YouTube Partner Program
I am not sure how many of you know about this, but many YouTube members are actually getting paid by posting videos. YouTube launched the Partner Program in 2007 and the program was intended to reward those members who have lots of video views. YouTube partners earn money by allowing relevant advertisements to be displayed along with their videos. A famous YouTube partner is Michelle Phan, the most famous YouTube makeup guru with over one million subscribers. The YouTube Partner Program helped her launch her own skin care line and expand her career. According to the YouTube Spokesperson, some partners are earning six figures a year just by creating videos. Currently, there are around 15,000 YouTube Partners worldwide.
Technographics
These YouTube Partners proved that being a creator in the technographics ladder can be beneficial. Technographics is a term coined by Forrester to describe the different types of social technology users. Creators are at the top of the ladder but only account for 13% of all users. Creators contribute the most in the technographics ladder and they get satisfaction from receiving a lot of feedback. With YouTube’s program, creators are able to gain monetary value for what they create.
Win-Win
YouTube’s Partner program is a win-win strategy for YouTube, members and advertisers. YouTube can gain revenue from advertisements. YouTube Partners can receive commission and are encouraged to include more advertisements with their videos. As for Advertisers, they have a better channel to reach their target audience. With such an innovative strategy, it’s no wonder YouTube is so successful.
Facebook and Twitter are so popular that even the Pope will be joining. Next week, The Vatican will launch a Facebook page dedicated to Pope John Paul II, which is to promote the upcoming beatification taking place on May 1. The page aims to create interaction between the Pope and the public. Vatican officials see Facebook as a one stop portal for information and a great way to answer any questions the public has for the Pope.
This is what Vatican social communications representative says about social media marketing:
“A lot of our communications in the past was: I have a message. I broadcast it. TV takes it, radio takes it, newspaper takes it, and people passively receive it,” Tighe said. “With the Internet you have this possibility of getting people’s comments, getting their responses, and also of hearing their questions.”
It’s quite surprising to see even religion is starting to use social media to promote. Vatican seems to be such a Holy and traditional place that would be least expected to use social media. Even the Pope decides to use Facebook, who wouldn’t?
This allows other companies who haven’t thought of using social media for marketing to see the effect of inbound marketing and potentially create more opportunities for inbound marketing companies.
It will be interesting to see who will be joining the Pope next on Facebook. Maybe Dalai Lama?
Source: The Associated Press, Genopro.com
Japan Earthquake & Tsunami
The news were flooded with the 8.9 magnitude earthquake and Tsunami in Japan on Friday. It is reported that there are at least 1700 dead bodies found. This has been the strongest earthquake Japan has ever experienced.
Everyone around the world is worried about their family and friends in Japan. With the help of Google and Twitter, they are able to get updated news about the disaster.
Google’s Actions
As a result of the disaster, Google immediately launched several tools that can be found on Google Crisis Response Page. The Page contains resources, maps, as well as updated news regarding the earthquake. Within the Response Page, Google launched a People Finder that allows people to type in the name of the person they want to find and to enter data about a person they found. The People Finder is available in four languages and currently there are around 69700 records.
Google has shown their corporate responsibility with this act. Although some may question the intention of Google’s action, it’s impressive that Google has stepped up to do so. Google, being a giant in search engine, does not need this act to gain better brand image. However, Google shows the power of search engines and how it is used to connect with people around the world.
Twitter’s Actions
When every disaster occurs, Twitter becomes the lifeline. During times of disaster, all telephone lines are either disrupted or too busy. As an alternative, people turn to Twitter to reach out to their loved ones. The most common hashtags these few days has been #prayforjapan, #japanquake, #tsunami.
Social media platforms have thus connected the world in a time of crisis, enabling information to be disseminated at almost an instant pace. And when the result is a person finding out that their loved ones are safe across the world,the value of social media becomes unquestionable. Once again, we learn to appreciate Google and social media.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle, Huffington Post, Computer World, AdAge
Many of us in North America are familiar with Facebook and Twitter, but how many of us know RenRen and Sina Weibo?
After the Facebook deal with Goldman Sachs failed, many investors are looking for a way to buy into the social media sector’s growth. Well, investors may have a channel now. A news article said that RenRen.com plans to list in the US this year, wanting to raise $500m.
