Michelle's E-Marketing Blog

The “viral video” is something that countless firms strive for and few manage to achieve. There is no formula for making a video go viral and it is often something that happens by chance.  However, there are ways marketers can improve online videos and increase the probability of achieving the coveted “viral” status.

5 approaches for creating online video value:

1) Extend the marketing message into the sales process

2) Get customers to speak on your behalf

3) Turn corporate spokespeople into video stars

4) Extend live events to larger audiences

5) Build brand and generate new interest with a viral component

Video can create emotional and engaging connections with consumers. However, most struggle to make them personal and persuasive. Marketers need to step out of their comfort zone to provoke compelling interaction that generates demand and makes the video more authentic.

Smart Water posted a video on March 7, 2011 which since has gotten over 7 million views. The entire ad pokes fun at “viral videos” while simultaneously showing off the product.

I think Smart Water has done quite a nice  a great job with their amusing video. They really nailed it by getting Jennifer Aniston, their celebrity spokesperson, to be the star. The punchline, planning to call the video “Jen Aniston’s Sex Tape”, is particularly entertaining. Although they ultimately called the ad “Jennifer Aniston Goes Viral” it was still a huge success. I mean who can resist animated dancing babies? Not I.

Enough of Facebook and Twitter. It’s time for a crash course on the lesser talked about social sites. Of flickr, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, and Tumblr which are good or bad at improving: customer communication, brand exposure, traffic to your site, and SEO?

flickr: An image and video hosting website where community members can share and comment on media

The Good: SEO

Flickr is indexed in search engines and is also a major part of Google’s and Bing’s social search component where photos liked by individuals can be seen more prevalently in their friends’ searches.

The Bad: Traffic to Your Site

Even if tens of thousands of people see a photo with your URL below the click-through rates are terrible. Simple as that.

LinkedIn: Essentially Facebook for business professionals

The Good: Brand Exposure

Great avenue for personal branding and showing off quality of your organization. Employees should be encouraged to build complete profiles to showcase your strong team.

The Bad: Traffic to Your Site

LinkedIn is working on improving this aspect with recent updates all involving sharing; however, it isn’t as consistent as Facebook.

StumbleUpon: A social news community where members discover and share web pages

The Good: Traffic to Your Site and SEO

Traffic will come not at all or all of a sudden. And if there is traffic it will likely be in mass amounts but it’s nearly impossible to predict.

If you make it to the top of the page for a tag there is great potential for SEO as many people can find and link to you.

The Bad: Customer Communication

There is very little chance of getting a message to your current customers.

Tumblr: A social networking site where users can ask and answer questions

The Good: Customer Communication, Brand Exposure, SEO

The site is designed for customer communication and is expected to eventually rival Twitter as a communication tool as it grows.

Tumblr uses a simple platform which enables easy content sharing. If GenY is a part of your target demographic Tumblr can be a useful tool.

As it is a blog hosting platform Tumblr has high potential for link building and also ranks well in search engines.

The Bad: Traffic to Your Site

Almost all traffic happens on Tumblr itself but there is potential to expand.

Marketers should take information like this into account when deciding which social sites to focus their efforts on. These sites may all be free to use but that does not justify dedicating resources to a site which does not help achieve company goals.

Reference: Which Social Sites Are Best for Which Marketing Outcomes?

With the prevalence of social media today, it only makes sense that more and more firms are jumping on the bandwagon and getting themselves Twitter and Facebook accounts. It’s virtually free, not considering employee time, and is what you’re “supposed to do”. According to PR firm Burson-Marsteller 25% of companies worldwide are using all four major social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs and 84% are on at least one platform.

As companies are becoming more active on these sites, it is important to consider the following:

• Integrating social media with other corporate activities is fundamental to long-term success.
• Social media should be assessed in the early planning stages of planning rather than tagged on at the end.
• At least TRY to measure ROI. Nearly all companies who have used some form of social media report it as successful; however, if they are not monitoring their ROI they likely do not fully understand the impact of their social media marketing programs.

As a consumer who actively uses all four major social media platforms I have many opinions regarding the matter. My main beef is with companies on Twitter. I find that the majority of firms either tweet too little or WAY too much. Sure you might have thousands of followers on your Twitter account but if you tweet once every 2 weeks what good does having all those followers do? Maybe you don’t have much to announce. In that case try retweeting, responding to tweets, and even just tweeting random fun facts/findings to mix things up a bit. On the other end of the spectrum are the businesses that tweet way too often and usually result in a swift click of the “unfollow”. Yes, you have lots to say and so many promotions but do you really need to tweet 10 times per hour? Filter! Equally as bad are those who post countless tweets of the same type with no variety. The article 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business has lots of great tips for avoiding the pitfalls of Twitter and mastering the art of the tweet.

