Marketing Content During the Customer Lifecycle

Lee Odden on Nov 23rd, 2010  

We’ve established the value of content marketing here through many different posts. Most of the focus has been on creating value from content at the top of the funnel in a buying cycle. That’s where a lot of marketing dollars are focused and it’s an area of focus for the consulting offered by many online marketing agencies.

Content is the source of why search engines exist and therefore, essential for any discussion of SEO. Content is also the means through which brands engage customers on the social web through helpful information, resources, advertorial and even entertainment.

Another perspective to consider is that when brands and individuals share information on social networks and media sharing sites the outcome is content. There are many ways to be more effective with social content creation, sharing and engagement that marketers are not taking advantage of.

From an overall marketing and customer engagement perspective, all content is not created equal. Any kind of content isn’t appropriate in any kind of situation despite what recent content advocates would have you believe.  Since much of the focus of online marketing is on customer acquisition, many SEO efforts emphasize transaction or lead generation outcomes. That’s what they’re held accountable for. Unfortunately, search to purchase or social to purchase are not the only ways people interact with information online. Research before purchase as well as education and support afterwards are also important.

Being in the “brand as publisher” business is better than not creating any content at all, but it’s a much more effective thing to be purposeful in content creation & marketing according to the full customer experience. Seeing content engagement opportunities holistically can provide a company more ways to initiate, maintain and enhance customer relationships.

For example, in the context of online marketing, there are many different touch points during the customer relationship. Using the Buying Cycle model of: Awareness, Consideration, Purchase, Service and Loyalty, marketers can best plan what kind of content may be most appropriate to engage customers according to their needs.

For a holistic editorial plan, here are a few types of content and methods of communication to consider:

Awareness:

• Public Relations
• Advertising
• Word of Mouth
• Social Media

Consideration:

• Search Marketing
• Advertising
• Social Media
• Webinars
• Product/Service Reviews
• Blogs
• Direct Response

Purchase:

• Website
• Social Commerce

Service:

• Social Media (ASB Virtual Branch is a great example)
• Social CRM
• Online Messaging (LivePerson)
• Email
• Search – After the sale queries on FAQ, Knowledge-base content

Loyalty:

• Email Newsletter
• Webinars
• Blog
• Social Network, Forum – community

In the development of a content marketing strategy, there are numerous opportunities to be more relevant and effective. Planning content that’s meaningful to the customers you’re trying to engage according to where they are in the buying cycle and overall customer relationship provides for more efficiency in content creation as well as the repurposing of content.

Holistic content marketing and editorial planning also helps make better use of tactics that transcend the relationship timeline like SEO and Social Media.  It’s especially the case with holistic SEO that content producers can extend their reach and visibility to customers that are looking – not just to buy, but to engage with brands in other ways.

By considering the content needs across the customer lifecycle, not just acquisition or conversion, companies can become significantly more effective and efficient in their ability to connect relevant messages and stories with customers that are interested. The result: shorter sales cycles, better customer relationships and more word of mouth.

How is your company leveraging content throughout the customer relationship? Are you coordinating a content marketing strategy that integrates SEO and social media? Does it make sense that the business of content strategy and promotion of content extends beyond marketing?

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Infographic: How Marketers Use Social In 2010

It’s been a little while since I’ve posted an infographic, so here is nice one from Flowtown, this time on how marketers are utilizing social media in 2010. The report takes us through how long brands and businesses have been involved in social media, how much time they invest each week, are they outsourcing and what are they getting out of social. Interestingly, almost 70% of all businesses invest less that 10 hours a week into social.

The infographic also touches on where businesses think they will allocate investment into the future, this revealed over 70% of people didn’t plan to utilize MySpace moving forward, not that you would be shocked by that! 

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RenRen shifts marketing focus to social gaming

If their latest ad campaign is anything to go by, RenRen – China’s answer to Facebook – seems to have shifted its marketing focus to social gaming:

The animated animals, vegetables and furniture are references to China’s leading social games, which allow users to manage virtual farms, vegetable patches and restaurants.

The message and tone of this campaign contrasts with its campaign last year, which showcased ‘real-life’ stories of people using RenRen to connect:

Adquan.com (Chinese) claims that this shift is RenRen’s answer to the much-discussed question of whether China’s online social networks are for meeting new people or allowing existing friends to play.

This might be going a little far, since Chinese social networks can provide both services simultaneously. For me, however, the new campaign at least highlights one thing: that social gaming is currently far more important to Chinese online social networks than their Western counterparts.

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Social Networking: No Longer a Niche Market in Asia-Pacific

By Joe Nguyen - September 20, 2010

This post was originally published at ClickZ.asia on September 13, 2010.

• Where do 3 out of 4 global Internet users visit during a month?
• What captures 15 percent of total time spent online worldwide?
• What do Asia-Pacific Internet users do online for nearly 3 hours each month?

If you answered social networking, you’re right.
For those people that still consider social networking a niche market, it’s time to wake up and face the data.



In June, 924 million Internet users around the globe visited a social networking site, making it one of the most popular online activities, and it just keeps growing.
In the Asia-Pacific region, half of all Internet users visit a social networking site each month. Although Asia Pacific as a region reports lower social networking usage than other regions (due largely to low broadband penetration in some markets as well as restricted usage in places such as China), usage across the region continues to increase rapidly. Several markets in Asia were some of the most avid users of social networking in the world including the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, which each saw more than 90 percent of their online population social networking during the month.
What’s even more impressive than the sheer volume of traffic to social networks is the amount of time people spend on these sites. Social networks now capture more time than e-mail, news, games and entertainment activities online. Instant messengers are the only online activity more engaging than social networking in the region. In several markets, visitors are spending more than four hours a month on social networking sites including in the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and New Zealand.