RenRen
Because social media sites such as YouTube and Facebook are banned in China, Chinese have to look for ways to enjoy social media and Renren is one of them. RenRen.com is the largest social network in China founded in 2005 and its layout and features are very similar to Facebook. Its chat feature is very popular among its users and as of 2010, Renren has over 160 million registered users compared to Facebook’s over 500 million users. This is pretty shocking statistics considering Facebook is worldwide and founded one year before Renren.
Another social media site copycat is Sina’s weibo. Its functionality is very similar to Twitter. It allows users to post their thoughts limited to 140 characters which is the same character limit as Twitter. Weibo is very popular among Chinese. As of 2010, Weibo has over 65 million users. One of the reasons why Weibo is so popular is because it is used by many celebrities in China. Fans are able to follow and get updates of their favorite celebrities instantly.
Know Your Target Audience
Even though Renren does not pose any threat to Facebook because Renren is only available in the Chinese language, it will be harder for Facebook to penetrate into the Chinese market if Renren does issue an IPO. Marketers have to pay attention to these trends to ensure they pick the correct channel to talk to their customers. For example, Facebook and Twitter are not ideal for companies who are focusing in the Chinese market as Chinese users won’t have access to it. Rather, marketers have to be accustomed to using Renren and Weibo to promote their brand. Companies have to be careful as to what market they want to focus because they dont’ want to spend too much resources on a channel that is not that effective.
source: Financial Times, eMarketer.com
Blog Use & Purpose Now
Blogs used to really popular for people who wanted to have an online diary, to express their thoughts on different things. However, the Pew Research Centre found that blogging has decreased by half from 2006 to 2009 among children ages 12 to 17. This is reasonable since blogging was first introduced before their age. In that age group, they are known to social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. However, even between the ages 18 to 33, which is the age group who experience the creation of blogs, blogging has also dropped 2 percent from 2008. The purpose of blogs have evolved in the past few years. Bloggers now have a general theme to their blogs, whether its technology related, beauty related or job related. A lot of bloggers have moved to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter because they find these sites more useful and they can reduce the time spent on it. As the society is improving, each person is busier with many responsibilities on their hands, writing blogs may not be as ideal anymore. Rather, when they feel they want to express a thought really quick, they can turn to sites like Facebook and Twitter. By doing so, others are updated with what they are doing quickly, rather than reading a really long blog.
Blog & Marketing
Blogs are now commonly found among companies as a marketing tool. Companies would write blogs to update and inform customers about their company. Many companies also ask their employees to write blogs to increase brand awareness and search engine optimization (To read more about Search engine optimization, please visit my earlier blog post). For example, companies would have a blog post when they have a new collection in stock or when they have a huge sale going on.
Tumblr – A New Kind of Blog
With this evolution also foster the creation of sites like Tumblr. Instead of having paragraphs in a blog post, Tumblr’s blog posts are usually a picture or a video with a caption or thought below it. Below are some examples of Tumblr blogs.
Source: stfumarrieds.tumblr.com
Source: all-thats-interesting.tumblr.com
source: pbh3.tumblr.com
Who else is Blogging?
Although blogging is decreasing among teens and young adults, there is increasing use among adults ages 34-73. Bloggers among this age group are more educated and knowledgeable and therefore their blog posts are filled with more intellectual and informational content.
Online Marketing
Marketers have to understand their target audience first before determining which online (social media) channel to use. Although some companies may want to have presence in all the online channels, this is not ideal as it is time consuming and more costly. Each online channel requires human resources to maintain and monitor it. If the companies don’t research about which channel their target audience is using the most, they are wasting their resources and won’t get great results. So if the company’s target audience are adults between ages 34-73, then marketers should invest in producing more intellectual blog post content to attract them. On the other hand, if the company is targeting a younger audience, then they should focus on social media channels to increase their brand awareness.
Source: New York Times
Online Air Fares Platform
Searching for the lowest air fares online used to be quite difficult. The creation of central air fares selling platforms like Expedia.com and Orbitz.com help consumers ease that pain. These platforms allow users to compare air fares from different airlines as well as combine different airlines in a trip to get the cheapest price.
