INSIGHT blogArchive: May 2009

Archive for May, 2009

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Our Online Marketing for .ORGs Series Comes to a Close

29
May
2009

Wednesday’s webinar on Social Media for .ORGs was our biggest success yet, closing out the end of the series on a high note.

Christine Pepin
Media Coordinator

Back in December, 2008 we hosted our first seminar at the Melrose Hotel in Washington, D.C. on Online Marketing for .ORGs.  That day over a continental breakfast, we welcomed an audience of ready-to-learn members from various local associations and organizations.  Due to the positive feedback of that event, we decided to begin a webinar series tailored exclusively to this .ORG audience and presented every month since January.  After five webinars covering topics such as search engine marketing, email marketing, social media and viral marketing, we’ll be taking a few months off to regroup and plan for a new webinar series at the end of the summer.  We want to thank everyone who has attended our webinars and hope we can continue the dialogue in the future.  We have greatly appreciated all the feedback you have submitted and are eager to apply these suggestions in order to make our next series even more successful.

This past Wednesday, we presented on our final topic of the series: Social Media for .ORGs.  With over 80 people in attendance, we introduced some very important content including:

  • How to communicate through social networks
  • The various types of social media and how they can be applied to your organization
  • How to measure social media for success

For attendees that would like a copy of the presentation or for those who were unable to attend, the deck can be downloaded on our Facebook Fan page.  We encourage anyone to contact us for more clarification on this topic or any others from the series.  Thank you again to all those who have helped make these webinars a success!

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Social Networks And The Workplace

27
May
2009

Social networks are becoming increasingly popular among businesses and executives, but employees still have concerns about their personal privacy.

Ryan Moss
Media Coordinator

More and more companies and their executives are embracing social networks and becoming actively involved in networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIN. In fact, according to Deloitte, 30% of business executives in the United States said that their company has incorporated social networks into their business and operations strategy.

While executives are excited about the use of social networks, many of their employees are not. Employees have several concerns including the belief that using social media can damage a company’s reputation. The other main issue among employees is the lack of privacy, as 53% of employees surveyed by Deloitte think that their online profiles are none of their employers’ business. With that being said, nearly 61% of employees did admit to making significant changes to their social network pages since company executives can now view these pages.

Some industry experts advise for employees to simply set their profiles on private so only the people they choose can view their personal profiles. But, that could lead to interesting situations such as how do you respond when your boss asks why he or she can view your personal pictures.

Personally, I think every situation is different and you should adjust your personal pages based on the atmosphere of your company. Some smaller and more relaxed companies, might be ok with pictures of you from a party last weekend, but others may not. In the end use your best judgment and be careful of what you and others post that can be linked to you.

 

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Twitter Summons Its First “Fail Whale?

26
May
2009

Twitter partnerships offend “no one…and everyone?”

Stefanie Berliant
Media Coordinator

My feelings for Twitter are summed up in an entertaining four and a half minute video from Current: “Twouble with Twitters” (see link below).

While the content of this blog may seem ironic and slightly hypocritical, I find that the social network/micro-blogging service, Twitter, is just a bit extreme.  I don’t really understand why people feel the need to share that they are watching TV with their cat.  In instant message speak, we call that TMI (too much information).  So while checking out the news on CNN.com, to my surprise and delight I stumbled upon an article headlined “Kutcher Threatens to Stop Twittering.”  The article shares how Twitter has partnered with TV producers Reveille and Brillstein Entertainment on an unscripted show that would be "putting ordinary people on the trail of celebrities in a revolutionary competitive format"- aka: a show centered on stalking celebrities.  When finding out about this, actor Ashton Kutcher Tweeted “its all fun and games until somebody gets stalked” and warns that he might take a break from Twittering if this show goes through.  

I find this to be quite ironic. Kutcher and wife Demi Moore are some of the worst "Twit" offenders, constantly Tweeting meaningless details about their lives. Kutcher also had a high-profile race with CNN to be the first with 1 million Twitter followers. While celebrities and Average Joes alike get stalked every day, I agree that creating a TV show about stalking is probably not the healthiest behavior to endorse. However in my opinion, exploiting oneself is pretty tacky, especially through Twitter.  At least when a third party exploits you, people take pity and feel sorry for you.  

Twitter has definitely drawn some criticism on this partnership from celebs and regular people. We’ll see if this TV show goes through.  While Twitter does allow people to share ground breaking news, give expert advice, give feedback on certain products or services, Twitter should not be used for everyone to “randomly brag about their unexceptional life” nor for harassing individuals.

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Recap from WOMM-U

26
May
2009

Word of mouth marketers shared best practices and used case studies to prove that word-of-mouth marketing is here to stay.

Ryan Moss
Media Coordinator

A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate enough to attend WOMM-U, which is the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association’s annual education seminar. Attendees were able to meet and discuss best practices and case studies with other word-of-mouth marketers during the two day conference held in South Beach (Miami, Florida).

I learned many important things and was able engage in my own word-of mouth marketing by sharing with others information about EyeTraffic Media’s own word-of-mouth marketing service called JumpReach. Some of the most important points that were discussed include the following:

  • Word-of-mouth marketing is here to stay and can be an extremely successful tactic when implemented and measured properly.
  • Studies show that person-to-person recommendations have far greater impact on a consumer’s purchase decision than nearly any other form of marketing
  • Best practices for campaigns include being transparent, never spamming, being authenticate and giving people something to talk about
  • There is no exact formula to stay highly ranked in YouTube, but you should focus on your content and respond to comments/questions whether they are good or bad.

For more information about word-of-mouth marketing, you can visit the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association or you can request a free assessment from our JumpReach team to find out how your business can use this valuable tactic.

 

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Benefits of Display Advertising

21
May
2009

Banner ads effectiveness ensures future use of this format.

Stefanie Berliant
Media Coordinator

To all the haters who say that banner ads are an ineffective form of online marketing or to not invest as much into this format of online advertising: you better check yourself.

After attending AdTech San Francisco last month and listening to the dialog from industry thought leaders, my own thoughts regarding online media buying were reaffirmed. Banner ads are to online marketing as posters, flyers, billboards, print ads, etc. are to traditional marketing. These tactics are an integral part of marketing, creating a holistic approach to grabbing the attention of a specific audience. Furthermore, the results of running an online advertising campaign are better tracked and measured than traditional advertising methods.

My opinion of display advertising was further codified by the recent report released by iProspect.  A third of internet users surveyed reported that they clicked on display ads. But wait! It doesn’t end there: 27% reported that they did an online search for the product, brand or company, and 21% directly entered the company Web address. Nine percent used social media tools to gather more information as well.

Surprised? You shouldn’t be.  As stated in my previous blog, display ads drive emotion which manifests into people searching online as well as offline. Again, the creativity of the display ads are a huge component of what drives emotion, so I must give kudos to Apple’s "Get a Mac" banner ads.  Apple’s creative team has taken banner advertising to the next level, making it interactive, entertaining but not intrusive. These 30 second rich media ads have the Mac and PC characters interacting in the leaderboard and large rectangle ads. The ad currently running on the NY Times homepage even includes commentary from a fake hair growth ad in the ad space on the opposite side of the webpage. Brilliant AND hilarious!

Online media buys are still well worth the investment, just make sure to run A/B tests with good creative and track the metrics the campaign. So don’t worry about the future of display advertising, it’s far from dead- more like alive and kicking. 

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