But wait, isn’t social networking just for kids and young people? No longer the case. What used to be an activity dominated by the 18-24 year old demographic is now a main activity in the digital lives of users across all age groups. In Singapore and Hong Kong for instance, more than half of social networkers are age 35 and older.
So now you have an idea of just how ‘non-niche’ social networking is, but what does this mean for you as a digital marketer? There are three ways to use social networks:
Word of Mouth Marketing
Social networks – as a matter of course – offer communication. Not just two-way communication between you and your customers, but between your brand and your brand advocates and your potential consumers. There are many case studies about successful word of mouth campaigns. That’s the beauty of social networks; if you create content that has intrinsic value and spurs interest in consumers to forward it on, or to retweet it, or to ‘like it’, it will take off with a life of its own. This is not easy and requires much research and creativity and, more likely than not, some failure.
Social Listening and Reputation Management
It is not enough to just put up a Facebook page or Twitter account. Many companies stop there and don’t dedicate full-time resources to read, update, and reply to all the activity that goes on. Social media engagement does not stop when the campaign stops. Your thousand of followers are still there and they are still commenting. In many cases, telling you what they think of your brand or your marketing campaign. You should listen and engage with these consumers – all the time. Whether it’s communicating with customers via Twitter.com, advertising on Facebook or offering special promotions on social media sites, if you aren’t commanding your brand in the social media realm you are missing opportunities to reach and engage with your audience.
Brand Marketing Campaigns
With over 75 percent reach in most Asia Pacific countries, social networks are now mass market media just like Yahoo, MSN, and other major portals. Branding is about reach (eyeballs) and frequency (the number of times these people are exposed to your message). If you have large cross media campaign to brand a new product or service, the social media is just as effective as the other main media. Just like other sites, it’s important to remember that each social media site offers brands and advertisers access to unique audiences. Many people are on more than one or two social networks for different reasons. Are you looking to reach women age 15-24 from a certain region in Malaysia? Are men age 55+ your key audience? Are you looking to reach social networkers that are also heavy users of online retail sites? Each social networking destination is unique in not only the utility it offers to its users, but also who these users are. Understanding audience characteristics from a demographic and behavioral level is integral to a sophisticated digital strategy.
Social media platforms will continue to evolve and it’s important for brands and advertisers to look to the future. That includes examining: How will social networking evolve in the mobile environment? How will this change PC-social networking usage? What are the synergies that exist between PC and mobile social media usage? What are the differences between PC and mobile social networkers?
Although still a niche market, one can assume mobile social networking won’t be for long.

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How to Write a Social Media Proposal

Lisa Braziel | August 19, 2010

Back in 2007, I wrote a post that continues to be one of our most popular to date "How to Write a Social Media Proposal" .  Since then, I've learned a lot.  For one - I've learned that that post was written more for social media marketers working at a social media agency responding to a Request for Proposal. But a lot of folks on the client side are wondering how to write that Request for Proposal in the first place. So three years later, it's time to update it. If you do work on my side of the table and want to review my old post, please download the PDF here.
To start with, I'm assuming you manage the social media efforts within your company. Because you wear multiple hats, you are also charged with finding the right agency to help you figure out your social media strategy, implement your social media efforts, and provide you with metrics and monitoring. You would also like an agency who "gets" your specific business objectives, quirks, and culture.
To help you find this agency, I've compiled a few crucial tips to help write a Request for Proposal that will help find the best agency for you.

Tip 1: Define your needs

A proposal should clearly address the specific needs you expect your agency to meet, and how you envision the relationship playing itself out. When defining your needs, think a minute about your internal resources, immediate project needs, and long term plan.  Also consider the following:

• Are you looking for a specialist or a generalist?  If you already have an Advertising or PR agency that works well for your traditional efforts, but isn't up to speed on your social media efforts, you may want to search for a specialist in social media marketing. If you want a firm that can do a little bit of everything (i.e., launch social, do a press push on it and manage street teams for a launch event), you will need to write your proposal with this in mind, and provide the RFP to agencies that fit this build.
• What is your timeframe?  Are you looking for a one-time initiative to support a specific product launch, an overall strategy that your internal team will carry out, or a long term partnership?

Tip 2: Establish a Scenario with Specific Objectives

One of the best ways to tell if an agency is going to be a fit is to see how they think about your business.  Instead of asking for the standard case studies and related experience (which can all be manipulated to look favorable for the agency) - see if the agency has the chops to develop a social strategy that will meet your business objectives.  To do this -  try to establish a reasonable scenario with clear objectives.  Be specific.
While it is unreasonable for an agency to give you a mapped out plan of action answering all of your company's social needs - it is reasonable to ask what is the first thing they would advise you to do in the social space given your business objectives. Or you could ask their opinion on a specific social strategy that you're considering that is a tough call. Again, don't expect a full plan (you have to pay for that), but this will show you how they approach the space, and to see if they have done the necessary research on your company.