American Airlines’ Announcement
American Airlines recently announced that it wants to bypass these platforms and sell directly to consumers, so they have terminated their contracts with Expedia.com and Orbitz.com (Tickets are still available on other travel sites such as Priceline.com and Kayak.com). American Airlines’ justification for this announcement is that they will be able to lower their air fares because of disintermediation. Disintermediation is defined as removing the intermediaries in the “supply chain” or removing the “middleman”. Although this seems to benefit customers, American Airlines wouldn’t be able to offer online search comparison that made Expedia and Orbitz so successful.
Effect of Disintermediation
With disintermediation, airlines can monitor their customers better as well as offer discounts to attract customers. This will lead to a greater extend of brand loyalty. If airlines can eventually bypass these intermediaries, those who do not want to spend as much time comparing for the lowest air fares may fly with the airlines they trust the most, especially if airlines offer frequent flyer or loyalty programs. To ensure customers are getting what they care about the most, American Airlines claims that they have the lowest price guaranteed and customers can fill out a form if they find out another airline has a lower price. It’s hard to say if American Airlines actually has the lowest prices, but few customers would actually go that far to fill in a form to get $30-$50 price difference from American Airlines. On the other hand, airlines are trying to create value instead of competing for the lowest price. By value, I mean, providing excellent customer service and the seat’s comfortability, etc. I think this may work for travelers flying Business class who want a comfortable ride. However, for those who are in the economy class, they may not care about value as much as the price, unless the airline has really bad customer service.
My Experience
I personally enjoy the convenience sites like Expedia.com and Orbitz.com offer and wouldn’t mind paying a small commission to them to receive this convenience. In the past, I would have to call my travel agent to ask for a quote during their operating hours and had to put up with their attitude. With these online platforms, I can find the lowest price on my own, at any time of the day. These sites are very useful for travelling and for airlines that have a smaller market share. Without these sites, consumers would directly go to the airline that first pop into their mind and they tend to be big airlines. With these sites, consumers are open to airlines that they are somewhat familiar with which they haven’t flown with yet. I really hope that American Airlines would lose in this fight and these sites can continue to give us the convenience we experience from them.
Source: New York Times
As a forth year student, graduation is fast approaching, so it’s time to find a job. Looking for a job is much more versatile than the past. Finding a job has transformed from the traditional classified in newspapers to fostering career management portals such as Monster.com and Workopolis.com.
Companies post their job vacancies via Monster.com or Workopolis.com to recruit more talent. Employers have a chance to market themselves describing the benefits they provide for their employees. These career websites allow job seekers to narrow searches to industries, position type, or location.
This leads to a new era of companies marketing themselves to recruit the best talents. In the past, job seekers were in the passive position because there wasn’t much choice or information for them to compare with. Job seekers also didn’t know a lot about the company’s culture and environment. They either depended on previous employees or assumed the culture from how the brand was marketed.
Many companies now have a sub-site on careers which provides a lot of information on the company, culture, as well as current openings. Some common characteristics found on companies’ career websites include testimonials and videos. Current employees’ testimonials are, of course, an easy way to convince job seekers to work for their company. There are videos about the workplace environment or employees’ experience.
Here are a few companies’ career website:
With online job search, it has opened up opportunities for job seekers to find jobs other than their local region. This in turn, increases the competitiveness of a job opening. On the other hand, many employers will compete to hire the best talent out there, even out of their local region.
It’s interesting to see how much resources companies are now allocating to market themselves not only for retail/ service purposes, but also for hiring purposes. I wonder what will be the next revolution for job searching.
Groupon’s success has everyone wanting a piece of the online coupons market. Google wanted to purchase Groupon earlier, but the deal fell through. Now, Google is coming up with their own version of Groupon, Google offers. Google plans to use its wide network from Google places to connect with vendors and contract deals.
Here are a few pictures of what Google offers might look like:
Google will be able to target a broader range of companies because of the client base. Google offers will work pretty much the same way as Groupon. People will have a chance to buy a deal and once the target number of purchase is reached, the deal will open.
This is what you’ll see on the Google offers page.
It’s interesting to see that different organizations are trying to tap into this market. Facebook recently announced that they will be doing something similar with their Facebook check-in. It has proved that online coupons is certainly getting more popular and people are willing to spend more time looking for deals online.
