Most Fridays here at Viget, someone has an opportunity to present on just about anything (including hockey fighting), but mostly it’s on industry trends. I presented this last Friday and thought I'd pass it along for anyone who is interested (there are a few slides missing that were specific to Viget; but you'll get the picture).

The concept of “Branded Utility” isn’t new (we wrote about it here and here), but it's still in its infancy and by no means has it been widely accepted, or widely disseminated -- we're hoping to help change both of those things! Enjoy the slideshare!

Continue reading "Branded Utility - The (Already Happening) Future of Marketing"

This week’s MSM kicked off with a great question from Matt Smith of SmithGifford: is Twitter the ultimate form of emotional branding?

Some went on to argue that from a rational standpoint, Twitter might not make much sense since it doesn’t directly generate ROI, however emotionally it was huge. With Twitter, consumers feel more connected to a brand. Plus, aside from a resource cost, there is no other cost, so why not be on Twitter?

On the other hand, some argued that there IS a tangible ROI. Take Dell for example, who claims that Twitter has helped to bring in $3MM in sales thus far.

As always, however, with good comes bad. In the case of Twitter it’s risk. One negative @reply about your brand and you could be destroyed. Well, maybe not destroyed, but it could certainly sting a little.

Continue reading "Middle School Marketing Recap: Is Twitter the Ultimate Emotional Branding Tool?"

Yup, it's true. Google will now be inserting (or, at least, testing)Tweets into AdSense advertisements. The first company to participate in the alpha testing was Intuit's TurboTax. My initial reaction to the news ranged from "No way will this work" to, "Maybe...?" to, "This disgusts me" to, "I respect the effort"... and I still haven't seen it in action. Marketing Voices Podcast has an interview with Intuit’s director of online advertising and internet media, Seth Greenberg (which you can listen to below),  and, despite my initial reservations, I found myself impressed with Intuit's approach,and Seth's attitude towards what he calls the "test."

"We're not changing the way we talk ... we're not optimizing for broadcasting, we're optimizing for individual relationship ... we're not trying to buy followers, we're just trying put out the same message that you probably wouldn't see in other channels."

Continue reading "Google Integrates Twitter into AdSense with Turbo Tax"

Does anyone remember Sutori.com? It came out in 2006 and has since gone offline. It gave people a space to rant or rave about brands. What ended up happening? It involves kindling, kerosene, and lots angry customers (*cough* UHaul) ... and that's about it.

Today, "telonu" allows people to anonymously post latest firings and layoffs, then leave their always-objective opinions. To their credit, they provide spaces for positive feedback (but, so did Sutori ... and their name wasn't "Tell on You"). I'm not a fan, mostly because of the anonymity rather than the concept. I agree with the telonu users, many of the company's people have written about on telonu need to change; they need to be held accountable.

I get the ideas here. Sometimes you would like advice, or the ability to ask questions anonymously. It probably helps to know that Company X is about to lay off 800 people. We all know it can be therapeutic to vent with others who feel the same pain, right? But, if the point of this is to affect true change, can it really work when so much anonymity is involved? I'm not sure it can.

My theory on why anonymity will always be less-than-effective:

 

Continue reading "Why Anonymity is a Problem and How Facebook Connect Can Help"

Anyone who has spent time in the brand space will have certainly come across Marty Neumeier's The Brand Gap - it's one of the foundational books on how to cultivate a brand, and is a must-read for any brand manager. 

The central premise of the book is that a brand is not simply a logo, identity or even product. Neither is it what you, the brand manager say it is. Rather, a "brand is a person's gut feeling about a product, service or organization.In other words, it's not what you say it is, it's what they say it is."

Branding is all about creating an emotional clarity by providing a story around what you are selling, and social media will fan the flames of those companies that live up to their brand promise, or quickly take down those that are merely selling a false idea. 

But what kind of role does social media play in crafting successful brands today? If at it's core a brand is "what they say it is," and we have more "theys" sharing their thoughts and ideas with the world, then what does that mean for how brands grow in today's marketplace?

Let's take a look at Neumeier's five basic principle of branding, and how each idea is transformed by social media.

Continue reading "Crafting the Digital Brand: Social Media’s Role in Brand-Building"

I can't stand most banner ads. They just get in the way of my browsing and annoy me. However, like so many other technologies, it's not the technology's fault, it's how we use it that's the problem. I came across a group that is running an excellent integrated digital marketing campaign; rockin' some sweet banners, a cool microsite, and some other essential online marketing tactics.

Continue reading "(Good) Banners + Microsite = Effective"

Oh boy, it's everyone's favorite topic right now.

The economic slowdown.

But despite all the very real concerns, products still need to be moved, sales need to be made, and companies still need to advertise. As we are all too well aware, the marketing budget ususally the first to get slashed when times are tight. So how do you accomplish more, with less?

The veritable brain trust that is the Middle School Marketing crew tackled just such a topic this week in our monthly meeting.

Continue reading "Middle School Marketing Recap: Marketing in a Recession"

You may have noticed we're big believers in helping brands create marketing experiences that are meaningful and useful for customers. Kraft Foods is among the latest brand to understand the fundamental concept of providing a meaningful service for their community.

AdAge reports on Kraft's iFood Assistant app, which serves up recipes, shopping lists, cooking videos and a store locator to shoppers on the go, is currently the second most popular app in the Lifestyle category at the iPhone app store.

Continue reading "Kraft Foods’ iPhone App Delivers"

It's a new year and, with that in mind, I thought it would be a good time to do a quick rundown on the tools that are in my daily social media toolbox.