Tip 3: Ask about the future

If you want an agency who has potential as a long-term partner, ask questions that pertain to the future.  It's one thing to hire an agency that understands the space now, but you need to ensure that they are also staying abreast of the changes in the space and how these changes will affect your social media strategy over time.  Don't be afraid to ask large questions like "What do you see is the future of social media?" or  "How do you see social media marketing evolving over the next year?" I realize these questions may seem a bit hokey, but they should elicit responses that are insightful into the agency's approach to social media marketing.

Tip 4: Reveal a budget

It may seem like hiding your budget and asking the agency how much you should spend in the space is a better route to go.  However, the budget allows the agency to better prioritize -- from all of the social activities your company needs to do in the space -- which ones are most important.  Since agencies sell time and expertise primarily, the budget can range dramatically depending on how much internal resources your company has or doesn't have.
For instance, some clients have invested in an internal social media team, and then hired us to perform their overall strategy and implementation of larger campaign tactics while they handle some of the day-to-day.  With a budget in mind, and a good understanding of their internal resources, we are better equipped to provide recommendations for the internal team to carry out, and recommendations our team is capable of carrying out.  A good agency will always have more ideas than you can afford (regardless of how big your brand is). If you don't provide a budget, we can't prioritize those ideas for you.
Other good reasons: Some agencies have project or fee minimums and you want to know that sooner rather than later. Also, ideas for $50,000 in spend are vastly different than ideas for $500,000 in spend. You want ideas coming back to you that are realistic.
If you're concerned about an agency costing more than another, you can ask for hourly rates and/or ask them to price one very specific project or sub-project. You might want to do this in the finalist stage.

Tip 5: Be reasonable

Writing an RFP shouldn't turn into a game of 100 questions. At this point in time, the best social media agencies have more work than they know what to do with in the social space, and are devoting more time to client work than responding to RFP's.  Here at Ignite Social Media, we are currently responding to only about 20% of the proposal requests that we receive, and selecting our responses based on how the company helps build our knowledge in the space, and who we can respond to given our resources. One household name brand we're talking with told us, "We're struggling to get any of the good agencies to even come see us." That's very different than what you'll find in the traditional space.
Unfortunately, many marketers are developing their request for proposals based on the Social Media Group's template.  Conservatively, this template has 100+ questions that if taken verbatum only social media consultants with a questionable amount of time on their hands could respond to.  As the industry is currently, to attract the best talent you will need to streamline your list to the items that are based on your company's needs, and give a response timeframe that is based on the number and difficulty of your questions. Don't get us wrong, it's a good starting point, but you have to significantly pare it down or a lot of firms will pass on responding.

Tip 6: Ask for one good case study

Yes, we said earlier that asking for a bunch of case studies won't necessarily get you where you want to go, but it should be part of the discussion. Make it clear that you want to know the specific business objectives the agency was asked to solve, the solution the agency chose and the specific metrics that came out of the campaign. Double check as you go that the resulting metrics tie back to those business objectives.

Tip 7: Check references

Half of your new agency relationship wil be about the work, but half will be about the relationship itself. Ask the references very specific questions, such as,

• How responsive is your account manager?
• How often do they hit deadlines, even the internal milestones? How often do they miss them?
• Are you satisfied with the creativiity of the ideas they bring you?
• How long have you been working with them?
• How many projects have they done for you?
• Is the relationship what you thought it would be when you hired them? Is it better? Is it worse?

No agency is perfect. (Heck, no client is perfect.) But getting insights on to the difference between what they promise and what they deliver is key.
These are just a few tips to help guide you in the creation of a social media proposal that will get you the most qualified social media agency.  The biggest takeaway is to structure your proposal so that you set the agency up to talk more about your company than their agency.  This forces the agency to show you how they think, and more importantly what opportunities they see for your company.
Have any other tips?  Please share in the comments below.

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Steady Gains in Blogging by Marketers

AUGUST 17, 2010 

43% of US companies will be blogging by 2012

The personal blogosphere, while it still boasts million of online journals and participants, has largely stalled in recent years. Consumer use of social media has moved more toward social networking and microblogging, which seem to have eroded the perceived usefulness of full-fledged blogs. But in the corporate world, a different picture emerges.

In many studies, company use of social networks and Twitter does outpace the use of blogs, but for companies the platforms are not mutually exclusive. “Companies are finding that blogs fill a specific niche that other forms of social media do not,” said eMarketer senior analyst Paul Verna.

Because of the apparent staying power of blogs in corporate settings, eMarketer forecasts continued growth in company use of blogs for marketing purposes. This year, eMarketer estimates just over one in three companies have a public-facing blog used for marketing, a proportion that will rise to 43% by 2012.

“Studies have shown that marketers perceive blogs to have the highest value of any social media in driving site traffic, brand awareness, lead generation and sales—as well as improving customer service,” said Verna.

Surveys and studies of company blog use have estimated participation in a wide range, most likely due to methodological differences and the specific companies studied. For example, theUniversity of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research has found lower usage among Fortune 500 companies and higher adoption among the fast-growing private companies on the Inc. 500 list.

“There is evidence that smaller companies are embracing blogging at greater rates than larger firms,” said Verna. “This might be because larger, public companies—particularly in industries such as pharma and financial services—have more legal, logistical and regulatory constraints than smaller firms.”

Keep your business ahead of the digital curve. Learn more about becoming an eMarketer Total Access client today.

Check out today’s other article, “Holiday Shopping Gets Another Early Start.”   

