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Starting Up the Social Media Marketing Prediction Engine

Written on December 21, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: Object, book, marketing

Well, since everybody rolled out the trends of 2009 at the beginning of December, there’s really nothing left to do this year but make predictions for next year, right? Forrester is going to kick us off with predictions for marketing in social media.

Naturally, they see major growth coming in the SMM arena (which they call “social computing,” but I think that’s something different . . . ). In fact, they see 2010 as they year social media marketing reaches maturity, with marketers (and not just SMMs) focusing on measurement and even getting budgets.

The rise of SMM will lead to more transparency and interactivity, Forrester predicts. And that will make SMM even more valuable to companies. Oh, and Twitter will reach profitability—or be acquired.

Of course, all this won’t come without challenges. With much of social media still a highly fractured, siloed space, many marketers will have to prioritize various social networks—will they spend their time focusing on getting Twitter right or really interacting with Facebook fans? Meanwhile, they’ll also have to make sure their social media is ready for the mobile web.

And of course, measurement continues to be a challenge. Says Forrester:

Marketers don’t think they’re very good at measuring social media: On average, they rate their own efforts to measure social initiatives at 4.5 out of 10.3 And there’s no silver bullet — depending on marketers’ objectives and the technologies they’re using, any of dozens of different metrics could be appropriate. But one thing’s for sure: With the need for accountability rising, marketers can’t keep pretending that fans and followers are useful success metrics. In 2010, marketers will finally start to focus on the metrics that match their objectives — and metrics that their CMOs already know and trust.

Forrester also explains how they can do this—just like we measure just about anything else. Set a goal, then figure out what metrics will help you meet that goal and track them. (Forrester notes that a lot of these metrics may be more intangible,” like brand awareness and likeability requiring “brand surveys, sentiment analysis, and Razorfish’s SIM score,” in addition to more traditional hard numbers in sales.)

What do you think? What metrics are most important in your social media marketing? How do you track them?

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Starting Up the Social Media Marketing Prediction Engine

Singing a Different Tune to DOJ: Please Okay Bingahoo!

Written on October 20, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: Advertising, marketing

It hardly seems possible, but it was just last year that the Goohoo (Yahoogle?) search ad deal was under scrutiny from the US government. Ultimately, that scrutiny killed the deal—since the DoJ informed Google that they’d face anti-trust charges if they went through with the deal.

Here we are, a year later, and two search giants are once again bringing a proposed search ad deal before the skeptical DoJ. And once again, we have a powerful organization weighing in. Last year, major advertising groups, including the American Association of Advertising Agencies, spoke out against the Googahoo deal. This year, they’re weighing in again—this time in favor of Microsoft and Yahoo’s deal.

In a letter (PDF) to the Department of Justice, Nancy Hill, president and chief executive of the 4A, urged the governmental body to approve the deal—and fast:

We believe that Yahoo and Microsoft’s proposal to combine their technologies and search platforms is good for advertisers, marketing services agencies, website publishers and consumers. These benefits are too important to wait for. As leading members of the advertising and marketing services industry, we urge the Department of Justice to bring its antitrust review to a speedy conclusion. This proposal enhances competition, and should be allowed to take effect as soon as possible.

Last year, another organization that opposed the deal, the ANA, argued against the Google-Yahoo partnership, saying it would “control 90 percent of search advertising inventory[,] . . . and . . . likely diminish competition, increase concentration of market power, limit choices currently available and potentially raise prices to advertisers for high quality, affordable search advertising.”

Of course, the obvious difference here is that Bing/Microsoft is no Google in the search world. While Bing is inching up the charts, they have nothing on the search giant.

But let’s be honest—do you think Bingahoo has a chance of taking on Google? Or do you just hope against hope?

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Singing a Different Tune to DOJ: Please Okay Bingahoo!

Google Jumps On2 Video Compression; Sends Google Radio into a WideOrbit

Written on August 5, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: Advertising, marketing

I wouldn’t hold your breath, but there’s a chance we’ll soon see the end of pixelated videos on YouTube. Google has today announced the acquisition of On2 Technologies and its portfolio of video compression technology. The $106.5 million deal could signal that we’ll soon see better compression technology used at YouTube– which means those videos that look great on your desktop, will still look great when they get to YouTube.

“Today video is an essential part of the web experience, and we believe high-quality video compression technology should be a part of the web platform,” said Sundar Pichai, Vice President, Product Management, Google in a statement. “We are committed to innovation in video quality on the web, and we believe that On2’s team and technology will help us further that goal.”

But wait! We’re in a recession, how can Google afford to pay $106 million for compression technology? Easy! It just offloaded the remnants of its failed Google Radio division to software firm WideOrbit. According to TechCrunch:

WideOrbit is taking over several assets of Google’s radio business, namely Google Radio Automation, Maestro and SS32 automation products. The company, which is backed by at least $34.5 million in venture capital, commented on the closing of the deal saying that it was looking to expand its product portfolio and taking over Google Radio’s assets was a key step in that process.

So to recap: video is still hot, radio, not so much.

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Google Jumps On2 Video Compression; Sends Google Radio into a WideOrbit