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Archive for June, 2009

It’s No Jerry’s Subs and Pizza Commercial

June

2009

Twitter accounts are being hacked; followers are left to question the true identities of the celebrities, political figures or companies behind the tweets.

Christine Pepin
Media Coordinator

What do George Bush, Barak Obama, and Sarah Palin all have in common? All have promoted the deliciousness of Jerry’s “mouth-watering” cheese steaks, of course. Wrong! For many of us that have repeatedly heard the radio spot, we’re very in tune with the fact that these political figures are being impersonated. What is said during this 30-second endorsement is found humorous by some, annoying by others; but one thing is certain- it is not real.

On Twitter, it is not so easy to differentiate.

The ease at which users can sign up on Twitter has allowed the presence of multiple fake accounts, impersonating a celebrity or predominant political figure. Back when I started my own account, I came across usernames similar to the one I choose and wondered if others would come to follow the real me. Thankfully, there appears to be only one EyeTraffic so this problem has yet to surface. By elaborating some very specific information on your profile page, this will help those that know you to properly identify your account.

Well, it is apparent now that Twitter has recognized the challenge and importance in maintaining the authenticity of its users. After the lawsuit of baseball manager Tony La Russa, there was an immediacy to release the beta version of its new verification feature. Due to the cost and time commitment required to accurately verify and account, Twitter will only be testing the feature with a few highly-followed celebrities. Those among the list to be already verified include mileycyrus, britneyspears, aplusk, THE_REAL_SHAQ, and sevinnyne6126, to name a few.

Buzz about the new verification tool also came in sequence with the recent news of Twitter hackers. With the string of shocking celebrity deaths in the last week, the news of the alleged passing of Britney Spears’ seemed too horrific to imagine. Thankfully, the singer is alive and well; and the rumor was only product of a hacker through TwitPic.

But what do these events tell us? First and foremost, begin to treat your Twitter account as a guarded resource for reaching your audience. Make sure to change your password often and be creative with it, as well. Sure, we all aren’t celebrities but that doesn’t mean someone at one point in time won’t try to scar our image or misrepresent what we’ve built. No hurt in starting to protect our accounts when we can.

Also, this could be an indication that Twitter may develop some legitimacy. Whether it is being forced to by law suits or the unmanageable take-off of its user base, the need is present. Twitter has undeniable potential in the way it speaks to audiences in real-time, but without some credibility behind it, it will be out of control.

Celebrity tweets impersonated?

Tags: Britney hacked, Tony La Russa, Twitter hacking, Twitter verification
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Week 3: Curing the Twitter Hangover

June

2009

Finding the e-H2O to rehydrate and navigate Twitter’s multiplying flock.

Blake Bowyer
Media Program Analyst

Every morning I wake up to an inbox full of unread messages. If I sorted them by sender, 95% of them would fall under “T” and 100% of those would be from Twitter. I am greeted by the faces and logos of new followers and their generic welcome messages. Many come bearing gifts, others videos, and a few even make promises: “I will improve your experience on the Internet”, one proclaimed this morning. It’s possible, but how? Like any good marketing consultancy, EyeTraffic Media got started on Twitter a while ago, but has since built a tolerance for that initial giddiness a new follower brings.

Sigh. After so many tweets, the honeymoon period is over.

But that doesn’t mean the value is gone. In fact, with more experience, Twitter ages like a fine wine in the hands of the right tweeter. Most organizations experience the micro-blogging disenchantment after the initial Twitter-passion subsides. It’s natural. At first, Twitter is a shiny new toy and you ostensibly have access to the eyes, ears, and minds of everyone on the Internet. It’s free, it’s voyeuristic, and suddenly your audience has grown tenfold in two weeks. 400 followers?! That’s more than the number of MySpace friends, Facebook fans, and blog comments you’ve gotten in the last five years COMBINED!

It’s a shot of social media adrenaline that is addictive, inspiring, and fascinating. Suddenly you’re caught up in the whirlwind tweeting about things you never would have dared to put on your blog. A post about buying new pens for the office? Sure, why not. These people follow you because they want to follow you, right? Your organization’s most mundane activity fascinates them.

Probably not. It’s unlikely that you’re blowing people away with 140 characters about buying pens – unless they’re soy-based and you’re @algore. That’s when users hit a wall. The Twitter pen-talk isn’t increasing sales or driving users to a Web site. Twitter isn’t producing any results, but every morning you sit down to an inbox full of new faces eager to “learn more about you” and totally “looking forward to your tweets!” Suddenly, you feel like you’re being lied to. You’ll discover it’s mutual. You never asked two crucial questions:

How do I use Twitter?
What do I want out of Twitter?