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The 6 Habits of Highly Effective Marketers

By Eric Tsai

Most business owners, experts and professionals understand the importance of providing non-promotional, educational content during the beginning of the relationship with a customer.
In essence, content marketing is information marketing, and information marketing is the new currency on the Internet. The challenge is how to translate your information into products with high perceived value.



It’s indicative that every business can now be called an information business because we all need some kind of information to make our decisions, learn how to solve our problems or to help us get what we want in life. Simply put we want our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs met in order to take actions.
And getting people to take action through marketing is the most valuable skill anyone can learn and master. (Not to mention it’ll also improve your interpersonal relationships and communication skills.)
This is why great marketers focus on communicating the value and translating the utility of the information. Whether the goal is to get the prospect to click on your website link, sign up for your newsletter, join your coaching program or buy your information product, it requires meeting the right balance of Needs versus Wants from the prospect’s perspective.
Done right, you can leverage powerful internet tools to attract pre-interested and pre-motivated prospects that are ready to buy and start a business relationship with you. Not only will you be perceived as an influential authority but you will gain credibility and trust without having to convince people to buy your product.
So what does it take to be an effective marketer today? Here are six traits of highly effective marketers:

1. Effective Marketers Make No Assumptions

People often don’t question their own assumptions about what will work. Majority of the entrepreneurs, experts, marketers like to spill out their solution without asking what exactly their customers “think they want” that can solve their problems.
Imagine a doctor telling you what’s wrong with you by just looking at you from a distance. Even if the doctor has the correct diagnose, would you trust their advice? Great marketers know that they don’t know what they don’t know. They ask questions and dig deeper below the surface to identity the pain, urgency and frustration of their customers.
In addition to finding out what the problems are, it can also serve as your free market research. Start talking to all your prospects and customers everyday and continue asking why until you get to the root cause, you may be surprise what’s going on inside their reality.
Take a look at this recent research insight provided by MarketingSherpa and IDG from surveying buyers and B2B marketers about specific factors that motivate recipients to opt-in, open and engage with vendor email.

Notice the difference between what marketer and buyer values. Buyers actually gave the highest rank to promotional content!

2. Effective Marketers Are Storytellers

Once you have identified your customer’s problems, help them make the logical connection between their needs and your solution (product or services) one step at a time. This way they don’t have to work to figure out how to use your knowledge or expertise to solve their problem; instead you reverse engineer your solution from their problems.
Top marketers know how to connect the dots by using narrative to set the quickly get people’s attention. It’s one of the 3 most effective content marketing techniques you can use.
The idea is to ensure your solution sounds exactly like what’s going to solve their problem when you finally get to introduce it typically “at the end” so it’s easier to digest.  Keep in mind that you should never present your solution prematurely, it will only create disconnects which leads to distrust.
Maintaining the communication channel open is critical in facilitating the buying process because people don’t care about your products and services, they just care about themselves. So even with storytelling, guest who’s perspective and story do customers like to hear? (Hint: read the last sentence again.)

3. Effective Marketers Build Relationships

What is relationship and why important? Everyone talks about relationship but what exactly is relationship? Here is the definition of relationship from Wikipedia: “Relationships usually involve some level of interdependence. People in a relationship tend to influence each other, share their thoughts and feelings, and engage in activities together. Because of this interdependence, most things that change or impact one member of the relationship will have some level of impact on the other member.”
So a relationship can impact one another mentally, physically and emotionally. This is why social media is a great way to relate with each other to see if the other person is like you, identify a common ground to connect via LinkedIn, follow on Twitter and “friend” on Facebook. In fact, a relationship is a process to continue to relate until we feel related, full of emotions and thoughts of the other person.
A critical mistake many struggling experts, marketers and business owners make is thinking of their customers as “its” they can manipulate. Wrong!
Great marketers focus on building relationship to have trust, admiration and credibility that extends beyond business transactions not to mention people will buy more and refer to from those like and trust.

4. Effective Marketers Are Givers

People often forget that trust is earned over time typically on a more intimate level. In order to introduce your great product or services, you need to earn the right to ask for the sell. This is the framework of the “freemium” business model, where you offer so much value to your prospect that their respect for you goes up instantly.
This requires you to supply relevant content or information and ultimately give away your best stuff to show that you’ve got the goods! (Do you?)
This feels counter-intuitive to most experts and business owners because they feel like they’ve earn the right to charge for their expertise or services through years or experience or training. The problem is they, the customers, don’t know and won’t believe that you’re in their best interest until they get to know you.
Effective marketers aren’t afraid to give away their best stuff because knowing how to drive a car doesn’t mean you’ll win a race even if you start with the fastest car.
Authors like Seth Godin, Yaro Starak, Brian Clark, Michael Steizner and Darren Rowse are great example of over-delivering their value so when it’s time to ask for a sale, readers usually come to expect and respect what they bring to the table.

5. Effective Marketers Know Everything Is A Test

Today, the market moves so fast that it’s important to understand marketing needs to focus on the long-term strategies to get customers.
There is no silver bullet that will bring you sustainable instant results. In fact, it’s vital to have the right mindset knowing that every action you take is to validate your ideas from fact gathering.
Great marketers do not hold their ego to their chest; they look for facts and data that enable them to make incremental improvements.
This is why direct response marketing delivers better results than institutional branding and advertising. They have different appeals with different purpose but direct marketing is more effective in small to medium size business than branding or making logos and websites “look nice.” Your investment in marketing efforts should always be measurable in some ways, think of it as making progress not perfection.
The best marketing ROI is about profiting on all the time and money invested in your tests! You would test the water before you jump into the pool or drink a hot soup right?

