the first to think this. According to Top Gear’s Wikipedia entry:

In April 2007, the BBC reported on a Sun story that Top Gear had been in talks about creating an American version. The current presenters would remain as hosts, but the show would focus on American cars and include American celebrities. The Sun reported in July, however, that plans for an American version had been shelved, partly over [Top Gear host Jeremy] Clarkson’s misgivings about spending several months in the U.S., away from his family.

Ah. And then I found this bit of news from The Hollywood Reporter:

The popular BBC car show “Top Gear” is revving up a U.S. edition.

NBC has ordered a pilot for “Gear,” to be produced by BBC Worldwide Prods. Like the original, it will be a mix of cars, humor and celebrities.

There’s some trepidation of this remake, however. The hosts of Top Gear, Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May and the anonymous & mysterious Stig, are considered a large part of the show’s success. Without their wit and knowledge of cars, some wonder how NBC’s Gear will succeed.

My prediction – if they can:

  • find funny, witty hosts who actually know what they’re talking about,
  • are as entertaining as Tom and Ray Magliozzi (otherwise known as Click and Clack) of the NPR radio show Car Talk,
  • can test drive these cars well enough to give informed opinions,
  • and are camera-friendly (hey, this is Hollywood, after all),

…then they will have a serious shot at success. There will always be purists who dislike an international translation of a great piece of art. But US audiences are fairly different than UK audiences. Some kind of translation is going to be necessary (like pick-up truck and SUV off-roading, I tell ya!).

I’ll be anxiously awaiting this new show. I hope they don’t screw it up!

UPDATE 4/3/2008: Here’s Jay Leno’s opinion on the US version of Top Gear. Pretty dire. I hope he was kidding when he related this anecdote about Gear being about building cars:

I ask: what’s the plan for the show? “Well, like, one week you build a car that flies and the next week you make a car that goes under water.” So I said: you know you can’t build these things in a week.

Building cars? How did they go from Top Gear to Pimp My Ride? Damn, I hope that’s not what Gear is going to be…

London’s Padded Lampposts

Padded Lampposts Have you ever been texting on your phone while walking down the street? Then BONK! you crash into a lamppost or mailbox?

Um, me neither, and certainly not yesterday on 3rd Ave. But people in London have. That’s why 118 118, a UK phone directory and information service, has begun experimenting with human-sized pads on lampposts, according to FOXNews.com.

A study… found that one in 10 people has been hurt while focusing on their cell phone instead of where they were walking. … The study claims that 68,000 people were injured in the U.K. last year while chatting or texting on their cell phone.

That’s a lot of people! Take a look at ten of your friends. At least one of you has BONKED into something while texting. Maybe it was YOU.

This isn’t just an altruistic move by 118 118 though. They’ll get to place advertising on these pads if this experiment is successful. So far, they’ve been testing this product in London’s East End on Brick Lane. If all goes well, it will be rolled out in Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool too.

That means 118 118 gets a lock on a new market – lamppost pad advertising (or whatever they’re going to call it). What’s next? Mailboxes for one. Maybe building corners, trees, gates, benches, trash cans, and heck, pigeons too – whatever people can bump into.

Of course, plastering the sidewalks with pads and ads has its limits, both visually and logistically. How would you wash them if a dog or person peed on it? Would they culture mildew after the rain? Would homeless individuals steal pads so they have something on which to sleep?

Aside from the logistics, which 118 118 is no doubt trying to sort through, I could see a number of advertisers going for this medium. Say this was going to happen in the US, for instance:

  • Sleep Train – So soft, you could sleep walk right into bed.
  • Verizon – Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? Can you – BONK – ah, soft. Verizon. Providing you with total coverage, easily and painlessly.
  • Nokia – Easy to use, easy on the eyes, and now, easy to text, even if you’re on the street. It’s just that simple.
  • AMC Theaters – Watch where you’re going! Or better yet, sit down and relax at AMC, just down the block.
  • Honda – Oops! Wasn’t that soft? With Honda’s reliability and safety features, a car accident could be just as easy.
  • Hanes Underwear – Didn’t Momma tell you to watch where you’re going? I’ll bet she told you to put on clean underwear too. Like Hanes underwear!

