It seems like I’m hearing more and more about the privacy concerns surrounding online marketing. While this has been an issue for awhile, it could be soon reaching a boiling point.

For a lot of people, Facebook’s Beacon initiative put online privacy concerns on the map.

I recently heard a piece on NPR regarding protecting your children from those vicious online marketers. It was just a little one-sided and motivated me to call in to the NPR show for the first time in my life--which I later realized made me the oldest person I know.

Another fascinating article, which had a similar doomsday feel, was a NYT piece entitled, “To Aim Ads, Web Is Keeping Closer Eye on You.”

And to top it all off, Anil Batra’s “Web Analysis, Behavioral Targeting and Advertising” blog just posted the following:

One New York assemblyman, Richard L. Brodsky, has drafted a bill that would make it a crime — punishable by a fine to be determined — for certain Web companies to use personal information about consumers for advertising without their consent.

While I do believe much of the fear is based on a lack of understanding; I also believe this issue will need to be addressed sooner or later--especially now that big bad Google is now allowing us to opt-in to analytics data sharing as well as target our ads based on demographics (also see this post).

Additionally, the fact that Google is uncomfortable with the title “behavioral targeting” speaks volumes as they are beginning to take tactical measures to invalidate the finger pointing.

...Keeping you protected from the savage data sharing pirates; I’ll provide updates when it’s safe to do so.

We have lots of clients asking for Search Engine Optimization.  I wish I had had magic search engine ranking powers; but there isn’t a silver bullet to ranking in search engines. 

SEOspace had a fantastic post on the value of In-Bound Linking Vs. On-Page SEO.  I liked this article for two reasons:
1. It defined some of the process necessary to rank in search engines. 
2. It highlights the symbiosis of In-Bound Linking and On-Page SEO

Check out the post here.

It doesn’t matter if you are Apple selling the “best media player on the market” or Mother Theresa selling a better way to live.  If you take more than five seconds to convey your message, the likelihood that your potential customers will stay engaged is .002 percent.  You can disagree all you want, but they probably won’t give you a second chance to convert them.  Understanding message and concept is key.

Continue reading "What Are You Doing With Your Five Seconds?"

Is dialogue leaving the blogosphere?

ReadWriteWeb has an excellent post regarding a shift in online conversations moving from blogs to just about everywhere but the comments section. Whether it’s on Twitter or attached to a social bookmarking site or even a lifestreaming service, there are more ways than ever to participate in online conversations. 

Continue reading "Digital Conversations Find New Outlets"

As part of Howard Schultz’s return to Starbucks in effort to rejuvinate the flailing brand, the coffee giant is trying something it has long refused to take part in - a social media strategy. This week they launched My Starbucks Ideas - a forum for customers, fans and critics of Starbucks to share their ideas on how to improve the Starbucks experience. Similar to Dell’s IdeaStorm, My Starbucks Idea marks their first foray into engaging in an online conversation with their customers.

Earlier this year, Jesse Kornbluth had written in the Huffington Post:

It’s interesting that Schultz professes to love Starbucks customers but has no apparent interest in hearing from us. How’s that, Howard? You’re going to thrill us without getting our input? Do you really think focus groups, consumer research and executive offsites will tell you what you need to know? What, exactly, do you think the Starbucks website is for?

So perhaps Starbucks is finally waking up to the fact that there are millions of customers with great ideas for making Starbucks a better third place. And while it’s encouraging to see Starbucks taking steps in the right direction, My Starbucks Ideas will only succeed if customers see a genuine response and action from Starbucks. 

“The nice thing about Web Analytics is that the data doesn’t lie.”

Have you ever heard someone say that? Have you ever thought that yourself? Well, that’s not entirely true. Sure the data itself is objective, but it’s the subjectivity of the viewer that dictates how ‘truthful’ Web Analytics really is.

You have a choice. You can:

Allow Web Analytics to dictate your actions; or,
Allow your actions to dictate how you use Web Analytics.

What do I mean?

Continue reading "Talk, Analytics. Talk!"

I just put down Advertising Age’s issue on the Digital A-List. If this issue is any barometer of how digital marketing is evolving, the lines between technology, entertainment and business goals are continuing to rapidly blur. Profiling the year’s best interactive creative work and the people who make it happen, it is this convergence that is defining the digital future:

“Our belief is that marketing and product have converged. The consumer doesn’t separate the marketing experience from the product experience.”

Rather than merely relying on clever creative work, brands are blending form and function to create branded utilities that effectively utilize social media to create community and brand loyalty. As one agency executive said, “The new ‘viral’ is going to be a business solution for clients.”