6. Effective Marketers Are Laser Focused On A Niche

Successful marketer choose a niche and stick to it. They put all the experience, knowledge, theories and ideas they have and consistently create content around it. Everything is narrowly focused so it speaks to those that are looking for solutions in that topic.
They deliver bite size chunks of information to ensure that their audience learn and take actions. Ultimately it’s about delivering value that’s truly a solution not just suggestions.  Since people aren’t good at valuing anything with out learning (more information again), top marketers knows to create techniques or systems that enable the prospects to understand the value of the solution.
Simply put, great niche marketing strips away misunderstand and delivers high value information that pushes the buy button. And to do that, it requires focusing on the needs of the customer without assumptions. (goes back to#1 above)
A great method to do that is to learn Neil Rackham’s SPIN Selling technique by focusing on asking the right Situational questions (find out what’s going on), Problem questions (challenges happening), Implication questions(what the challenge implies) and the Needs-payoff questions (the price tag on solving the challenge).
The take away: Marketing is a skill that you can learn and should be practiced everyday. In fact, thanks to the internet today there is very little barrier to entry for anyone to do marketing. The information are all out there, you just need to follow some simple steps to start marketing your product, services or your personal brand.
The six traits are the building blocks to form powerful influence which is explained by Robert Cialdini’s book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion as ethical persuasion in reciprocity, scarcity, liking, authority, social proof, and commitment/consistency.
What do you think the most important trait of a marketer is? What worked well or not so well for you? Love to hear your comments, share it with everyone!

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Zynga spends between $5 million and $8 million per month for banner ads on Facebook

The game company can keep growing as long as it stays in Facebook's good graces

By Douglas MacMillan

"The next three years are a hell of a lot harder than the last three"

More than 120 million people play Zynga's online games. Employee headcount has almost quadrupled in the past year, to 775. Revenue for the three-year-old company should surpass $450 million in 2010, according to two people who have been briefed on its financials.

Mind you, Zynga's games are free. Revenue mostly comes from selling virtual hoes and machine guns and such to players of FarmVille, Mafia Wars, and other titles. "Only a few companies are so privileged to get the rocketship growth that Zynga has," says Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and a Zynga director and investor. As for an initial public offering, "All options are on the table," he says.

In an interview at Zynga's overflowing offices in San Francisco, Mark Pincus, the company's 44-year-old founder and CEO, seems giddy. "It's fun," he says, swiveling back and forth in a conference room chair. "It's adrenaline."

It's a sweet gig—although there's one big unknown: Facebook. Zynga's success depends on the good graces of the social network, where almost all of its games are played. "The single biggest challenge is managing growth in the face of total uncertainty," says Pincus. By all accounts he's on friendly terms with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg—who has shown a willingness to knock heads.

In March the social network stopped letting Zynga and other app creators promote games in the "notifications" menu users see each time they log on. Facebook said users were complaining about spam-like messages that appeared every time one of their game-playing friends found a baby duck or whacked a mobster. One protest group on Facebook with more than 5 million users called itself "I Don't Care About Your Farm, Or Your Fish, Or Your Park, Or Your Mafia!!!"

Pincus says the policy change has hurt his business in "the short term" by slowing traffic to his games in the first quarter of this year. Still, he says, Zynga and Facebook can help each other, since his company's wares increase the time and attention users spend on the social network. He compares the relationship to that of a cable company and a hit-making network: "I think it benefits Facebook's users if we can create the next Sopranos and if we can be a brand, like HBO, that their customers really want." (Pincus is a minority investor in Facebook. All he'll say about his stake is that it's "basis points.")

Facebook doesn't just get happier users, it also gets big checks from Zynga. Any time a game looks like a potential hit, Pincus says his company deploys millions of dollars on ads promoting it to members of the social network. In total, Zynga spends between $5 million and $8 million per month for banner ads on Facebook, according to NeXt Up! Research. The aggressive promotions make it difficult for rivals to copy an idea for a game and make it as successful as Zynga's version, says Lisa Marino, chief revenue officer of app startup RockYou. "Social gaming is a math equation," says Marino. "When you put millions of dollars down to protect [a franchise], you will win it."

Facebook could force Zynga to adjust its math. More than 90% of the company's revenues come from users converting real cash into proprietary virtual currency. FarmVille, for example, has Farm Coins. Say you buy a tractor for 5,000 Farm Coins, which equals about $3.30. Typically the company pays less than 10% of that to a third-party transaction handler such as PayPal and keeps the rest. (In March, PayPal said Zynga was its second-largest merchant after eBay.)

Facebook is testing a service called Facebook Credits that would offer a single virtual currency for use on many different apps. If the social network forces app makers to use Facebook Credits, as some developers expect will happen this year, Zynga would have to pay the company up to 30% of every transaction. "If Credits become pervasive, I don't think Pincus can stop it. It's going to hit the margin," says Peter Relan, executive chairman of CrowdStar, one of Zynga's many competitors.

"There's just going to be one currency that people use" on all apps, Zuckerberg told Bloomberg TV on Apr. 21. He didn't say when Credits might become mandatory. Pincus is trying out the currency as an option in FarmVille and other games. "There is definite value for users and developers in having the trusted Facebook brand associated with buying virtual goods," he says.