Interesting idea. If you happen to be in London and see these padded lampposts, let me know how they work!

Via: Steve Webel

Online Competitive Analysis Services

Not knowing your competition is like not knowing who you’re fighting in World of Warcraft. Is it Alliance? Horde? Night Elves? Blood Elves? Goblins? Oh my!

When analyzing your competition, you’re assessing their strengths and weakness. Your analysis should include direct and indirect competitors as well; any alternate method of solving the same problem your product or service solves is a competitor, even if it’s not a formal business entity. Online Marketing Software and Marketing Experiments Journal both have nice primers on doing competitive analyzes.

For web-based businesses, there a fair number of online competitive analysis services out there. Some are free, some require subscriptions. Here are a bunch that I’ve come across.

Free Online Competitive Analysis Services

Alexa

One of the more popular services out there, Alexa ranks websites against each other based on traffic. Additionally, it provides data on rank trends (up or down), download speed, reach, page views per user, visitor origins, related links, and in some cases, business information like number of employees, annual revenue, and business contacts.

Alexa gathers its data from users who’ve downloaded the Alexa Toolbar. There is some controversy over this method as some websites have gamed Alexa’s rankings in the past. Also, it only provides this data at the domain name level; data for sub-domains and directories not offered.

For a general idea of popularity trends, this can be a useful service. Just give the Alexa ranks some margin of error.

Compete

Compete is also a traffic ranking service like Alexa, though it offers slightly different data. It aims to provide the number of unique visitors to a website, in addition to time spent, pages per visit, and top search keywords driving traffic to the website. Compete also makes it very easy to compare several sites at once.

Compete gathers its data by recruiting users, much like Nielsen Ratings did for US television viewers. These users come from the Compete Toolbar, ISPs, and opt-in panels. Its number of unique visitors metric isn’t accurate, it’s an approximation; use your traffic analysis tools for a more accurate number. Also, Compete only provides data for US users; non-US users are not counted.

Like Alexa, Compete can be useful for general popularity trends and comparisons.

Quantcast

One of the newer traffic ranking services on the block, Quantcast also provides demographics data, such as gender, age, household income, ethnicity, head of household education, and children in household. This data is all from US users only.

Quantcast gathers its data through research panels (essentially, anonymous surveys) and beacon tracking on websites which need to be installed by website owners themselves. Their demographic data is obtained from their research panels, which they acknowledge isn’t entirely accurate.

Like all online traffic ranking services, Quantcast can be useful for general demographic information, but assume some margin of error.

Competitious

Competitious is a new offering that aggregates the data from traffic ranking services into one location. So far, it only pulls ranking data from Alexa. It also provides a way to compare features across competitors and store news clippings. Your analyzes are saved as “projects” and multiple people can be added to a project.

Although its offerings aren’t very comprehensive yet, Competitious has a lot of potential for being a hub for your online competitive analyzes. I’m anxious to see what features they add next.

SearchStatus

Not really a full-fledged service, SearchStatus is an extension for the Firefox web browser. It provides a quick snapshot of any website’s Google PageRank, Alexa Rank, and Compete Rank. There are also a lot of other features, such as showing nofollow links, number of links, meta tags, a whois report, the robots.txt file, keyword density, back links, pages indexed in popular search engines, and other SEO-relevant information.

All of this data is freely available. This extension simply aggregates all of it onto your web browser. It’s an extremely handy tool and very popular among SEO specialists.

Paid Online Competitive Analysis Services

comScore

One of the most widely-cited sources, comScore is the Nielsen Ratings of the Internet. It provides traffic rank data in addition to typical marketing metrics such as engagement, reach, frequency, demographics, and daypart reporting. Many journalists and bloggers use comScore’s numbers as a gauge of market share.

comScore gathers its data from users who’ve opted in and downloaded their usage tracking software. Since self-selected populations can be biased, comScore adjusts the data using weights to make sure that different demographics are adequately represented.

comScore is fairly expensive and probably out of reach for most small-to-medium sized businesses. The free traffic ranking services like Alexa, Compete, and Quantcast can provide adequate competitive data for now.