But that’s fine. There is still unmined value, but it’s necessary to reciprocate with your own. Your organization might have to give out a few pearls of wisdom for free, but that will attract the eyes of people who actually want to read what you have to say. Best of all, you can benefit by the millions of others who are playing the Twitter karma game. You can’t decide who follows you, but, if you tweet it, they will come.

The number one rule: follow value and lead with value.

Get value from @eyetraffic and we’ll help you shake the Twitter hangover.

Tags: How to Use Twitter, micro-blogging, Social Media Marketing
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Fortune 100 CEOs Thrive in Life, Stagnate Online

June

2009

Executives with the biggest bullhorns barely make a peep on social media.

Blake Bowyer
Media Program Analyst

In business, CEOs are the celebrities, and the Fortune 100 is the VIP list. These execs get into the hottest clubs, invited to exclusive retreats, and asked by Presidents to serve on advisory councils. CEOs have followings that go far beyond their stockholders and employees. Take Steve Jobs – mobs of Mac fans await his gospel every time he foretells the future of Apple and turns water into iWine. The same can be said for moguls like Richard Branson, Michael Dell, and, to a certain crowd, Bill Gates. These are the boardroom equivalents of @britneyspears, @aplusk, and @THE_REAL_SHAQ. The problem is, with all of the followers they have offline, few Fortune 100 CEOs are using their rockstar status to engage their customer base. Why are CEOs falling down on the job?

In last week’s post, I briefly discussed how the private sector is surprisingly slow in integrating social media as a component of marketing strategy. Imagine the lack of surprise when this article popped up, labeling Fortune 100 CEOs as “laggards” in social media. From the story, these numbers stood out:

· 2/100 are on Twitter

· 19/100 are on Facebook

· 0 write blogs (!!)

Those are staggering figures. Despite this dearth, one might ask: Why should CEOs waste their time on living on Twitter or in the blogosphere? Don’t their companies have departments for that? The likely answer is an obvious “yes” to the latter, but the answer to the former is only obvious when pointed out: people will listen. No disrespect to Ted in the Online Marketing Department at XYZ Global Conglomerate, but more people would rather know what Warren Buffet ate for breakfast than your musings on cloud computing.

I understand CEOs don’t have scores of time on their hands, as does the author who cites that as the most likely reason that CEOs aren’t active online. But with a built-in audience – from the sycophants and superfans to the product users and passersby – CEOs should be active on social media for the sake of their companies. Even a few tweets, a status update, and a blog post per week would gather crowds around their Web sites and draw more attention than a TV ad ever could. Executives write books on leadership, give keynotes at colleges, and break ground around the world, but are still more globally visible from cyberspace.

For now, social mediums are still looking for a C-level champion. Sir @richardbranson is giving us the best example with 125 tweets, a regular blog, and a thriving Facebook fan page, but that shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with his bombastic style. Most people aren’t buying biographies to hear from the ambitious, erudite, and eccentric men and women at the top of the world’s most powerful companies. Engage your consumers, because they’re ready to listen. If you’re a CEO, add this to the job description: “Social media personality” and give the long line behind you a glimpse behind that velvet rope.

P.S. Mr. Buffet, let’s at least narrow it down: Grape Nuts or Cocoa Pebbles?

Tags: CEOS on Twitter, company blogging, internet marketing, Social Media Marketing
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The End of the Road for the Old AdWords’ Interface

June

2009

Google is rumored to permanently implement its new AdWords Interface by month’s end.

Christine Pepin
Media Coordinator

If I were to say what program I spend the most time with here at EyeTraffic Media, it would definitely be AdWords. Well, maybe an even tie with Google Analytics. As people, we are creatures of familiarity and when change occurs, we can be naturally opposed. This is what occurred when I realized I would need to become completely reacquainted with the new AdWords interface. Each time I signed into our account, I would switch to the previous interface, avoiding getting used to the new one. Finally though, I decided it was time to figure out what all the hype was about. Before we know it, the old interface will be gone and maybe, just maybe, the new one will actually help us be more efficient than the existing tool we curse daily. Are you ready for the switch?

What I found very useful were the videos listed at the Google AdWords Help Center. I would recommend watching each of these to learn about the new features they are offering. The new interface is said to help advertisers be more efficient when making bid/keyword changes, navigating the account, visualizing performance across multiple metrics and with optimization. I believe the following system improvements will make our lives a lot easier:

- Not having to wait for a page to reload everytime a change is made

- The “account tree” performance view, that allows you to view the entire account segmented by campaigns, adgroups OR keywords, rather than having to click-through results at the campaign level only.