Pincus says he's eyeing other ways to get his games in front of the masses. Apple's (AAPL) announcement on Apr. 8 that it plans to include a program for connecting people in social games played on the iPhone and iPad caught his attention: "It would make a lot of sense for Apple to be interested in doing more to enable social gaming," he says.

For now, Zynga's mission is to keep cranking out those Facebook hits. Work is going on around the clock; Pincus is encouraging employees to develop pet projects during weekend-long programming marathons. And, of course, the company is hiring like crazy. To help fill 300 job openings, it's running an ad on a billboard in San Francisco and has bought local public-radio sponsorships.

Pincus will need all the intensity he can get. Electronic Arts (ERTS) upped the ante in November when it bought Zynga rival Playfish for $275 million. "Zynga is riding high," says Barry Cottle, general manager of EA's interactive unit. "But they may soon find out that the next three years are a hell of a lot harder than the last three."

The bottom line: As long as Zynga keeps supplying Facebook with hit games—and ad revenue—this could be a long and profitable partnership.

Douglas MacMillan is a staff writer for Bloomberg BusinessWeek in New York.

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The era of mobile advertising is coming soon

by Jason Kincaid on Apr 8, 2010

Today during its iPhone 4.0 developer preview, Steve Jobs announced Apple’s much-anticipated mobile advertising platform, iAd. This has been expected since Apple acquired mobile ad platform Quattro Wireless, after having AdMob snatched away by Google (though the FTC may recommend blocking that deal).
Apple will sell and host the ads, giving 60% of ad revenue back to developers, and Jobs says that developers can add ads to their apps “in an afternoon”. Unlike most mobile ads, which kick users outside of the application they’re currently using, iAd keeps users in the same app. In a jab at Flash, while showing an ad, Jobs said “Oh, by the way, all of this is done in HTML 5.”
The first ad Jobs showcased during his demo was for Toy Story 3. It was rendered in HTML 5, was fully interactive, and looked similar to a native app — it actually had a game integrated in it. Jobs said, “”This is a new kind of mobile ad. Have you ever seen a mobile ad like this? Anything even close?”
Second, Jobs showed off an ad for Nike, which showed a history of Nike ads and allowed the user to actually flip through a history of the brand’s shoes. Ads will have access to many of the same APIs as ‘normal’ native applications — they’ll be able to use location services and the accelerometer. Location, in particular, will be important — this is going to be a boon to hyperlocal advertising (provided Apple offers a good way for local businesses to get their ads in the system).
It sounds like Apple won’t be too restrictive on who can build apps: Ad agencies will be able to develop these interactive ads, as will app developers. Though I imagine they’ll have to go through a review process similar to native apps on the App Store. Update: During a Q&A Apple said it would use a “light touch” and that there were obviously some ads they didn’t want to have shown, the same way a TV network doesn’t want some ads shown.
The obvious consequence of this new platform is that ads from other ad networks may well become second-class citizens, perhaps not just from Apple’s perspective but from a functional standpoint. Details are still scant, but if iAds are the only ads on the iPhone that can access the iPhone’s API, then ads from third party networks may be less interactive, and may not be able to as effectively determine the user’s location. Assuming developers embrace iAds and the iPhone continues its strong growth, this could have a significant impact on Google’s mobile ad efforts in the future.
Here’s what Jobs had to say about the launch (we’re updating from from our live notes, some of this may be paraphrased):

“Developers [of free apps] need to find a way to start making their money. A lot of developers turn to advertising – and we think these current advertisements really suck.”
“If you look at advertisements on a phone, it’s not like on a desktop. On a desktop, its about search. On mobile, search hasnt happened. People aren’t searching on their phones. People are spending their time in apps”
The average user spends 30 minutes a day in apps. If we put an add up every 3 minutes, that’s 10 ads per day.
Throughout the iPhone community, that’s 1 billion ad impressions per day
We’ve all seen interactive ads on the web. We want to deliver interaction – but also emotion.
“If you click on an add now, you’re yanked out of your app. As a result, people don’t click on ads.”
“We have figured out how to do interactive and video content without ever taking you out of the app”
Apple will sell and host the ads, and give 60% of ad revenue to developers

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3 Ways to Drive Corporate Facebook Success

Posted by Lily Zhu on Mon, Mar 22, 2010 @ 09:15 AM

Have you ever wondered why some Facebook pages attract millions of fans while others don't?

Granted, many of these super-popular pages stand for internationally known corporations that already have a large base of staunch supporters, but they know that an established brand doesn't compensate a mediocre page. What, then, are these companies doing right to attract and sustain a large number of Facebook fans?

The answer lies not just in active page maintenance. Constantly uploading relevant content and promptly answering fan inquiries are important but insufficient for building a highly successful Facebook page. As the following case studies attempt to illustrate, the key lies in involving fans in creative and personable ways.




1. Successful pages involve fans through product-related polls and contests.

Fans like to feel involved. A space for them to voice their opinions is good, but one that invites fans to transform mere opinions into constructive feedback for product improvement is even better. Oreo, with approximately 4.3 million Facebook fans, classifies as the latter.
The Oreo Jingle Contest integrates product-related content--dunk Oreo cakesters in milk or not--with format that encourages creativity--that is, singing the jingle any way you want. Oreo goes even further to involve fans who are too lazy to enter the contest--they may vote for their favorite entries. A creative, free campaign as such succeeds not just in leaving potential customers a favorable impression of Oreo's new products but also in making fans feel that their opinions are valued by Oreo, which may in turn strengthen customers' loyalty or curiosity to leran more about Oreo products.