Personally, I did buy a few of these online deals, but not all through Groupon. There are just so many sites out there now. Although Groupon still seems to be the leader or first mover in this market, eventually Groupon will need to do more to differentiate themselves from other online coupon sites such as Living Social, IndulgeLiving, etc. This also relates to my previous article about social sign-on. Some of these sites are already implementing social sign-on to ease the registration process of customers. In return, the purchase will be shown on Facebook as their recent activity or as a Tweet on Twitter. I suspect that other sites will soon follow because it will be quite difficult to keep up with all the different log-ins for all these sites.
Google has already tapped into many different markets. It has created Google buzz with the attempt to tap into the social network market but it hasn’t been very successful. We’ll see if Google offers will follow the trend of Google buzz or if it will be a big hit.
Source: Mashable, Google Offers
Social Sign-On
I don’t know about you, but I find registering for an account online very trouble-some. There are so many fields to fill in and it just takes so much time. Now, there is a solution to that, Social Sign-on. Social sign-on allows users to register on E-commerce sites using their existing account, primarily Facebook. Social sign-on/sign-in creates convenience for users so they only have to remember their Facebook username and password, rather than one set per site. It will also be easier for users to share their activity or thoughts for the site on Facebook.
Privacy Invasion?
From retailers’ perspective, they now have access to users’ information such as their profile, interests, likes, comments, etc. Retailers can use the information to tailor promotion and gain brand loyalty. This is information retailers would not be able to retrieve from normal registration.
This raises the privacy flag once again. It is not the first time that social media, primarily Facebook, has privacy issues. With the new Social sign-on phenomenon, users’ information on Facebook will not only be seen by friends, Facebook and Facebook application developers, but also many retailers out there. Retailers can track down your likes and your comments to see what you are into lately and customize their promotional strategy accordingly. The negative effect of this feature is that retailers can now promote to you through different methods. Many people put their email, phone number and other personal information on Facebook. Retails can utilize these information to market their products to users.
Users who use social sign-on may not know their personal information is being releaed to retailers. There may be conditions and terms relating to using social sign-on, but not many people read it.
In a survey done by eMarketer.com, 69% of the interviewed E-commerce retailers said they have implemented or in the planning process to implement Social Sign on. This trend is here to stay, but whether it can balance convenience and privacy is still a question that needs to be answered.
Source: Socialtimes.com, eMarketer.com
As we are stepping into the New 2011, many are optimistic about what 2011 will bring to us. This is the same for Search. In our generation, we grew up with search engine. Searches have grown from researching for an academic paper to searching for the cheapest bottle of shampoo nearby. If we don’t know something, “Google it”, a term that is commonly heard which means to look up what we dont’ know in the Google search engine. It’s phenomenal to see how a company noun is now commonly used as a verb, synonymous to search.
An article predicts 10 trends for search in the year 2011. Below are a few interesting ones. See if you agree.
1. App search – As more people are using smartphones, a marketer predicts that the next thing in search will be for the search engines to show apps instead of websites that will answer your question. It will allow the users to install the app that will get them what they are looking for.
This may sound like a pretty cool idea, but wouldn’t everyone be downloading a lot of apps in order to find what they want? Even with website, you might not be able to find your answers in the first web page you go to. If the search returns with different apps, then how do we know which app will exactly answer what we want?
2. Search filters get tougher – In 2010, Google implement the “May Day” algorithm that punishes websites that are almost exactly the same. In the upcoming year, marketers expect that search filters will get even tougher to limit less valuable content and maximize the most unique and valuable content.
This would be exciting news for users as search will return websites that often have very similar content. The problem with web is that it is too easy to start up a website and take the content of someone else’s by changing a few words. With tougher search filter, hopefully it will be more efficient when we use search to find what we want.
3. Instant Preview is here to stay – I am not sure how many of you know of this feature, but when you search something in Google, beside each result, there is a magnifying glass. By clicking the magnifying glass, you will be able to get a preview of the website to help you decide if you want to go into the web page to see more.
This sounds like a pretty cool feature, but I actually didn’t know of it until now. The previews are actually not that clear so you can’t really read the text in the preview. I don’t know how useful this feature is because with the speed of internet now, opening and closing a web page is within seconds.
Read the rest of the 7 trends here.
