How 5 brands are scoring big on BuzzFeed

 Internet News, Marketing, Meme, Your Brand  460 Responses »
May 212012
 

Jon Steinberg, BuzzFeeds president, notes that visitors to BuzzFeed simultaneously engage with an endless mashup of high- and low-brow content, from news to wacky animal photo montages. All categories of content are welcome, Steinberg says, so long as they meet BuzzFeeds simple threshold — is it shareable?

According to Steinberg, brands that work with BuzzFeed need to consider three things when figuring out how to create content worth sharing.

  • Does the content have a voice or point of view?
  • Is it a content gift?
  • What does the content do for the brand?

While the last question might seem obvious to anyone who works in advertising, the first two questions are a big part of what makes BuzzFeed such a unique play for marketers. Brands cant buy banners ads, although they can purchase placement for their post in a given vertical. But theres a catch — the content has to be good. If it is good, people will share it. If its a dud, BuzzFeed has an algorithm in place to swap it out for something better.

With just under 3 million unique visitors a month — and climbing, according to Compete — BuzzFeed is clearly a careful steward of its content ecosystem. It also tends to be way ahead of the viral curve. As any BuzzFeed user can tell you, what you see on BuzzFeed today will likely be on Facebook tomorrow. Naturally, thats a huge draw for brands looking to make a social media splash. But engaging with social media takes more than just showing up. So to help marketers reimagine themselves as social publishers, were showcasing five brands that have figured out how to buzz on BuzzFeed.

SOURCE How 5 brands are scoring big on BuzzFeed single page view – iMediaConnection.com.

 

Why consumers can’t find you online

 Internet News, Marketing, Your Brand  354 Responses »
May 182012
 

Research shows that local search listings are now more important than any other type of listing because they provide the information searchers want quickly (URL, address, phone, coupons, operating hours, reviews, etc.). Local search listings were also found to be trustworthy because they immediately provide the relevant information consumers need to make a purchase decision.

Done in partnership by Localeze and 15miles, the 2012 Local Search Usage Study, conducted by comScore, found that 61 percent of respondents searching for local business information believe local search results are the most relevant, as shown in the chart below. Additionally, 58 percent found local search results to be the most trustworthy when compared to natural search results, paid search results, and paid results.

Gone are the days of “surfing the web.” Today’s consumers want to find information quickly, and they search with a purpose. They want to find information in the shortest time possible since many of them search on the go. By 2014, more users will access the web from mobile devices than from desktops and laptops — a shift that continues to accelerate.

Relevant local search results

With national advertisers dominating paid search, consumers searching the web for a local business near home will often get the closest national chain, which may or may not be the closest option. This leaves consumers dubious about web search because merchants close by are not found at the top.

This is why consumers go to local search, which has business listings and provides the best way for consumers to connect with businesses close to where they live and work. The popularity of location-based apps and social networks make it even more important for search results to produce business listings based on a searcher’s location. Needless to say, these listings must be accurate in providing phone numbers, directions, and so forth.

SOURCE  Why consumers can’t find you online – iMediaConnection.com.

 

5 brands that embarrassed themselves on social

 Internet News, Marketing, Meme, Your Brand  259 Responses »
May 162012
 

Social media is constantly evolving, and with this evolution, there are more opportunities than not to misstep. A campaign on social media has hundreds of ways it can go wrong, and most of them are unpredictable. Of course, it’s important to be as prepared as possible, but sometimes, social media fails are bound to happen. After all, we’re only humans managing accounts for brands, right? Learning from others’ mistakes is a great place to start, and some of us lucky ones have learned the hard way. Here are a few examples of the social media campaigns that turned total flop.

SOURCE: 5 brands that embarrassed themselves on social (single page view) – iMediaConnection.com.

 

How Brands Can Meet Consumer Demand With Content

 Marketing, Your Brand  230 Responses »
May 162012
 

With the cosmetics and hair care brand, they did a deep dive into data to discover what women were actually searching for when they thought about beauty and discovered a huge number of people were typing specific questions into google, like “how can I do my makeup like Lady Gaga?” In response, Demand worked to produce 1,126 videos in a matter of months and on a budget, each addressing a common “how to” search query.

Some key takeaways from this panel presentation:

– Search queries are getting longer – often ten words are more. People are looking for very specific content when they search, and if you can provide it, that’s a huge service.

– The best videos for this sort of marketing are “evergreen” – that is, they remain relevant for a long time (3-5 years) by containing generally useful content, rather than being attached to a trend, celebrity, or launch. A light touch on the branding also helps the videos feel authentic, and not tied to very specific products so much as the brand.

– If your brand is traditional, start with a test – produce just a few examples of the new content type and see how they perform in search and on your site. Success is your best shot at convincing the old guard to try new tactics.

– Social listening is of the utmost importance – in fact, L’Oriel has changed their call centers into customer listening and insight hubs. Understanding what people are saying about your products, and the surrounding industry, allows you to channel feedback to the right people and meet actual demand.

– Data is the key to staying on top as trends change – know where the landscape is headed, not just what’s working now.

SOURCE: How Brands Can Meet Consumer Demand With Content – Adrants.

 

Pizza Delicious Bought An Ad On Facebook. How’d They Do?

 Internet News, Marketing, Your Brand  183 Responses »
May 162012
 

So we hooked the Pizza Delicious guys up with Rob Leathern a social media ad guru.

The key question they tried to answer: Which Facebook users should they target with their ad campaign?

Their first idea was to target the friends of people who already liked Pizza Delicious on Facebook. But that wound up targeting 74 percent of people in New Orleans on Facebook — 224,000 people. They needed something narrower.