Not all contests work as well on Facebook as Oreo's. Pepsi, a well-run but much less popular page, also publicized a contest. Unlike the Jingle contest, however, Pepsi's Refresh Project seems to promote the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) more than it does its own products.

Not that a CSR project is a bad idea. In fact, Pepsi's move on Facebook probably helps build a healthy, trustworthy corporate brand that may indirectly contribute to sales. The problem, however, seems to lie in the word "indirect." Since the project does not directly address Pepsi products, fans may find it difficult to see how their participation helps improve Pepsi products that will eventually benefit them as consumers. In other words, Pepsi's contest is a good initiative that nonetheless neglects the importance of interaction perceivable to consumers, which may explain why it contributes little in drawing a flock of fans to the Pepsi page.

2. Successful pages respond to fans' comments promptly.
Are contest and polls the only means of involving fans? Of course not. Responding to fans' inquiries and concerns itself can be just as effective depending on how it's implemented. Coca-Cola, a page with more than 5.2 million followers, handles fan inquiries and comments so meticulously that they display real-time Twitter interactions under a tab named "Feeds." The fact that every reply addresses a particular fan by first name implies at the very least that Coca-Cola wants to project a caring, personable image. Fan buy into this.



3. Successful pages respond to fans' comments inclusively.
Besides responding promptly, another key to successfully brewing an engaging atmosphere is to respond inclusively. Fans don't always leave positive comments. They also encounter frustrating moments when using a product or service and vent that frustration by leaving negative comments.

JetBlue has encountered that. A brief look at their discussion board tells the story of some customers who are not happy with JetBlue services. One post is outspokenly named "nice how you delete," which inevitably refers to JetBlue's past page management style since this post still exists. JetBlue listens and acts upon what it hears. Its tolerance of negative comments and constructive responses effectively erects an image of open-mindedness and determination to constantly improve its services. Apparently, fans buy that, too.

Conclusion
To conclude, some Facebook pages are highly successful because they support customer relations with creativity, punctuality, and an open mind. These success stories apply not just to big corporations but also to businesses of any size. Once you learn to merge the three elements in running your Facebook page, you will be on your way to building an effective inbound-marketing-driven brand.

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Bing’s Facebook Page Gets 400,000 New Fans in a Day Through Ad Offer in Farmville

By Eric Eldon In the latest example of brand advertising integrated into social games, Microsoft ran an advertising offer for Bing within Zynga’s hit game FarmVille on Tuesday. If users became a fan of Bing’s Facebook Page by clicking on a sponsored ad on the bottom right of the FarmVille main page, they’d receive 3 Farm Cash (FarmVille’s virtual currency). The effort was apparently successful, as Bing’s page went from slightly more than 100,000 fans on Monday to more than 500,000 as of earlier today. FarmVille has 83.1 million monthly active users, and 28.7 million daily active users on Tuesday, according to AppData. So only about 1.5% of all FarmVille users participated in the 24 hours that the campaign ran. This engagement number is pretty good, especially if you’re a page administrator looking for a quick way to get more fans, or, say, a search engine trying to educate the public about your alternative to Google. Bing also made an effort to make the action relevant to the game’s players. The sponsored ad (here), which used SocialVibe’s brand engagement ad service, directed users to become fans of the Page, mentioning that “whether you want to buy a horse or a tree, Bing can help you decide!” Bing also posted a status update to its Page earlier today, reiterating the message — “Any FarmVille fans out there? Try using Bing to get the most out of your crops and animals.” It linked to Bing search results for “farmville animals,” encouraging players who wanted to look for more information about the game would use it instead of Google. As most Bing Facebook fans today came in through FarmVille, the update was heavily commented and liked. Other forms of advertising within games have typically run within offer walls, which include direct payment options for virtual currency as well as advertising offers. The number of users who do any sort of payment or offer is generally low, from 1% up. But that stat typically reflects the portion of users over the lifetime of a game. This was just for one day. It appears that users do in fact appreciate advertising, and offers in particular, when they’re easy to find and clearly valuable. FarmVille-focused blog FarmVille Freak noted the Bing campaign in a post yesterday, and polled its readers to see what they thought. The question was: “Will you be clicking the Bing FarmVille Sponsored Link?” The possible answers were “Yes, I love Farm Cash!,” “No, I hate Bing! Long live Google!” and “Maybe, would like the Farm Cash, not Bing!” So far, 68% of respondents, or more than 3,500 people, have vote for the first option. Granted, readers of a blog about a social game are probably more interested in Farm Cash than the average player, but still an interesting data point. In any case, expect many more ads that integrate a brand goal into an incentivized action in a game. SocialVibe has already been running branded engagement ads in Zynga games, as we’ve covered; it’s currently providing all of the offers in PetVille’s offer wall, for example. Other companies are getting into providing branded offers, too, from established offer companies like TrialPay to newer ones like gWallet to traditional in-game advertising companies like WildTangent.

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11 Free Tools for Social Media Optimization

48 Comments and 962 Reactions | Posted by Lee Odden on Mar 10th, 2010 in Online Marketing, SEO,Social Media

Plenty of bloggers are talking about the inevitable intersection of social media marketing and search engine optimization. Heck, we’ve been blogging about SMOsince 2006! Keyword optimized social content and channels of promotion provide abundant signals to search engines for improved visibility on standard, social and real-time search.