Reference: Marketers Spending More on Social Media for All the Wrong Reasons

The recent release of the iPad2, less than a year after the release of the original iPad, got me thinking about a couple things. 1) I still don’t understand the iPad. I mean, I get that it’s pretty but why would a person want a large version of an iPhone that can’t make phone calls or a smaller computer that is less functional and has a touch screen keyboard that takes up half the screen. (However, if I wasn’t a “starving student” where spending $500+ on an iPad meant I didn’t eat for months perhaps my view on the matter would change). 2) What does this mean in the world of marketing?
I’ll focus on the latter for now.

A Nielsen survey found that “iPad users were more likely than users of iPhones and other connected devices to click on ads of various types, including video, text, multimedia and interactive”.

Additionally, the iPad presents marketers with the opportunity to take advantage of its features —like video, 360-degree views, striking photos and interactivity— when creating ads. And apparently the flashier the ad, the better. Video makes use of the large, sharp screen and allows users to be more involved than with a regular “static” ad. Ultimately it’s the increased potential for  interactivity where advertising on iPads dominates.

Although iPads are admittedly not as widespread as iPhones and other smart phones, iPad apps may be the way of advertising future. Maybe one day iPads will be as commonplace as the iPod and with that in mind firms should consider whether developing an interactive app might be their next step.

As a side note, the cover Apple developed for the iPad2 is pretty sweet.

Word of mouth is widely regarded as one of the most valuable, and often hardest to do well, forms of marketing. In order to be successful at word of mouth marketing it is important to consider which recommendations are deemed most credible by consumers. Not surprisingly, over the years the human element has remained key in creating trust. As the use of social networks like Facebook increases around the world, this human element can be conveyed through an online medium. The supporting findings below have important implications for marketers. Rather than allocating dollars to radio or TV advertisements, in many situations it may be more effective to create online content which can then be tweeted, posted on a blog, or linked to on Facebook by a consumer. A friend who sees this content is more likely to trust it than if it were presented to them by a business with a motive.

This information shows how lucrative it can be for firms to identify those influential people out there on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. and harness them to spread the relevant buzz. Prompt your fans to talk about your brand ex. “Today we launched _____ product, tell us what you think about it!”. Or offer them discounts and deals that they can then spread the word about.  Ideally you ultimately create customer evangelists who advocate the brand at no cost!

Reference: Who Gives the Most Trusted Recommendations?

Now that social media – which not too long ago was brand new to the marketing world – has moved onto the phone, marketers have a whole other marketing channel to concern themselves with: mobile social media. With the increasing popularity of smart phones the percentage of mobile phone users accessing social network sites from their phone increased to 16.8% this past year, the equivalent of 38.9 million people (US). This number is forecast to continue to increase greatly over the next few years; therefore, firms should be taking a critical look at whether mobile social media is something they can take advantage of.

Location based marketing seems to the way of the future with companies like foursquare pioneering the way with mobile “check-in”. After perusing the foursquare website for a while, it became evident that the mobile app has a lot to offer businesses and consumers. By downloading the app consumers can be alerted to businesses in their area, see if their friends are nearby, provide/access reviews, and get badges/points to unlock rewards. As a business, all this interactivity can be done with YOUR brand which is pretty great, assuming of course that your brand offering is valuable and doesn’t let customers down and lead to negative reviews. Ultimately, foursquare has the potential to greatly improve the customer engagement factor and create loyal consumers. Naturally Facebook (among others) has followed suit with their Facebook Places feature, it will be interesting to see which prevails.

Reference: Beyond the Check-In: best Practices for Location-Based Marketing

Do you receive loads and loads of emails every day from various companies/services? I know I do. It seems that Hotmail’s junk filter is actually pretty effective (finally) because I really don’t seem to get any spam emails…though sometimes it feels like it because I’ve signed up for so many email lists in the past.

According to eMarketer, e-mail is the #1 way marketers create a “personalized customer experience” which explains the mass influx of emails to my inbox daily. However, my problem with the emails I’ve been receiving lately has been a blatant lack of personalization. The most glaring example that comes to mind are the emails I receive from Urban Outfitters. I find that even my positive predisposition towards the brand can’t save these guys. Pretty much all the newsletters contain information about a current or upcoming promotion with some decent deals and then the following series of events unfold. 1) I get excited about a promotion ex. free shipping. 2) I peruse the amazingly comprehensive online catalogue and see something I’d like. 3) I ultimately notice the fine print which goes something along the lines of “for US residents only”. 4) I succumb to some form of frustration/rage. 5) Repeat. Why Urban Outfitters? Why are you continually sending me promotions which are only available to US residents when I signed up for the mailing list in-store in Vancouver?

