The beauty of where this all goes – AdAge Viral video chart

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=143824

As I spent some time today on AdAge getting my daily dose of what’s happening and who’s who, I came across a great article that was talking about the most successful viral campaigns of the week. What was intriguing and also wonderful at the same time is that AdAge was referencing “Visible Measures” viral ability chart as a reference guide to who was winning the race. So there we have it – a publication that was once dedicated to a traditional advertising model paying homage once again to the power of digital and and non-traditional. Google’s Chrome video took the lead with an impressive 1.86MM views on a new spot they published online. Toyota was close behind with 1.85MM views regarding a campaign they put together for the Sienna.

What I love most about this example is the market’s willingness to understand and give credibility to the power of digital and social media. However I must say there is a great opportunity to provide more insight into this report than just how many views have been achieved. There is so much more data available to help you understand the true impact and connection that these impressions have had with the eyeballs that have viewed them. If harnessed correctly, marketers have the ability to make those moments so much more impactful to both the brand and the consumer experiencing them.

Brian

Below is the second in our series of reports ranking the online share of voice for the cities participating in the Google fiber initiative.

This report updates our initial metrics based on the insights we’ve collected from our research, which includes all of the direction submitted through blog comments on our first report and emails we’ve received directly. And on that note, thank you to everyone who took the time to contribute to this research on behalf of your city. As we hope we’ve shown in these reports, active participation is essential to any good online efforts, and yours is much appreciated.

Please note that if your city did NOT make the top 10 in our report, it is no indication that you are in any way not competitively positioned in the initiative. Again, Google has multiple factors in their decision making process, including how interested a community is in working with Google, community support, local activities, needs and resources, approved construction methods, local regulatory issues and area broadband speeds. And though most participating cities assert that online interaction in their campaigns will increase the chances of favorability in their selection, ultimately Google will decide which factors are most relevant.

The second report is available for download here. Just click on the image below.
And please reach out to us through the comments below or by email to david.greiner@sgandco.com if you have any questions or comments on the information and insights we’re presenting.

Download Media Kit (6MB ZIP)

Check out Judy’s “un-resolutions” for 2010 from adage.com.

Posted by Judy Shapiro on 12.29.09 @ 04:38 PM

1. I will not get seduced by any new digital marketing toy just because some industry pundit thinks it’s the coolest thing to hit the street. Nor will I believe every promise made by every new marketing technology company.
2. I will not abandon common sense in digital marketing and be blinded by digital agencies’ promises that their “new” campaigns will go viral and get millions of people engaged. I will continue to listen to my gut and if it sounds too good to be true, that’s a red flag warning I will heed.
3. I will not abandon newspaper, magazines, radio and other forms of traditional media if it is the right vehicle. No matter how sexy digital media may seem because of the perceived lower cost, I will continue to create integrated programs that weave together the best of both the traditional and digital worlds.
4. I will not give up my attachment to e-mail marketing. Sorry folks — but e-mail marketing done well drives real business results. If your e-mail campaign did not work, either you had a bad list or an inadequate call-to-action or maybe your agency did not know what they were doing.
5. I will not be fooled into thinking that the ad market is going to rebound in 2010. Nope. The ad market will continue to be buffeted by the tides of an evolving economic landscape and by consumers’ ever fickle attraction to new tech toys like mobile devices. These trends will continue to dampen ad revenue for publishers for some time to come.
6. I will not blindly follow Google as they chow down every tech industry from telecom to digital publishing in their relentless march toward digital dominance. In the process, they stifle competition and kill real innovation by companies who deserve to succeed.
7. I will not diminish my slavish devotion to data-driven marketing no matter what new platforms come out that can behaviorally target any audience any way I wish. I know, I know — the BT folks can slice and dice an audience so many ways that it makes a marketer salivate. But unless I can see, touch and feel the data, I will pass for now.
8. I will not start following every Tom, Dick and Jane to gain more Twitter followers. OK, so I only have about 185 folks following me but at least I know they read what I tweet. Quality, not quantity, is what drives social media.
9. And my final un-resolution: I will not try appear to be “30-something” (with a suitable amount of hair product) just because I love digital marketing. I know that the median age of people in digital marketing tends to be 27, but my depth in this space has yielded real-world, hard-won recognition. What you see (gray hair and all) is what you get.

SRM focuses on three areas: Engagement, Crowdsourcing and Monetization.  Social Networks offer so many fantastic features it naturally creates an engaging experience. Brand-to-fan dialogue, photos, videos, polls, custom content, etc. It is a rich tool kit for brand managers.  And, as fanbases grow, they can be mined for valuable insights.  Which name do you prefer for our new granola bar?  What feature would you like to see on our next video game?  Your fans have opinions and they want to be heard.  For most brands, the numbers are not there to be statistically significant, but it is a fast and free way to get a quick read and supplement your market research.  The real question is how do we leverage our fans to increase sales? Certainly there are tried and true options: special offers, promotions, discounts, sweepstakes, gwps, etc.  However, the risk lies in breaking the brand-to-consumer unwritten social code.  “Do not heavy sell me on my social network” or at least too much.  Social networks are not advertising channels, and fans are very leery of brands that sell rather than engage.  An exclusive offer every now and then is welcome and keeps the site valuable to the fans, but excessive promotion, especially those found in other channels, is just advertising.