This whole new approach means that brands and agencies need to begin developing a marketing-as-service strategy:

In other words, marketers can build websites that do cool, useful stuff...examples include Johnson & Johnson and its BabyCenter, a deep repository of information about raising a newborn that’s a clear competitor to Bonnier or Meredith, the publishers of Parenting and Parents magazines respectively. Nike Plus, whose sharp interface connects runners all over the world, is a real threat to any traditional media owners who wants to engage with that running population.

It’s time for marketing agencies and the companies they represent to think different. Perhaps something a bit more radical like Jakob Nielsen’s perspective:

“The basic point about the web is that it is not an advertising medium. The web is not a selling medium; it is a buying medium. It is user-controlled, so the user controls, the user experiences.”

This represents a powerful shift for brands and agencies. Those that tackle this change with creativity and a marketing-as-service strategy that engages their audiences through useful and functional online experiences will be the ones that define success in this convergence of product and marketing.

Here’s a great quote from a recent Seth Godin blog post:

Persistence isn’t using the same tactics over and over. That’s just annoying.

Persistence is having the same goal over and over.

I love this idea.

While this is applicable to marketing in general; I think this fits especially well with social media marketing. Leveraging a relationship between your analytics data and your social media will enable you to quickly create new tactics while maintaining your original goal.

This morning’s news of Bear Stearns’ firesale to JPMorgan Chase brought on renewed fears of an economic recession. Regardless of whether we’ve hit a full-blown recession or not, marketing budgets tighten when the economy sputters. And what dollars are spent, need to be more on target than ever before. However, a recent Forrester Research report announced that social media efforts will survive tightened budgets more than traditional media spending. 

For the savvy social media marketer, the recession is an opportunity to showcase the real value of social media instead of traditional ad spending. Social media provides a direct relationship between the brand and consumer by leveraging more affordable and measurable online tools that move the consumer from a position of being blasted by generic one-way advertising, to “motivating consideration,” a process that is perfectly suited for social media applications like blogs and social networks.

David Armano of Critical Mass, posted this presentation about the 10 Ways Digital Can Help You Thrive in a Recession:

| View | Upload your own

And when the economy finally emerges from this downturn, hopefully social media will have undergone the maturation it needs by eliminating the hype and fads in favor of strengthening the tools and strategies that show results. 

I’m currently enjoying a book entitled Now is Gone by Geoff Livingston. In this book, Livingston articulately brings to life much of what has been in my head as of late--and something I’ve been talking about with my colleagues as well.

Particularly: I’ve been thinking that social media marketing is the future of marketing--or as I called it in the title: relational marketing. I know I could get in some hot water for such a dogmatic claim; but hear me out.

By “Social media” I mean more than simply the tools of social media such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter etc. Rather, I am referring to something similar to Livingston’s definition:

“Social media...is the democratization and socialization of information as well as the tools to facilitate online conversations. To put it another way, it is the shift from one-way to two-way conversations.”

Marketing has long been seen as information distribution to your target audiences. We gather info, we (gently) shove it down the customer’s throat, and then we ask them to say thank you and hope they want seconds. I understand that’s a bit hyperbolic; but it does have some truth in it. For better or worse (I happen to think for better), that way of marketing is quickly dying. Livingston speaks to this by distinguishing “audiences” from “communities.” It may sound like he’s splitting hairs; but it actually constitutes an entire paradigm shift.

Picture the last movie you saw in the theater (hopefully it wasn’t Vantage Point). As part of the audience, what did you do? You watched and listened; you didn’t interact--and hopefully you didn’t talk. Your opinion had no bearing on the movie’s content as the movie was already edited and produced. Accordingly, you’re only job was to take it all in and perhaps afterwards give it two thumbs up or down.

What do communities do? They engage in dialogue. People in community shape one another. Their opinions and ideas influence those of the others around them.

To return to the movie analogy; as an audience member you have no say over the finished product. However, as part of the community who made the movie, you had complete say. You influenced, shaped and created the movie (and hopefully, it wasn’t Vantage Point).

Marketers no longer have the option of treating people like audiences because people no longer have to sit around and respectfully listen to their message. People have choices. With the democratization and socialization of information, why would I accept a final product that doesn’t work for me when I can go elsewhere and help build one? Why would I continue to watch TV commercials when I have TiVo? Why would I stay on your web site if I don’t like it? Why would I buy your product when I know there are 10 other better options for less money? Why would I listen to a canned message when I can speak directly with the creator?