Netvibes
When you're keeping an eye on hundreds of blogs, custom search feeds and various social networking profiles, Netvibes does a bang up job aggegating my world's information into a simple, clean dashboard. Paired with a morning cup of coffee, it's a great way to start the day. And even when I'm on the go or standing in yet another line (this is DC, after all), it's slick iPhone optimized site keeps me informed and entertained

Twitter
What can I say, it's a veritable force to be reckoned with. On Twitter I'm keeping in touch with friends and business contacts alike, monitoring conversations for clients, keeping tabs on custom searches and simply valuing the wealth of information that rises to the top of the human-curated web. It's taken me a long time to settle on the appropriate desktop and iPhone apps for Twitter, but I think I've finally found a home with Tweetdeck for my desktop and Twittelator for the mobile play.

Continue reading "My Social Media Toolbox for 2009"

Merry Christmas everyone!

At this point, I'm probably drinking frothy eggnog (except I'm lactose intolerant), eating chestnuts (except I'm allergic to nuts), and singing Christmas carols (....) back in Michigan with my roots.

Anyhow, Qui Diaz wrote a great article on Mashable last week regarding using social media (and the internet at large) for social good. She called it, DIGITAL CHARITY TOOLBOX: 50+ Ways to Get Your “Give” On and I just wanted to pass it along. This holiday season, if you're looking for a few ways to support a charity using the interwebs, this post should get you started.

Cheers, and a very Merry Christmas.

If you have a blog, or if you have a client who has a blog, I'd like to offer some suggestions on how to measure that blog's success. As a disclaimer, much of this post (but not all of it) is about how to use Google Analytics to measure blogs. So if you don't use GA, I hope you still find value; but the last two paragraphs might not make sense. I've decided to include these suggestions in a seriees and I shall call it, "Figuring Out Your Traffic So You Can Blog to Your Audience So That You Can Garner More Traffic and Engagement And Feel Better About Yourself So You Can Go to Awkward Social Media Events and Talk About Your Blog In Real Life Because That's Really Cool."

Today is part 1 and I'll be covering: the basics, identifying goals, and new versus returning visitor segmentation.

Continue reading "Measuring Blogs Success - Part 1: The Basics, Goals & Visitors"

Looking for another new year prediction?  How about this - Facebook Connect is going to be big in 2009.

Maybe huge.

(If you don't yet already know what Facebook Connect is, VizEdu has a simple demo explaining the service.)

There are five big reasons why I'm excited about the potential for Facebook Connect:

Continue reading "Facebook Connect Gives Digital Marketers Huge Opportunity in 2009"

Like many of our peers in the media "middle," we've been doing a lot of thinking about 2009. So, we kicked off this month's Middle School Marketing meeting talking about our online marketing predictions for the new New Year. Rightfully so, this week there's been a lot of chatter about what's to come: Peter Kim's compilation of social media predictions, eMarketer's article of what lies ahead, and Clickz's What Next piece, to name a few.

Like many of our earlier MSM meetings, we talked about the utility, usage and future of Twitter. Lisa mentioned that she was surprised to learn over Thanksgiving that many of her high school and college-age relatives had never heard of Twitter. Dispite the 1.3 million users, how many of them are active, and what's the demographic breakdown? Even within our small group, there were various use cases: keeping up with current events, networking, RSS feed, following friends, following clients, and networking with other industry types. In the end, Twitter is simply another medium which can be used to broadcast message... in 140 characters or less, of course.

Continue reading "Middle School Marketing - Reflections & Predictions"

Last week, Viget hosted the December Social Media Club DC event at our Falls Church headquarters. Our good friend Justin Thorpe with Clearspring Technologies gave a presentation on How Sharing Can Help You Reach More Users Online. For those who couldn't make the event, I've provided a quick recap below:

People are spending more time in social networks and online communities. While this may seem obvious, Justin drew upon a relevant dinner party analogy to drive the point home. When spending time with friends, family and co-workers in social situations, we converse on an array of topics ranging from what we've been up to and what's interesting to us to current events and television shows. People love to share. Social media tools have made it easier to share online - and folks love it! Widgets make it easier for individuals and companies to "share"  - to take content from one place online and put it somewhere else (usually on facebook, iGoogle, or blogs). The succesful widgets tend to focus on simplcity. Justin gave a couple of great examples, many of which can be found on his Favorite Widgets blog.

Continue reading "Social Media Club DC Recap"

As digital marketers strive to deliver value and meaning for consumers, the widget is increasingly becoming an essential part of the overall marketing mix. Brands, content publishers and just about everyone in between are discovering entertaining or useful opportunities to launch branded applications for their customers. Nike, InStyle and UPS among others have all created widgets to connect with customers in a way that is direct, sharable and interactive. (We even relied heavily on a widget strategy for promoting singer songwriter Martin Sexton.)

Bob Garfield writes in AdAge that the widget fits nicely in the post-advertising age, and quotes Contagious Magazine's Jessica Greenwood who says that, "the widget's value is 'like a basic unit of utility. The marketing becomes part of the product."

But how does a brand figure out where to start with widgets? For that, I turned to Justin Thorp, Community Manager at Clearsping Technologies, whose widget platform earned 332 million unique visitors worldwide in October. Here is Justin's take on where to begin:

When should a company consider launching a widget strategy?
I think the question is, “When should a company consider widgets as part of their overall communications strategy?”  If you’re publishing any type of content online, you need to develop a strategy for how you’re going to get your content in the hands of existing and potential users.  Because they’re portable and can move all over the Web, widgets are a great mechanism for doing this.  We recommend widgets for content publishers who want to extend their reach beyond their domain and who hope to reach the hard-to-reach user on the Social Web.

Continue reading "Getting Started with Widgets"