The Pizza Delicious guys really wanted to find people jonesing for real new york pizza. So they tried to target people who had other New York likes — the Jets, the Knicks, Nororious B.I.G. Making the New York connection cut the reach of the ad down to 15,000.

Seemed perfect. But 12 hours later, Michael called us. “It was all zeroes across the board,” he said. Facebook doesnt make money til people click on the ad. If nobody clicks, Facebook turns the ad off. Theyd struck out.

So they changed the target to New Orleans fans of Italian food: mozzarella, gnocchi, espresso. This time they were targeting 30,000 people.

Those ads went viral. They got twice the usual number of click throughs, on average. The ad showed up more than 700,000 times. Basically, everyone in New Orleans on Facebook saw it. Twice. Pizza Delicious got close to twenty times the number of Facebook fans they usually get in two days. The guys were stoked.

The campaign cost them $240 — almost $1 for each new Facebook fan they got from the campaign. “Is that feeling of exhilaration worth 240 dollars?” Michael said. “I dont know— hopefully, that translates into new business.”

It didnt.

SOURCE: Pizza Delicious Bought An Ad On Facebook. Howd They Do? : Planet Money : NPR.

 

9 Essential Steps for a Killer Kickstarter Campaign

 Marketing, Your Brand  437 Responses »
May 142012
 

These days, more Kickstarter campaigns are achieving success than we can keep track of. The iPhone-friendly Pebble watch earned $7.6 million more than its $100,000 goal. And the Galileo iPhone platform closed its Kickstarter campaign at $702,000, far surpassing its $100,000 goal.

Not to mention, Kickstarter recently reported it has raised $200 million from over 2 million backers.

How does one cash in literally on the Kickstarter craze? For starters, it helps to have a unique concept, wicked ambition and one unforgettable pitch. The great news is that Kickstarter provides great tools to showcase all of the above.

We’ve read all of Kickstarter’s guidelines, FAQs and tips, and have researched testimonials from successful campaign alums to compile a set of tips that will help launch you into the Kickstarter hall of fame.

SOURCE:  9 Essential Steps for a Killer Kickstarter Campaign.

 

How to convince your boss to fund content marketing

 Marketing, Your Brand  408 Responses »
May 092012
 

Though most companies today have some kind of online presence, 22 percent of marketers find that getting buy-in for online content marketing is still their greatest challenge. Even if there’s enough buy-in to give it a shot, marketers still need to convince their companies to invest in the staff and resources that will make online marketing possible. Successful online content marketing begins by convincing your own company that the ROI merits the investment.

via How to convince your boss to fund content marketing – iMediaConnection.com.

5 blunders your brand is making on Facebook Timeline

 interface, Marketing, Your Brand  240 Responses »
May 092012
 

Companies that neglect Timelines brand-friendly attributes will fall victim to the ever-distracted nature of the online consumer. At Socialbakers, we continuously analyze social media data to determine how brands can maximize their social media investments by posting engaging content to the most influential online users. Based on millions of points of global data, we have found the following mistakes cause the greatest hindrance to a companys success in using Timeline.

SOURCE: 5 blunders your brand is making on Facebook Timeline single page view – iMediaConnection.com.

 

6 lessons in launching a branded YouTube channel

 Marketing, Your Brand  323 Responses »
May 072012
 

The idea, in a nutshell, is that brands of all categories must adapt to the new publishing model and morph into something akin to their entertainment cousins if they are to survive and thrive in a media environment where it gets harder everyday to capture a consumer’s attention. Brands that had their own YouTube channels were viewed as cutting edge 18 months ago — or maybe even a little beyond the cutting edge. Today, few people ask whether a brand should have a YouTube channel. Instead, the question is, what should a brand do with its YouTube channel?

While that’s ultimately a question for each brand (and the agencies that handle their business) to answer, there are several larger questions brands should be asking about their YouTube channels. After all, a handful of brands are clearly engaging as if they’ve been in the content business for years, but many more are quite obviously stuck in neutral. So to help your brand take a look at its YouTube channel with fresh eyes, I’ve asked several agencies to share what they believe are some of the fundamental concerns to focus on when planning a YouTube channel.

SOURCE: 6 lessons in launching a branded YouTube channel (single page view) – iMediaConnection.com.

 

8 social curation tricks for Pinterest and beyond

 Internet News, Marketing, Your Brand  405 Responses »
May 022012
 

Today’s web does not limit the act of curation to those with a doctorate degree. Anyone and everyone can, and do, curate using everything from bookmarking sites to social networks. “Social curation,” as we call it, is simply the act of sharing, categorizing, and spreading content to others. The content can be your own or someone else’s. And, because you are sharing content that lives in its place of origin via linking, it is not considered stealing.

Why do people spend hours online bookmarking, pinning, and reposting? The answer is different for everyone, but we can be sure that it’s for the same reason a woman might show off her shoe closet to a friend to hear, “OMG, those are so cute where did you find these?!” Or, a man might sit through an entire dinner carefully talking through the history of aviation and the ins and outs of his profession. We all want to be recognized for our expertise, talents, and savvy. Posting content we care about displays our creativity, interests, opinions, and personality. Being social creatures, we naturally want to share the best of things with our circles and get recognition for the good find. On the receiving end, people enjoy discovering and exploring things that are highly relevant and interesting.

Of course, when human behavior shifts, brands are quick to follow suit. In this article, we’ll discuss how marketers can get in on the social curation boom in a meaningful way.

There are a lot of websites out there offering curation-type services. They crop up and disappear with the latest craze. To get a clear sense of how a brand might leverage curation, we can break them down into categories.

SOURCE:  8 social curation tricks for Pinterest and beyond (single page view) – iMediaConnection.com.

 

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