Google just re-launched it's realtime search results with a new look, URL , and features. Some key improvements include the ability to search by location or source (Twitter-only, for example), conversation view - giving you the all the buzz from start to realtime, and realtime alerts based on your chosen search terms and delivered up to the minute, daily, or weekly.

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Recently Todd Moy, a member of our UX team, shared a cohort analysis chart, which illustrates whether a website is retaining its users and if it’s improving over time.  Cohort analysis is an easy way to visualize your site’s addict-ability. 

In this post, I’ll describe the best way, as far as I know, to use Google Analytics to get the necessary info for a cohort analysis.

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During this month's MSM meeting we discussed the current state of blog coverage for products and services and how to shape stories to fit tech bloggers’ appetites. As blogs have transformed into more of a mainstream news source, it has become harder to gain the attention of the tech bloggers whom you wish to cover your product or service.  We came up with answers to common questions you might ask when figuring out how to sell your product or service to bloggers

Continue reading "Middle School Marketing Recap: Getting Blog Coverage"

Twitter has become one of the best ways to spread the word about your new business and increase exposure across markets. With such a flexible tool, it's easy to abuse such a strategy and consequently turn its power against you. Of course there are no Twitter speed limits, yield signs, or stoplights to control the speed and accuracy of your social media campaign. But as for any newly developed open market, there is a natural etiquette that emerges and continues to grow.

I've compiled a list of Do's and Don'ts from my own experience that may help in growing your follower crowd. Slackers be warned: this is not a get rich quick scheme. If you're looking to grab several thousand followers in a day and don't care who you pick up along the way (spam, robots, etc.) then there are tools out there for you. The following list is how to attract valuable followers that could potentially become customers. This "helicopter tour" list can grow and morph with time, so I encourage feedback and input.

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During this week's MSM meeting, we honed in on developing marketing and promotion strategies for web startups. We demoed and discussed Viget's very own SpeakerRate to bring focus to the conversation. Great feedback and application-specific insights boiled, but some points are useful to any web startup looking to make its way in the flood of such ventures. Here are some key takeaways:

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What if objects could become "worth" more if they were imbued with imaginary stories?

Is it really called progress if we're just doing the same thing over and over again?

Both questions are incredibly useful to advertising, both are useful to society at large, and both were asked at the recent PSFK New York Conference.

The first question was posed by Rob Walker, author of the NYT column "Consumed" and co-creator of Significant Objects. The second by Colin Beavan, the No Impact Man.

What if objects could become "worth" more if they were imbued with imaginary stories?

Rob and his partner began a project called "Significant Objects" in which he would buy "useless" objects from thrift shops, yard sales, etc.; recruit professional writers to invent stories about the objects; and then sell them on eBay (the funds are donated to charity). The project has taken off - items are sold for significantly more than they were purchased for, and Rob's reflections on why were fascinating.

What I gathered from Rob's discussion was that not only are stories important, but it's the people behind those stories that are of worth. Rob asked the question, "What do you grab from your home if you have 30 seconds to do so?" The answers are rarely "My latest gadget"; rather, they are things like "My photo album" or "The card my wife gave me." We reach for things that carry emotional significance - we reach for things that have been imbued with story...stories made up of people.

This has relevance for advertising as well as society at large.

Continue reading "PSFK New York Recap - Storytelling & Progress"

During this month's MSM meeting, we discussed the surge of geo-location services into the marketplace. As it stands, geo-location applications such as Gowalla, Foursquare, and MyTown are rapidly gaining users, with MyTown recently hitting 1 million installs in April. Will these apps ever be as widely used as Twitter or Facebook? Maybe, especially when we reach the day where smart phones are as ubiquitous as computers.  However, until then, we continue to ask, “What is the motivation behind using geo-location services, and how can we, as business owners, use that knowledge reach prospective customers?”

Continue reading "Middle School Marketing: Motivations Behind Using Foursquare (and the like)"

On Monday, Facebook launched Community Pages, and with this launch I noticed the subsequent change in the look and feel on some of my friends' info pages. There are minor design changes like bigger fonts and sections moved around, but what is most obvious is the new linking to Community Pages for your Activities and Interests and Fan Pages for your favorite Music, Movies, and TV Shows. Previously, if you clicked on someone's favorite activity, interest, or TV show, it would take you to a generic search results page. Now, it takes you directly to the Community or Fan Page (which you can now "Like" instead of becoming a fan).

Here's an example for one of my favorite TV Shows, Modern Family.

Favorite TV Shows on old Info Page:

Goes here:

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We kicked off last week’s Middle School Marketing meeting with this question: How does an interactive agency balance strategic “big idea” work (e.g. coming up with grandiose marketing campaigns) and the more tactical “execution” work (e.g. building interactive sites/apps, driving traffic via search, and then measuring results)?