- Search query reports easily pulled within AdWords to identify irrelevant keywords that are draining budget or not converting. This tool will help immensely when spends are tight and the need is high for finding ways to cut back in order to increase bids elsewhere.

Tags: AdWords, Analytics, Google, new interface, Paid Search
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Week 2: Armchair Marketing and the Perceived Metrics Oxymoron

June

2009

Understanding a Modern Marketer’s Plight

Blake Bowyer
Media Program Analyst

One of the constraints of being in marketing: everyone thinks they know, but very few do. Seth Godin recently wrote in his blog that marketing is at its best when treated as both an art and a science. However, I’d expect that not many would consider marketing an art, much less a science. To most, marketing means advertising and advertising means Nike’s “Just Do It” and the Geico gecko – both disgustingly obvious, simple, and hardly worth the millions of dollars they cost.

However, that is the essence of marketing: it is the art of bringing social science to the public. No other discipline so frequently interacts with crowds – from the huddled masses to the small groups of the long tail – to communicate a message. Accounting, engineering, programming, and countless others happen behind the scenes with their own lingos and secret handshakes. Conversely, marketing’s primary objective is to interpret, relate, and measure messages and shake the hand of every person in the target audience (and even a few outside it).

Getting my M.S. in Marketing, this is a plea I make regularly. Even my title here at EyeTraffic Media – Media Program Analyst – isn’t one that spurs top-of-mind awareness from non-marketers. First off, it doesn’t have “marketing” or “communications” anywhere in it! Counterintuitive, right? Not exactly. As mobile, electronic, and other emerging media approach the forefront, marketers are given a stronger set of tools that reach out beyond the creative space. These tools are marketing metrics and they empower smart agencies by combining a stronger sense of ROI and performance with a much-needed level of accountability.

At EyeTraffic, we eat, sleep, and breathe metrics and encourage our clients to do the same. Though, that doesn’t mean we strip out all the fun stuff typically associated with marketing. The slogans, taglines, mascots, and jingles are still here, but we’re leveraging great tactics to make sure great creative doesn’t fall on deaf ears (or blind eyes). So, while it may seem like “marketing metrics” should fall under another department’s lexicon, they’re actually the boon of 21^st century marketing agencies; and, most importantly, their clients.

After two weeks of telling people I work at a marketing firm and being asked what I think of the new, hilarious Whopper Jr. TV ads, I answer, “They’re funny, but they’re not positively impacting Burger King’s share of stores, share of sales, or recent sales growth.” The typical reply is, “Yeah, but they’re funny, right?” Yeah, they are funny and, just like marketing, humor is an art. But, marketing’s also a science and humor alone won’t get results. Just ask the Pets.com sock puppet.

Tags: Marketing Metrics, New Media, Online Marketing, ROI
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Reschedule the Bake Sale: Nonprofits Find Marketing Voice with Social Media

June

2009

A new Dartmouth study suggests that nonprofits are turning to social media for marketing efforts and may be leading the adoption curve.

Blake Bowyer
Media Program Analyst

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) might get overlooked as the most likely sector to hold the flag for social media marketing. However, while tried-and-true fundraising tactics like carwashes, yard sales, and craft fairs worked for your high school cheerleading team, the advent of Web 2.0 gave every smart organization a low-cost ace up its sleeve. And nonprofits aren’t exempt according to a recent study from the Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts, which says 89% of charitable and nonprofit organizations have at least one type of social medium (blogs, social networks, Twitter, etc.) in their marketing arsenal.

So what? Every person and organization on this planet is tapped into social media, right? Well, recent research digs up these mind-boggling numbers:

Worldwide, 60% of execs and IT professionals "do not understand the potential social media offers employees or customers" (source: Avanade)
Only 16% of the Fortune 500 companies have public blogs (source: US Web Central)
Approximately 5% of small businesses use social media (source: eMarketer via Sage Research)

Even if doubled and tripled, those numbers are dwarfed by the uber-majority of NPOs looking to social media. It still seems counterintuitive, though. How has a sector that is resource-poor and overpowered – perceived as having a low level of operational savvy and a high level of marketing aversion – outpaced its for-profit, high-talent counterparts in a corner where 93% of consumers expect companies to have a social media presence? (Source: Cone)

If you think about it, often working on shoestring budgets and heartstring issues, the combination of nonprofits and social media makes perfect sense. Two of the biggest benefits of social media: efficiency and connectivity. Efficiency in the sense that any organization from your local pet shelter to Oxfam America can instantly establish a presence on many social networks and acquire followers, fans, and benefactors it might never reach traditionally. For free! (aside from time spent developing these marketing assets, which would be part of the overall marketing effort in the first place, right?).