So what is an ideal SRM ratio?  Certainly there are no clear rules on this, but the 80/20 rule is a great place to start.  80% of communication should be engaging content revealing more brand insights and drawing the fans in closer. The remaining 20% should align with the brand value.  I’ve seen a large discount retailer provide numerous promotions and offers on their site and judging by the extensive comments, it is very well received.  It aligns with the low-cost value offering and it is what their fans expect.  Obviously premium brands would take a different approach.  To start, I recommend an 80/10/10 content platform then let the testing begin.

Social media is evolving so quickly, the industry is still determining the best practices to take advantage.  We take what we know and evolve, test and mold into actionable strategies for today’s social business environment.  If you don’t have a clear SRM strategy for your brand’s social presence the 80/10/10 Engagement, Crowdsourcing, Monetization ratio is a good place to start.

Question: In this developing world of social media and digital marketing, we all know that we need to reconsider the way we’re delivering content to our audiences, but do you feel like you have things under control? There are threads everywhere discussing how we’re losing control of the conversations going on around our brands and how we’ve entered into the age of transparency in messaging. The rage today seems to be around monitoring and measuring and conducting damage assessment and control once a conversation is made public. But let’s consider content in the context of measuring and monitoring and think about how brands can move from “reactive content victim” to “proactive participant in a meaningful conversation.”

So then, how are you developing content in the new media age? How are you planning to update all the social media channels and blog(s) your company is launching, or has already launched over the course of the year? These are big questions, and unless you know the answers to them, you may want to consider scaling your digital media plan to accommodate your ability to create content that will effectively represent your brand effectively in a two-way conversation with your audiences. The key word there is “two-way,” because you’re entering an environment that is built on networks and opinions and transparency, and if you’re merely in a position to launch messaging (even if you’ve spent millions of dollars testing its relevance) into the digital space without being able to measure its effectiveness and, more importantly, without having a strategy on how to respond if a conversation erupts around your thought, you’re leaving yourself vulnerable.

As we get into it, here’s a little background on where we are and where we’re heading:

Web 2.0 has enabled a two-way dialogue. Audiences have become “search savvy,” information flows and, most importantly, the line between professional and amateur content has started to blur. The challenge isn’t finding information, it’s knowing what to do with it…

The new age of Web 3.0 is about semantics. It’s enabling a new distribution relationship around content/data centered around Filtering (information and content) and Context (delivering the right message, at the right time, to the right person, with the right device). This approach to content is creating an open source social structure that will allow databases to talk to each other and encourage social network content that urges audiences to use snippets of content as they please and where they please to reach new levels of meaning between brands and audiences.

These changes are creating a MARKETING STRATEGY SHIFT…

Web 2.0 asked us to build massive sites and drive traffic to a place where we could try to control messaging. Web 3.0 is asking us to create content that can travel throughout the digital world via conversations with multiple participants, creating connections that drive content consumption, data collection and new content generation.

So, here’s the rub, and it’s a simple “if/then” proposition: if we’re now in a position that requires us to create content that will enable and respond to conversations about our brand, then how do we generate content plans that aren’t simply focused on feeding information and stories out to audiences, trusting in their ability to run with it? The answer’s simple: plan. Build a plan that maps out your entire content strategy across all your channels for the entire year. Of course, you need to leave some room to be reactive, but if your marketing plans are aligned with your business objectives, you should be able to create a conversation that you can feed to your audiences and interact with in an organized, ongoing basis throughout the year. And if you do this well, you’ll be able to measure not only the sentiment of what’s going on around your brand, but also the effectiveness of your content (for good or bad). Once you know that, you can create a content baseline that allows you to generate planned, targeted content year after year that is valued internally for its measurable effectiveness and externally for your contributions as the subject matter expert around your brand.

Google shows some of the most creative campaigns and projects that help expand our knowledge of what is possible, while inspiring us to create a more meaningful experience for the consumer.

Check it out.

87 cool things, even a few from us

It’s official. I’ve finally had an amazing customer service experience with a credit card company. I started my company on credit cards. I had a LOT of them. So, being a responsible guy, I recently went through and closed all the accounts I’ve finally paid off.  The way you do that is to call the credit card companies and tell them what you want to do. Of course, I’ve decided to keep one or two cards open for regular use, and I’ve made my decision on which to keep based on the following:

1. Interest rate

2. Incentive programs

All that said, I started my calls and met with interest rates ranging from 13 to 25% from Citibank, Capital One and US Bank, as well as really lousy customer service. They’d say, “Oh, I’m so sorry you’ve decided to close your account! May I ask why?” To which, I’d reply, “High interest rates.” To which, they’d reply, “Oh. Well, I’ve closed that account for you. Can I do anything else for you? No? Goodbye.” *CLICK* That was, until I called Chase to close my Amazon.com card.

I called them and received all them same “Oh, I’m so sorry!” stuff, but once she (and I say “she” because I can’t remember the CSR’s name, but she should get a raise) got through that, she actually offered me a reduction from 13% to 9.5% on my interest and jumped through all sorts of hoops to make sure that my points program is optimized for my spending habits. When I asked her why she was so helpful, she said that every time I went to use one of my credit cards, she wanted me to use my Chase Amazon card. No other reason. From there, we talked about how we were both newly married and how she is expecting her first child. All in all, she demonstrated the level of customer service and care that companies HAVE to live in to if they want to survive the wave of Customer Service 3.0 that’s accompanying the digital marketing age.

Consumers are getting smarter and less patient with rude corporate dictatorships. It’s time to think things through on the business side and decide if you’re going to be a company that actively participates and plays nice with your customer base, or it you’re going to try to live according to the old rules.

Think about it and let me know where you land. Also, get a Chase Amazon.com Visa card. You’ll be happy you did.

Cheers,

David