This impersonal aspect can hurt a firm’s online marketing. According to eMarketer most marketing professionals felt their brands could be at risk because of a lack of customer engagement caused by generic emails. Apparently most companies are attempting at least basic personalization.

I hope the trend towards increased personalization continues so that newsletters I’ve signed up for provide information that is actually relevant to me rather than someone in another country.

I did unsubscribe to the Urban Outfitters emails pretty quickly but it definitely didn’t affect my shopping habits in-store (too in love with the clothes for my own good) so there’s something to be said for that. However, how much business have they lost from me online?

Reference: Are Impersonal messages Hurting Your Online Marketing?

For the Google Online Marketing Challenge my group is working on a local Vancouver based clothing company Plenty (or Plen+y) with a flagship store in Kitsilano. Because their website does not currently offer online sales, their blog is the highlight of the website. This got me thinking, what makes a great blog?

According to the CMOs at Fortune 1,000 companies the #1 factor is that the blog postings always get comments. Keeping up-to-date with regular postings was also regarded as very important. What surprised me was how much lower in importance pictures/video ranked on the list…mostly because in my opinion it’s what makes a blog posting readable. Who wants to read a page full of text with no visuals to break up the monotony?

I definitely agree that regular postings are a must (I get disappointed when the blogs I follow don’t update at least every few days) but why is it necessary to have comments on the posts? According to the CMOs polled, blogs are generally more effective when they “produce a lively discussion rather than just pushing content out into the world”. Interesting perspective that I hadn’t thought of and it makes sense I just didn’t realize commentary was so highly regarded, but who am I to question the successful CMOs of the USA?

Bringing it back to Plenty, I thought their blog was pretty good with lots of pictures and links and semi-regular concise posts. However, they do seem to lack the engaged community that the CMOs deem so important. This poses yet another question: how do you engage the community?

Reference: What Makes for a Compelling Corporate Blog?

Each year marketers and non-marketers alike eagerly await the arrival of Super Bowl Sunday to watch what are supposed to be the best of the best in commercials. (Oh and apparently some people watch it for football…) And they better be good, because companies are willing to pay upwards of 3 million of dollars to show you these ads for often only 30 seconds. However, as the as the percentage of total ad spending that goes towards online advertising continues to increase with more and more people active online, the way many firms go about Super Bowl advertising changes.

This year Audi managed to secure one of the coveted Super Bowl spots before they sold out in October. Their ad will contain a hashtag so that it can reach beyond TV and on to Twitter. If the ad resonates with enough viewers it could create an online buzz as well, making those millions of dollars even more worthwhile. Audi is not alone, “more than ever, marketers who enter the Super Bowl are taking part in a multi-week buzz contest rather than a onetime showing of their ad”. Surprisingly, this was not a popular idea in 2009 or 2010 when E-Trade was the only Super Bowl advertiser to even mention Facebook or Twitter in its ad. However, I think there is potential for integrating social media with Super Bowl ads to be greatly effective, especially since according to a recent survey from Lightspeed Research, nearly 2/3 of viewers 18-34 who plan to watch the Super Bowl will also make use of a smartphone. With smartphone in hand a hashtag on the screen may prompt us to tweet when we may not otherwise think to do so.

Reference: Marketers Suit up With Twitter, Facebook for ‘Social Bowl’

As an aside, remember how perfect that Google ad was last year?

While researching the topic of “online search methods” to write a blog about, I encountered several articles referencing social media, search engine optimization (SEO), paid search, and various ways to improve the chances YOUR website will be visited. However, it was the article “Bing’s Success and the Future of Search” regarding search engine market share which interested me the most.

The article states that the search engine Bing, powered by Microsoft, is now the second most used search engine with 13.9% search share as of August 2010. What surprised me at first was that Google had a reported 65.1% share. Perhaps naïve, I had imagined it would be somewhere over 80%. People really still use Ask Jeeves (or ask.com now) and Yahoo!? But what shocked me even more relates to my original finding regarding Bing. The Bing search engine toolbar is automatically installed on Internet Explorer; therefore, I’m going to make the assumption that a large portion of the people using Bing are also using Internet Explorer. This means that people must still be actively using Internet Explorer. *Insert shocked face here*. Why? I’m confused; do people not know that Firefox and Google Chrome exist? I hope for their sake that they are enlightened soon and do not have to continue using Explorer, or as I refer to it as “a great browser for downloading Firefox”.

Afterthought: Also, Bing just partnered with Yahoo! which, according to the article, “puts it in the position of being the only real competition for Google’s search volume.” Who knows, maybe one day Google will be a thing of the past like poor Jeeves.