Archive for November, 2006
A Unique Take on ‘Social’ Media Optimization
When you hear the phrase social media optimization, what do you think of? Link Baiting? Viral Marketing? MySpace? Blogging? Digg?
What about Christmas?
In what appears to be a unique spin on ‘social’ media optimization, the website directory Seekzap is currently running a program where they will be donating 50% of all website submission fees collected through December 15th to the Toys for Tots Foundation to help deliver toys to needy children this holiday.
Looking at the program’s announcement of this program on the Seekzap Directory Blog, it appears that the motivation for this program is pretty clear:
Filed under Social Media Optimization : Comments (1) : Nov 30th, 2006
Getting the Bubble Generation To Buy From You
Tom Hayes over on TomBomb.com recently had an article titled “Five Reasons the Bubble Generation Won’t Buy From You”. It is a very insightful article that got me about how you would go about successfully marketing to the bubble generation.
So who is the bubble generation? The bubble generation is the group of consumers between the age of 15 and 29 and they are arguable the first global community of consumers, connected by the Internet, social media and mobile telephony. There are about 40 million US members of the Bubble Generation, and about 500 million members worldwide. Armed with disposable incomes, this group is the target demographic for most companies. Reaching them via traditional media is easy. Getting them to buy from you is a lot harder which is where social networks come into play as they are the ideal platform with which to interact with this generation of consumers.
Filed under Brand Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (1) : Nov 29th, 2006
Confusing Digg Numbers
Valleywag had an interesting article today about the conflicting traffic numbers that members of the Digg management team are giving out.
The confusion started when Forbes interviewed Digg founder Kevin Rose and Digg CEO Jay Adelson. In the Forbes article Adelson says that Digg gets about 1 million visitors a day and ten million unique visitors a month
Now 30 million visitors a month and 10 million uniques a month are very good traffic numbers. The problem with these traffic numbers is that none of the industry standard web measurement firms agree with Digg’s numbers.
Filed under Social Media Optimization : Comments (4) : Nov 28th, 2006
Successful Social Media Marketing
I was watching Donnie Deutsch recently on his show The Big Idea interviewing Bill Gates. Donnie Deutsch made his money in old media; print and TV. One of the topics was advertising, specifically advertising online. Bill Gates did a good job pointing out the key difference between traditional advertising and online advertising. He said would you rather buy a TV ad that will get 25 million eyeballs, of which only a percentage are interested in your product, or would you rather get in front of everyone online who is interested in your product? A great rhetorical question that totally confused Donnie Deutsch!
Filed under Brand Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (3) : Nov 26th, 2006
Union Turn To YouTube To Get Message Out
The United Steelworkers union and Goodyear have been involved in a nasty year-long dispute. What is interesting is that the United Steelworkers union has turned to YouTube to help point Goodyear in a bad light. The Internet Financial News reported this week that
“[The union] has launched an advertising campaign that spotlights, among other things, what it contends are the hazards of buying tires made by replacement workers. It also is tapping into the power of the Internet with one of its more inflammatory pieces - a [30-second] video spot on YouTube.com that climaxes with a car crash.”
Filed under Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (3) : Nov 24th, 2006
Traveling for the Holidays
I will be traveling for the holidays for the next week or so, so expect postings to be light
David
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (1) : Nov 21st, 2006
Video Sharing Market
Increased broadband penetration, combined with the rise of consumer generated content and the proliferation of webcams, cell phones, and home video cameras have firmly entrenched online video viewing into the habits of entertainment seekers in the United States. So begins the online video sharing section of the Hitwise report.
Like MySpace and Photobucket there is one dominant player in the video sharing market and that is YouTube. Hitwise data shows that:
- The market share of visits to YouTube increased by 249% in the six months from March to September 2006, and in September 2006 it was the 26th most visited website by US Internet users.
Filed under Brand Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (0) : Nov 16th, 2006
Is Photobucket the new MySpace?
How many of you have ever heard of Photobucket never mind actually visited their web site? In the photo sharing space, Photobucket is like MySpace is in social networking. According to Hitwise, in September 2006 Photobucket received 8 times the amount of traffic than it nearest competitor.
What is Photo Sharing?
Photo sharing sites like Photobucket, Imageshack and Slide are filling a need created by the explosion of sites like MySpace (another example of the MySpace halo effect). As the amount of user generated content on blogs and social networking sites increased, there became a need for a service that would allow users to simply paste a line of HTML code onto their social network profiles, personal websites or blogs that will display the image on the website.
Filed under Brand Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (0) : Nov 14th, 2006
The MySpace Halo Effect
MySpace is so dominant in the social networking space that is often the top referrer to not only commercial sites, but to other social networking sites also. The recent Hitwise study on the “Rapid Growth of Social Networking” pointed out how dominant MySpace is.
Top Social Network Sites By Traffic
Hitwise ranked the top 20 social networking sites by traffic for September 2006. Out of the twenty sites, only six have a market share of over 1%. They are:
|
Name |
Market Share |
|
MySpace |
81.92% |
|
|
7.24% |
|
Xanga |
1.86% |
|
Yahoo! 360 |
1.21% |
Filed under Brand Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (3) : Nov 13th, 2006
Looking Behind The Social Media Numbers
2006 is the year that social networks came of age. MySpace, YouTube, Photobucket and Facebook have all become destination points for million and an integral part of our Internet experience. According to Hitwise, 4.9% of all Internet visits in September went to one of the top 20 social networking sites. That is a 94% increase in traffic over September 2005.
Hotwise just released a terrific study about the social networks and we will dealve inside there numbers throughout the week. Hitwise segregated traffic to the social sites into three segments: traffic to “traditional” social networking sites, traffic to Photo Sharing sites and traffic to Video Sharing sites. Some of the report highlights are:
Filed under Brand Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (5) : Nov 12th, 2006