As a fast-growing interactive agency, we find ourselves asking this question a lot. Luckily, we got a lot of great input from members of MSM and their past experiences. The overwhelming response was that every agency does it differently and there is no clear method or process to finding that “perfect balance.” Here are a few ways that other agencies have gone about balancing their strategic vs. tactical work.

• Smaller agencies are strategic and tactical. Usually with agencies less than ten people, there is minimal segmentation of work between “higher” and “lower” level employees. In this situation, everyone is on every project from the initial strategic brainstorming sessions through the execution of the idea or campaign. 
• The big agencies (Ogilvy, McCann, etc.) have a highly segmented vision between strategy and execution. Senior level employees develop and sell the strategy then pass on the project to entry-level and mid-level employees for execution, while moving on to pitch the next client. This works best in an agency that has a rigid hierarchical employee-structure and career paths that are very clear.

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This month's Middle School Marketing we set out to talk about geo-based marketing, but instead found ourselves discussing gaming and its long term viability. 

One thing is certain: gaming isn't going anywhere. In fact, it's growing and it's growing fast. And it's not just black-t-shirt-and-square-rimmed-glasses-wearing-with-dirty-facial-hair-stuck-in-their-mom's-basement-playing-WOW nerds. Gaming is invading reality, and everyone is playing:

• As of today, Farmville has 83,105,118 active monthly users and Mafia Wars has 25,080,678. Seriously?
• Farmville has more players than Twitter has accounts
• Two and a half years ago, Disney purchased Club Penguin for $350M - a game which at the time boasted 12 million accounts, 700,000 paid subscribers, and $40M in annual revenue. I'm sure the numbers are exponentially larger now
• As of February 20th, PlayStation has 20M users worldwide and Xbox Live has generated $1 billion dollars since its 2002 launch
• MyTown recently hit one million users after only two months in existence. And let's not forget about Gowalla and Foursquare, and Causeworld
• Gameloft brought in $170M in iPhone App Store revenue - and that's just one company

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This morning a friend sent me the link to Vintage Ad Browser, and I wanted to share. According to the web site,

This site aims to collect vintage ads from a variety of sources, including comic books, CD-Roms, websites, APIs, your submissions, book, magazine & comic book scans, and more. 

It's inspiring and outright fun to browse the retro/awesome/ ingenious/heartwarming/hilarious/etc. ads from the the last +100 years. Some of the ads even offer the option click through to purchase a print. Here are some gems I found during my exploration:

    1908 - what does "serviceable" even mean...?

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Have you played with this yet? It's sort of like Twitter + Facebook + FourSquare / Gowalla. Interesting concept, it's built on the back of the "like" and "share" integration with Google Reader that was introduced awhile back.

This month’s Middle School Marketing was a discussion on saying “no” to clients. It’s probably not surprising that individuals from professional services firms were the most vocal/passionate contributors to the conversation. It was an interesting time to have the discussion - the start of a new year and on the heels of financially challenging times, which have impacted all of our companies in one way or another.

“Try to see it my way. Do I have to keep on talking ‘til I can’t go on?”

The concept of “no” or maybe more often times, getting a client to say “yes” is complex in the marketing/design arena for myriad reasons. Here were some of the big points of discussion/takeaways:

Continue reading "MSM: “I said No!” or at least I tried (with a little help from the Beatles)"

1. Both are super into raising awareness about stuff that others need to be made aware of
2. Both love blue-collar work. Neither have done more than three minutes of it
3. Both recycle other people's creativity and pawn it off as their own
4. Both love their low necklines - especially the dudes
5. Both are 100% incapable of being swayed by advertising
6. Both suck at parties - one won't shutup, one won't talk
7. Both like old crap, but neither have any idea why
8. Both could do a better job at whatever it is you're talking about 
9. They're the first person to hear about everything that you have ever heard of
10. Both love something more than life itself until someone else finds about it. Then, they are both really, really over it
11. Both spend enough on coffee (organic coffee, mind you) to feed a small nation
12. "What's that Apple thing called again? Yeah, that. I love that thing"
13. Giant, black rimmed glasses are a requirement. Prescriptions are optional
14. Both love the idea of smoking
15. Both use as many large words as possible (especially "post-modern"). Neither know what those words mean (especially "post-modern")
16. Somehow or another, both wear New Balance's. This still befuddles me
17. Both care about the environment so much they watched "An Inconvenient Truth"

And for the record, I probably fall into both of these categories, making me the worst person alive.

Continue reading "What Advertisers and Hipsters Have in Common"

You've seen the "Drive-Thru Diet" commercials from Taco Bell, right? It's a perfect example of what happens when a company loses its brand focus. What is it that people love about Taco Bell? Words like "late night," "delicious," and "guilty pleasure" come to mind. According to Zeta Buzz, the most common words surrounding Taco Bell in the online space were once "favorite," "delicious," and "love." (AdAge source). Then the Drive-Thru Diet happened.

Continue reading "Brand Focus: What Taco Bell is Teaching Us"