Andiamo Systems

Andiamo Systems is a new service that aims to provide a measurement of a business’s word-of-mouth reach. It does this by collecting mentions from blogs, forums, review sites, message boards, PR newswires, news, and other web sites. A lot of your customers could be sharing their opinions about your products & services online right now, good or bad. This service acts like a targeted search engine to aggregate all of those opinions for you.

Pricing is set on a monthly basis and increases as you get more mentions, starting at $79 for up to 50 mentions. This scale makes Andiamo more affordable for small businesses. A 14-day free trial is offered.

Not every mention out there is equally important, but this new service could provide an effective way to monitor a tiny negative word before it explodes into a PR nightmare.

Watch360

Watch360 is a new service that keeps an eye on your competitors’ websites and reports every little change they make. It’s a way to monitor announcements and new product offerings from your competitors on a daily basis.

Pricing is on a monthly or yearly basis and increases as you monitor more companies, starting at $29.95/month for 10 companies. The top pricing tier, $99.95/month, allows you to monitor an unlimited amount of companies. A free trial report is offered for one company.

Assuming that your competitors update their website and blog regularly, this new service could give you the information you need to react to their moves.

Ever use any of these free or paid services? If so, what did you think? And do you know of any others that are also good?

Internet Real Estate Fix & Flip Overview

The Dancing House in Prague Ah yes, the real estate fix and flip. What better way to make bank than by buying a cheap fixer-upper, fixing it, and selling it for a tidy profit?

But you know that already. What you may not know is that you can do this with web sites too. Yea. Web sites.

Here’s a quick overview. The formula is somewhat similar to fixing and flipping traditional real estate. The word “property” is interchangeable here; it could mean a house or a web site. Both are essentially real estate properties. One just exists on land while the other exists on the Internet.

  1. Evaluate the property

    Assess it’s current value (pageviews, unique visitors, search engine rankings, market strength, revenues, expenses, etc) and potential for growth (new market opportunities, ways to increase visitors, ways to increase search engine rankings, ways to increase revenue streams, etc). Unlike traditional real estate, there aren’t many fees involved in purchasing a web site. There are only transition costs, such as getting access to their servers and related accounts.

  2. Purchase the property

    Sites like the SitePoint Marketplace (the largest place for buying and selling websites currently) and VentureBoard allow you to browse what’s for sale and offer a bid. Just like in traditional real estate, hot properties get scooped up fast.

  3. Fix the property

    This can involve a wide range of activities, depending on your expertise and the property you purchased. Some may just need a boost in search engine rankings (which is where SEO and SEM come into play). Others need more innovative marketing techniques (like SMM or viral marketing). You can also do things to increase revenues (raise site fees, add additional revenue generators, etc), decrease expenses (lower server or content acquisition costs, etc), or increase quality traffic (better marketing, customer retention techniques, etc). Hopefully you had an idea of what to do before you purchased the property.

  4. Flip the property

    Put it right back on the SitePoint Marketplace or VentureBoard.

There’s a ton of stuff that goes into properly evaluating and fixing a web property. Similar to traditional real estate, there’s even a whole industry around teaching you how to do that. Mind boggling. And potentially quite profitable too, if you want to get into it. Even though the barriers to entry are low (any ole’ shmuck can do it, even you!), it’s still a relatively young industry and may have room for more players.

So what are you waiting for? Go fix and flip!

1-800 Numbers With Words

Old Wireless Phone Pardon this rant, but I just need to get this off my chest. You know what bugs me? When ads show 1-800 numbers made up of words to represent the numbers. Such as 1-800-FLOWERS or 1-800-PLUMBER.

Now, I know why such numbers exist. It’s much easier for a customer to remember a phone number with a catchy word than a string of random numbers. That totally makes sense because the dialpads of phones list letters with each number.

But: Not all new phones have such dialpads. Many smart phones don’t. My phone doesn’t. And every time I have to dial a 1-800 number + word, I have to dig up a phone with a traditional dialpad. A few times, I’ve just given up and called a competitor.

I’m sure I’m not the only person with this problem too. Just about every smart phone owner has this problem, and if these people make up your target audience, you’re as good as Boo.com: dead.

There’s an obvious solution to this problem though. Include the corresponding numbers with your word in the ad. Duh.

Whew, I feel much better now that this is off my chest. Now go fix your ads!