Archive for March, 2007
Collaborative or Social Search
A question that I hear sometimes is “Why should I concern myself with social media sites? I am ranked highly on Google. Isn’t that enough?
The answer simply is “NO.” It isn’t enough anymore. There are some compelling reasons why that I’ll go over.
Search is moving away from “web site” search to “digital search”. . Frederick Marckini, the founder of iProspect spoke recently at SEMNE.org (SEMNE is a search marketing organization in New England) and during his speech he made this comment:
“all media, all advertising, lead consumers to search …but not only at traditional “search engines…”
Filed under Brand Marketing, SEO, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (3) : Mar 29th, 2007
Tagged: Get Your Goals On - Only Big Dreamers Need Apply
Wendy Piersall at eMoms tagged me yesterday about what my goals and dreams were.
Coincidently, about the time that Wendy was writing here post, I was having a conversation about the same topic with my wife. She has been reading a book by Steven Scott called Mentored by a Millionaire – Master Strategies of Super Achievers.
In the book Steven Scott talks how that most people set achievable goals like “I want to make $200 a month from my affiliate sites in 2007”. The problem with this type of goal setting is that it doesn’t stretch you, or force you out your comfort zone. Instead he asks what your impossible dream is and then you translate that dream into a goal. And then you translate the goal into a series of tasks.
Filed under Social Media Optimization : Comments (2) : Mar 28th, 2007
MySpace and MSN Video
Yesterday I wrote about the MySpace Halo Effect, and how that MySpace provides over 25% of the traffic to all the other social networking sites. Well last week we saw how powerful MySpace is in driving traffic to MSN Video.
The announcement last week that News Corp., NBC Universal, AOL, MSN, MySpace, and Yahoo were joining together to jointly power their own winning video venture was met with a yawn by most people. What was not well reported was that “AOL, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo! will be the new site’s initial distribution partners. Their users, who represent 96 percent of the monthly U.S. unique users on the Internet, will have unlimited access to the site’s vast library of content”.
Filed under Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (0) : Mar 27th, 2007
MySpace and Facebook dominate social network space
The latest numbers from Hitwise show that MySpace and Facebook continue their dominance of the social networking space.
Combined these two behemoths attract over 91% of all social networking visitors, up from 89% in September 2006.
Market Share of US Internet Visits to Top 20 Social Networking Sites, February 2007*
1 MySpace 81%
2 Facebook 10%
3 Bebo 1%
4 BlackPlanet 0.88%
5 Xanga 0.87%
6 iMeem 0.73%
7 Yahoo! 360 up 0.72%
8 Classmates up 0.72%
9 hi5 0.69%
10 Tagged 0.67%
11 LiveJournal 0.49%
12 Gaiaonline 0.48%
13 Friendster 0.34%
14 Orkut 0.26%
15 Live Spaces 0.18%
16 HoverSpot 0.18%
17 Buzznet 0.18%
18 Sconex 0.14%
19 MiGente.com 0.11%
20 myYearbook 0.11%
Based on Hitwise sample of 10 million US Internet users.
Filed under Brand Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (2) : Mar 25th, 2007
Boston Globe Attacks YouTube
A Boston Globe editorial this morning has a withering attack on YouTube and the Hillary 1994 video.
The 1994 video has been seen over 2.4 million times, making it the most successful viral political ad in history.
The source of the Globe’s angst is that YouTube is not regulated by the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Thus anyone can technically put up a video regardless of it content and have it seen by potentially millions of people. According to the Globe this kind of user-generated content threatens to undermine the whole electoral system. The editorial finishes with the paragraph:
Filed under Social Media Optimization : Comments (0) : Mar 23rd, 2007
Back From Elite Retreat
I was lucky enough to spend the last two days in San Francisco at the Elite Retreat. The panel of speakers were amazing, literally the best of the best in their particular niche. I particulay enjoyed talking to Darren Rowse of Problogger.com and Neil Patel of Pronet Advertising. Darren offered some great tips on blogging while it was really interesting to talk to Neil about how he approaches social media sites like Digg and Netscape.
If you are interested in learning more about the topics covered Kris Jones from Pepperjam (one of the speakers) and Wendy from eMoms both blogged about the event.
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (0) : Mar 21st, 2007
Social Media Marketing in 2007 – MySpace or Yours?
A new study release by JupiterResearch called “Social Networking Sites: Defining Advertising Opportunities in a Competitive Landscape” finds that 48% of brand marketers plan to use social tactics in 2007. Jupiter defines social networking sites as websites designed for members to create and post content, usually in the form of profile pages, primarily in order to communicate with each other.
“Users between 18 and 34 are much more likely than older audiences to visit social networks daily,” said Emily Riley, JupiterResearch Analyst and lead author of the report. “Thirty percent of frequent social networkers trust their peers’ opinions when making a major purchase decision, but only ten percent trust advertisements. Consequently, brand marketers must harness brand advocates and influentials by providing additional motivation for frequent networkers to engage in social marketing.”
Filed under Brand Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (4) : Mar 14th, 2007
Comment and Community Marketing
I have noticed the appearance recently of two “new” social media marketing terms; Community Marketing and Comment Marketing. These new labels seem to be used interchangeably with conversational marketing.
While conversational marketing is part of an overall marketing philosophy and strategy, community marketing and comment marketing appears to be simply a tactic that you would use.
For those unfamiliar with the terms, community marketing refers to the tactic of engaging customers in online communities. These communities can either be hosted by a brand or can take place on 3rd party sites. Comment marketing is a tactic used on blogs, forums and sites like Yahoo Answers.
Filed under Brand Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (9) : Mar 13th, 2007
What Candidates Are Leading on YouTube?
It is no secret that a battle for the hearts and minds of voters is underway on the Internet. With exploratory groups, official groups and supporters it is difficult at times to see what candidates are winning the online battle.
This is the first Presidential campaign where social media sites like YouTube will impact what users see and know about a candidate. YouTube is the dominant online video destination and we have decided to track how well the candidates video channels are being received on YouTube.
Filed under Social Media Optimization : Comments (2) : Mar 12th, 2007
Taking Advantage of Walled Gardens
What to do if you are a news organization in today’s web2.0 world, or a business trying to reach your target audience via the media? Well the news last week that MySpace was becoming a news outlet presents tremendous opportunities for savvy marketers.
According to Terry Heaton “MySpace is getting into the news business with launch due in early 2nd quarter, according to inside sources and the company’s own sales materials.
- MySpace News takes News to a whole new level by dynamically aggregating real-time news and blogs from top sites around the Web
Filed under Brand Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (1) : Mar 11th, 2007