As Livingston points out, marketers no longer have the option of not engaging in community dialogue. Dialogue is happening whether we like it or not. We can either close our eyes hope they’re saying good things about our products & company; or we can help shape the conversation through our participation--and in turn be shaped ourselves.

With the public launch of Hulu on Wednesday, all eyes will be on NBC and News Corps’ new video network as they attempt to finally catch up with users demand for high quality video content online. But despite Hulu’s slick interface and the millions of dollars being poured into it’s development, I can’t help but think it’s a shortsighted effort.

The problem is that NBC is trying to force the traditional broadcasting model into the web, rather than recognizing the full potential of revolutionizing how content can be delivered online. By limiting embedded videos to only 5 weeks (after which, they’ll simply expire) and not allowing international access to videos, Hulu fails to take advantage of the anytime, anywhere content model provided by the web. Rather forcing users to play only NBC-approved digital sandboxes, they should learn from CBS, whose strategy is:

“to pursue open, multi-partner, nonexclusive relationships with established video destinations, widgets, and application vendor companies, as well as regular syndicators,” says Quincy Smith, president of CBS Interactive. In short, says Smith, the company wants to “take it to where the eyeballs are.”

While CBS’s revenue from this model is still minimal at the moment, they recognize that the web is only going to continue disrupting the traditional broadcast model. The companies that succeed will be those that leverage a distributed approach across all digital touchpoints by utilizing easily sharable content and new metrics for measuring traffic performance.

Perhaps it is fitting that in Swahili, Hulu’s name means “cease” and “desist.”

Recently, my colleague Trace Johnson posted three valuable recommendations for improving your web site. The first recommendation was to “Get Web Analytics.” But, why should you care about Web Analytics?

Not because you care about analytics.
We know, it sounds a bit contradictory; but analytics for the sake of analytics doesn’t help anyone. Web Analytics is a means to an end. It is a tool designed to provide insight into your user’s experience, and in turn improve your ROI. So, once again, why should you care about Web Analytics?

Because you care about your users.
Your web site is all about your users. If you don’t have users, your web site is useless. If your users don’t like your web site, your web site is ineffective. Analytics can give you real insight into the desires of your users. It answers the questions, “What do our users care about?” and, “How does our company motivate them to care?”

It allows you to truly give the user what they want.

Not only will you learn why users are visiting, you will also discover if they liked what they saw upon arrival. We often find that users are interested in different content than what the web site owner assumes. If your ‘News’ page is packed with items regarding how to run a business; but the most popular items are the few which describe your products and services, you need to know that. Analytics provides a framework for improving your web site as you learn what type of content causes people to leave, and what type of content inspires user interaction.

Because you care about your company.
Analytics provides your company with hard data on the effectiveness of your online initiatives. Is your web site good enough? Is it producing a high ROI? Are you spending too much time and money on it? Or perhaps not enough? Analytics will tell you.

Having Analytics allows your company to precisely measure your ROI. By creating goals such as sales, newsletter sign-ups or contact form completions--just to name just a few, you will know exactly how successful your web site is in raising money, brand awareness, user interest and leads. You can use that information to scale your web marketing expenditures up or down. There has never been a more precise tool for measuring user interaction and ROI.

If you care about your users, and you care about your company; you need Web Analytics. 

Mashable always seems to bring out the DC-area’s best social media crowd, and last night’s Mashmeet DC Remix was no exception. Hosted by Ogilvy’s 360 Digital Influence team and partnering with The Social Times, the event lived up to its remix name by throwing in a new programming twist from their previous networking events by showcasing several presentations in addition to the steady stream of business-card sharing and networking.

Streamed live online by JanMedia, Mashmeet gave Searchles, Voxant, Mixx, Lumifi, and Kluster an opportunity for lightning-round demos of their products and services. However, it was Kluster—fresh off their much-publicized demo at TED—that got the crowd talking. Kluster puts the “wisdom of the crowds” on steroids, allowing companies of all sizes to tap the masses for ideas on just about anything from logo design to problem solving, and then compensates with appropriate cash rewards for participants. As the web rapidly enables companies to better interact with their customers, look for these crowdsourcing services to really take off. In the meantime, Kluster’s creative approach and slick UI sets them ahead of the pack.

Despite audio issues with some of the presentations, and a few that could have benefited from some “gentle reminders” to keep it within their five-minute limit, the remix format was a welcome change to the standard networking event. The DC-area has some incredible up-and-coming talent, and I hope that the next Mashmeet DC focuses on showcasing more of the local emerging technology and entrepreneur leaders.