In The News

Written by jeffbullas on September 21, 2009

A conversation I constantly have with my clients is how important unique great content is to  helping them ”Getting Found Online” so when the study by “Online Publishers Association” came across my screen recently, it was good to find more hard numbers to back up the evangelism.

The study on online activity titled the “Internet Activity Index” released by  the Online Publishers Association shows the  trends of the types of activity that have ocurred on the Internet over the past 6 years. The study’s findings has important implications for online marketers and how they should be focusing their time, resources and strategies in 2009 and beyond.

The 5 Categories and the the types of sites that were measured were:

• Content (Sites like NYTimes.com, ESPN.com and Edmunds.com (Content sites)
• Communications (websites offering email, and Instant messaging)
• Community (Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn)
• Commerce (such as Ebay, Amazon)
• Search (Google, Yahoo, Bing etc)

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Simon Gornick

ROI in social media is a luxury. And the only brands that can accept that are likely to be big ones with multi-platform marketing budgets. The larger the brand, the more likely they are to use social media without concerning themselves with its dollar ROI, when goodwill for them, is priceless. With mid-level brands the debate becomes more acute because the marketing budget is more thinly spread. And as for small brands, there’s no debate at all. For the most part, all they have is social media – so ROI is a matter of hope rather than measurable statistics.

That was a comment I added to a great post from Matt Ridings called “Is Our Addiction to ROI Killing Social Media” on Convince & Convert.

Understanding this equation goes to the very heart of modern marketing, not merely within social media but across the entire spectrum of marketing disciplines.

Part of the conundrum is rooted in the inherent contradictions of the Internet and its technology. On the one hand, Web technology has provided us with an almost obsessive level of measurability – metrics of just about every variable one can imagine are instantly available. On the other, the Internet is a vast, free flowing fish-pond where hundreds of millions of people swim and bob around from place to place, connecting, communicating, and moving on. Measuring that part of the process isn’t just dicey, it’s a recipe for insanity.

Bridging Both Sides of the Internet Experience

The answer is simpler than most people think. Find a way to measure and assess marketing responses that’s right for the channel you’re using – and stick with it.

If you’re using banner advertising (how wonderfully old-fashioned of you!) CPC, eCPM, and CPS are your bread and butter. The ROI – while still imprecise – is at its core at least – numerical. And if it’s numerical, the ebbs and flows of sales can be measured with some degree of accuracy against your spend. How much of advertising ROI is art rather than science is a matter for debate, but there’s enough vaguely convincing science in play to reassure executives.

Partially because “social media” means a great many things, it’s far more difficult to create a reliable attribution model.

Social media – at least today – is often more art than science. At best the science is the pseudo-science of persuasion and engagement – concepts that don’t sit well with the empiricists who want proof of everything, all the time.

Let’s look at how companies of various sizes and budgetary realities look at this quandary.

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Andrew Hannely

“So, you like, Tweet for a living?” The thinly veiled mocker quietly asks.

“No, I mean, like, seriously? That stuff is kind of a waste of time, isn’t it? Well, at least you get to be on Facebook all day.”

The veil is dropped and the disdain shows its face. You’ve just met the social media stigma – the reason nearly half of all brands are not sure of social marketing’s value.

“This social media stuff sounds fun, but is there really a point?”

You’ve heard this before. You tell them about the sea change. You give them an analogy about a flood coming. You tell them they can either build a levee or grab a surfboard. The analogy worked better in your head.

“I want real ROI. I want proof that Facebook will help me sell more widgets.”

You think of case studies. You scramble to think of statistics. You marvel at the demand there must be for widgets. Your mind spins in the million different ways you can answer this question.

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Amber MacArthur

Whether it’s the annual global grassroots fundraiser Twestival or Pepsi’s online fund for positive ideas, the Internet is no stranger to social media causes. For years businesses have been taking advantage of popular web tools to promote important issues, while building brand awareness at the same time. However, there is one company that is taking a brave new approach for a good cause, featuring a guy at home in his underwear.

Now don’t get too excited, this new social media star is no Old Spice Guy. This near-naked Guy at Home is not promising viewers a dream makeover or tickets to that thing you love. What he is doing is sacrificing his privacy to educate people about testicular cancer.

For 25 days, Mark McIntyre is hanging out on Guyathome.com, all day every day in his underpants (in a rented Toronto loft). The goal is to reach 50,000 fans on Facebook. In turn, boxer and briefs maker Stanfield’s will donate $50,000 ($1 per fan) to the Canadian Cancer Society. So far, there are more 40,000 likes, just 16 days into the project.

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Ayelet Noff

here is lit­tle doubt that brands today have real­ized the crit­i­cal value of social media in devel­op­ing pow­er­ful brand aware­ness. So now the burn­ing ques­tion is how do we effec­tively engage the peo­ple we wish to con­nect with in a way that cre­ates real, tan­gi­ble and effec­tive results for the brand.

uTest spe­cial­izes in soft­ware test­ing ser­vices through its com­mu­nity of 30,000+ pro­fes­sional testers from 165 coun­tries around the globe. Com­pa­nies — from garage star­tups to For­tune 500 soft­ware giants — have used uTest’s ser­vices to test their web, mobile and desk­top applications.

In the last few months, Blonde 2.0 (part of the Socialmedia.biz net­work) has worked with uTest to cre­ate a social pres­ence for the com­pany, nur­tur­ing cur­rent clients as well as reach­ing out to poten­tial new clients,while devel­op­ing a cen­tral hub for their com­mu­nity of testers.

We began by work­ing on bring­ing testers closer together through social media chan­nels. By doing this, testers could con­nect with one another from around the globe; chat; share notes and join in the uTest com­mu­nity expe­ri­ence. In addi­tion, it cre­ated the per­fect oppor­tu­nity for uTest to recruit new and raw tal­ent, enhance brand aware­ness and cre­ate a vir­tual meet­ing point for other com­pa­nies to learn about uTest’s services.

uTest had already devel­oped a solid online pres­ence with a pow­er­ful web­site; a nice Twit­ter pro­file; blogs with per­ti­nent posts relat­ing to soft­ware test­ing and mobile app test­ing as well as forums to which com­mu­nity mem­bers could sub­scribe. uTest had already built the foun­da­tion for a Face­book page and called on the Blonde 2.0 team to find cre­ative ways to increase its brand aware­ness while encour­ag­ing inter­ac­tiv­ity with the audience.

Every­one went in with expec­ta­tions of grad­ual growth as is com­mon with most brands that ini­tially hit the Face­book sphere. Growth on a Face­book page is usu­ally grad­ual and requires patience to achieve sig­nif­i­cant results. The build-up of fans can be a chal­lenge. The fruits of our cre­ative brain­storm­ing and col­lab­o­ra­tion brought to life our “Bug of the Month” com­pe­ti­tion idea.

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