Tag Archives: twitter

August 9, 2012 · 9:07 am

What’s The Most Valuable Social Network?

Like many of you I’ve been following the ups and downs of Facebook‘s recent IPO and the stock’s performance subsequently. I thought about it again this morning as I read a release from The Incyte Group (via Research Brief) that states consumers want deeper connections with brands – but open social networks are not where they want to build these connections.  Facebook is the biggest of the bunch and while marketers put over $3B on to Facebook’s revenue line last year, if you speak with many marketers the ROI on that spending is unimpressive.  The notion that sort of pops into my head about marketers searching for the best social network to reach consumers is that of a drunken sailor bouncing from bar to bar, spending a little cash along the way, looking to get lucky.  Facebook to Twitter to Pinterest to LinkedIn.  Turns out that’s not what holds the most promise when we’re talking about reaching them via social networks:

(Consumers) do not expect, or even want, these communities to be part of an existing social network like Facebook or LinkedIn. Instead, their preference is for customer communities that are:

  • Run separately from open social networks, but have strong linkages to them so they can easily share information with like-minded friends
  • Proactively managed by companies
  • Tightly integrated with the company’s website

So what, in my mind, is the most valuable social network?  Amazon.  Think about it – much of the time when I’m on Amazon I’m not  actually sticking things in a shopping cart.  I’m researching.  I’m reading reviews to discover new books or music.  I’m commenting in things I’ve bought or used that are for sale.  When you look at the research findings, Amazon meets all the criteria plus it closes the circle by offering products for sale.  It’s not an ad-supported model but their sales were over $12B.  For a quarter. Several times what Facebook or any other social network’s were.

Amazon is the most valuable social network for marketers because it is for consumers.  Now ask the next logical question:  what’s your strategy on Amazon and is it the best one when you think about it as social and not as commerce?  Do you agree with my thinking here?

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under digital media, Thinking Aloud

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

June 7, 2012 · 8:18 am

What IE10 Means To You

Microsoft did something that’s causing a ruckus in the digital ad industry.  To me, it’s a logical, consumer-friendly move that is in line with best-practices.  To others, it’s…

English: Microsoft Windows Internet Explorer w...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

a step backwards in consumer choice, and we fear it will harm many of the businesses, particularly publishers, that fuel so much of the rich content on the internet.

That quote is from the head of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, and the move in question is to turn on “Do Not Track” in the new version of Internet Explorer.  Another group – the Digital Advertising alliance (the IAB is a founding member) began a campaign earlier this year to inform consumers about interest-based advertising and how to take greater control of their online privacy.  According to the boilerplate in their press releases

These associations and their thousands of members are committed to developing effective self-regulatory solutions to consumer choice in online behavioral advertising.

One last quote:

A default setting that automatically blocks content violates a consumer’s right to choose, and doesn’t factor in the need for digital businesses to innovate and thrive economically.

That’s from the IAB’s official response just in case you think I’m making this up.  However, we’ve finally got to the truth:  this is about commerce and not about consumer choice.

As a digital marketing person I’m certainly aware of the benefits some tracking technologies bring to consumers, who might not even understand that they’re seeing more interesting ads and offers because of it.  However, I also know that most users do not change the default settings on their browsers (ever wonder why those deals to make certain pages the default home or search page are worth so much?).  Apparently, the DAA only supports consumer choice when the default is set to “on”.

This isn’t about blocking ads or blocking content.  It doesn’t block cookies.  It’s a browser setting that sends a message to every website you visit saying you prefer not to be tracked. While that flag is optional for sites and ad nets to obey, it’s gaining momentum with Twitter embracing it.  To me it’s about protecting consumers, even those who don’t know they need it and I don’t buy that defaulting the consumer’s choice to be the way you want it as a business is necessarily the best, or even the right, way.

Unfortunately, the new version of the the latest proposed draft of the Do Not Track specification published Wednesday requires that users must choose to turn on the anti-behavioral tracking feature in their browsers and software.  That means that IE10 will be out of compliance with the standard and, therefore, ad nets and others are free to ignore the browser setting.

I’m always sad when smart people do dumb things such as choosing their businesses over their users.  Let’s see where this leads but I don’t think the conversation is over.  Do you?  Where do you come out on this?

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under digital media

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

May 31, 2012 · 8:48 am

Likejacking

Fascinating piece in Business Week on some of the spam practices within social media.  While the focus is on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, it reminds all of us who create content sites that we need to be vigilant about protecting our sites and our users from these dirt bags.  The piece cites an executive from an anti-spam software company who stated that spammers create as many as 40 percent of the accounts on social media sites. About 8 percent of messages sent via social pages are spam, approximately twice the volume of six months ago.  Because the email providers have become pretty good about filtering out obvious spam, the spammer have moved on to social.

What they’re doing now is embedding code that forces a “like” into a link to a page with something such as a video as bait.  Likejacking.  On Twitter, it’s provocative text linking to spam; on Pinterest it’s a photo that links to a virus or other spam.  I don’t think many of us are engaged in doing this – it seems to be a few rotten apples, some of whom have been sued.  Or are we?

There is still a tendency for marketers to use social media as we used to use traditional media – we talk, they listen.  We broadcast messages and wait for the register to ring.  Today, doing that on a Facebook brand page or within a Twitter feed is a sure way to get blocked, unfriended, hidden, or ignored.  To a certain extent, any sort of one-sided discussion is seen as spam in many folks’ minds.

We spend too much time wondering if social is marketing or PR or customer service.  We might argue about which department ought to control it.  Those are good discussions to have but what we can’t be doing in the interim is flooding our fans’ news feeds with off-target messages about us when we ought to be listening and engaging where appropriate with them.    Otherwise, how are we different from the likejackers?

Thoughts?

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under digital media, Helpful Hints

Tagged as , , , , , , ,