The changing nature of social media marketing and optimization create the need for tools whether for research, marketing and promotion or analytics. Here are 11 social media and SEO tools you might find useful:

• howsociable.com – Social visibility score
• knowem.com – Profile building tool
• Social Media for Firefox – Build a powerful social profile on social news & bookmarking sites
• semrush.com – Find competitor organic search rankings
• Google Insights – Keyword demand trends
• Page Inlink Analyzer – Analyze inbound links, their Delicious bookmarks & keyword tags
• majesticseo.com – Historical back-link tracking
• trackur.com – Social media monitoring
• socialmention.com – Real-time social search & scoring, social keyword research
• bit.ly – Search friendly URL shortening with analytics
• analytics.postrank.com – Track social engagement with combined Google & social analytics

Below are screen shots of each tool with a more detailed description of how you might use them.

HowSociable is a useful tool to quickly gauge the social presence of a particular keyword or brand name. Agencies like TopRank Marketing will use this kind of tool (customized) to take snapshots of customer social presence metrics for social media optimization programs. For each social site polled, you can clickthrough to see specific mentions.  This is a characteristic of more advanced social media monitoring tools, but for those that want a quick glimpse, HowSocialble is easy to use and the price is right, just like these free social media monitoring tools. However, if you want more comprehensive brand search and monitoring, then a paid social media measurement tool is worth the investment.

KnowEm is both a free and a paid service that will help you easily and quickly check whether your brand terms or other keywords have been registered as social profiles on a wide variety of social media web sites. Everything from blogging platforms to social news and bookmarking services are included. If you don’t want to complete all those profiles yourself, you can pay knowem to do it for you.  Companies invest a lot in building their brand, so this tool is helpful both for creating off site promotion channels as well as guarding against brand name squatters.

Social Media for Firefox is the only browser addon in our list and can be a handy tool to identify upcoming news items that are gaining popularity on certain social news and bookmarking services. A big part of building a more influential user profile is to be a consistent source of submissions for articles that become popular. This addon helps identify articles that are becoming popular on services like Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon giving you a heads up to submit to other services.  The logic is that if a news item becomes popular on one service it has a good chance of becoming popular on others.  Relevance, timing and focus are key as is patience for this kind of tactic.

SEMRush is an interesting tool for identifying the keyword visibility, both organic and PPC, on Google for pretty much any domain name you might be curious about. Your own or competitors for example. A common question for marketers is, “What are my competitors optimizing for?”. This tool helps uncover that insight and in combination with other standard and social keyword research, can be very helpful insight in a social media optimization program.

Google Insights for Search is a handy tool to research trends in popularity of various keywords on their own or in combination.  Filters for search type, geographic location, industry or topical category and timeframe allow you to refine some pretty useful information about what’s in demand.

Eric Miraglia ’s Inlink Analyzer is a back link analysis tool based on Yahoo’s Site Explorer that not only counts and displays source links to a particular URL, but it also shows if the source links were bookmarked on Delicious and what keyword tags were used. This kind of insight can be quite useful for understanding the relationship between social keywords and link popularity. It would be nice if there was a CSV export option.

Majestic SEO is easily one of the most powerful and useful link analysis tools available. There is a free version that gives you link acquisition counts over time and if you are a site owner, you can get full reporting for your site once you validate it.  If you use the paid service, you can get the juicy link details on your competition.  This tools is useful for finding high impact links for standard SEO but it’s also useful for finding out which social media sites your site or competitors’ site are getting  the most links from.  Also, which of your own social destinations (blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc) are getting inbound links and from where.

Andy Beal’s Trackur service is a very easy to use social media monitoring tool that offers a free version that will satisfy many beginners in the social media optimization space.  Social media monitoring services are keyword based, (queries and negative or exclusionary) and that means some very useful information about how popular certain keyword concepts are on the social web. Of course you can use it to monitor what people are saying about your brand, identify a certain measure of influence and where they’re saying it. But seeing social keyword popularity trends can be quite useful for taking advantage of real-time marketing opportunities.

SocialMention is a free real time and social search tool that offers an array of search options (just blogs, just forums, just bookmarks or all) and output in the search results. You can get an indication of basic sentiment and the top social keywords associated with your query. As a free service, you don’t setup an account and save your search results, but you can easily download them into a spreadsheet. This is probably one of the most useful, free social search tools online.

Bit.ly URL shortening is very handy since they’re included as a default service on Twitter and many other Twitter applications. Bit.ly is rock solid reliable with uptime, which is pretty critical when you’re relying on their URL redirect to send traffic to whatever it is you’re promoting. You can also get basic statistics for each URL that your shorten to show how productive the site is where it was shared.  In today’s succinct social web with Twitter, status updates and micro-content, being able to conserve space with a reliable URL shortener is very helpful. Stats on top of that make this a “go to” URL shortening service.

PostRank offers a nice measure of engagement at the individual document level and if you pay attention, you can get that data on any web site in their database, not just your own. You can easily see what content on your competitors blogs are getting popular and where.  If you sign up for the PostRank Analytics service, you can incorporate Google Analytics data with social engagement metrics. These are essential comparisons in a social media optimization program and can help you understand where to plan your time on the social web.

This is really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to SEO and Social Media Marketing tools. What low cost or free tools have you found to be effective for social media optimization tasks?

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