Moreover, with that presence, a nonprofit can connect mano-a-mano with its benefactors – new and old. The primary advantages of social media include tantalizing phrases like "establishing a dialog", "participating in the conversation", and "flattening to the customer", which is all and well. But many organizations think that sounds great and never grasp how to use the power in those qualities. However, that dialog is inherent in most nonprofits, because they have stories to tell and in those stories exists value that is lost in mailboxes and inboxes. Through social media, nonprofits can directly spread their message, generate revenue, and recruit volunteers and help supporters do the same.

It’s no wonder that, in a sector where organizations are dropping like flies in the current economic climate, nonprofits are among the leaders in the adoption of social media. NPOs benefit since they are lean by nature when for-profits trim the fat only when revenues drop, which might account for the early-adopter role nonprofits have assumed in the social media milieu.

These two figures are worth repeating: 93% of consumers expect your organization to use social media and 89% of NPOs do. While for-profits are eating up the talk (HERE) of revenue model envy, they might want to take a cue from their cause-centric comrades before they go unintentionally nonprofit. Do you have a blog or are you just reading one?

Tags: marketing research, nonprofits, Social Media
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Week 1: Mile High to Capital City and How it Happened

June

2009

Transamerican Trip to a Big Media Market

Blake Bowyer
Media Program Analyst

On some corn-lined highway between Hays, Kansas and Cumberland, Maryland I realized I was crossing a Rubicon. But it wasn’t until hour 21 of my 25-hour odyssey to D.C. that it really hit me: media, as I know it, will soon be redefined.

To give this journey some context, a little about me …

My name is Blake. I am 26 years old and I spent 25 of them in Idaho. I currently attend the University of Denver in Denver, Colorado where I am pursuing my Master of Science in Marketing with a concentration in statistics. I am a marketing junkie, a social media-phile, and a sucker for new experiences. However, I also like to think I have a purpose from time to time. And it’s that belief that took me through the cornfields, backroads, and Waffle Houses of the Midwest to Washington, D.C. and my internship with EyeTraffic Media.

That brings us to today – Friday, June 12. My first week is coming to a close and I already sense a shift in perspective. Working for consumer electronics companies and developing a career in the Information Age, my professional exposure to technology and media has not been limited. However, it has always been in-house and less-than-best practice. With EyeTraffic Media, I applied for the internship expecting a bleeding edge media experience in which I could gain a lot and hopefully contribute from my own areas of expertise – whatever those might be – in return.

For now, the former is dramatically tipping the scales. Since Monday, I’ve been caught up in a whirlwind of crash courses in SEM, online media buying, viral marketing, and even fortunate enough to attend the first event in the Cool Twitter Conferences World Tour. Whew.

So this is big market online media from a best practices marketing consultancy? It’s a long way from wearily looking for Georgia Avenue through a cracked windshield on Monday at 2:30 a.m., but punch my ticket for the rest of the ride. I hope you’ll join me.

Now, if I could only figure out this Metro thing …

Tags: Best Practices Marketing, Marketing, Social Media
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Google Local Business Listing Upgrades

June

2009

Google adds new FREE features to its Local Business Center

Stefanie Berliant

Media Coordinator

Google has updated their Local Business Listings to include a very basic analytics feature as well as a coupon feature. Both features are very easy to set up (less than 10 min) and are a free advertising platform for the masses.

The analytics feature includes data on the number of times the listing appeared in a search result, the number of times users clicked through to the business’ website or requested driving directions to the business, which queries led users to the business listing, and Zip codes where driving directions come from. The other free feature is adding coupons to a business listing. This is another avenue to promote a product or service by coordinating offline advertising with online.

These added bonuses are great tools for small businesses as well as big businesses. It’s a smart way to gather research about your audience and plan marketing campaigns around this data to effectively and efficiently promote a business and generate new leads. The only con I can foresee with this tool is the fact that there might be more red needles on the map pointing to unrelated locations. But that’s a small price to pay for free adverstising.

Tags: google local business center, google local business listing, google search, internet marketing, natural search engine optimization, seo, small business online marketing
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