Social Marketing Limited By Advertiser Confusion

MediaPost Publications, July 29, 2008 — A recent JupiterResearch study underscores that actual spending on social media marketing has not caught up with the hype surrounding the emerging category.

The report found that half of all advertisers are spending less than 5% of their online budgets on social marketing in 2008. Keeping budgets small is the highly customized nature of social media campaigns, compared to search or display advertising.

What Marketers Can Learn From Twitter's Stumbles†

The Service Is a Victim of Its Popularity -- and Its Unresponsiveness Is Costing It Fans

Advertising Age, July 29, 2008 — What are the limits of consumer loyalty when a particular product or service consistently stumbles, or just doesn't work? What if those stumbles are actually due to the immense popularity of the product?

Any fast-growing brand that has seen its infrastructure quiver under the weight of widespread customer demand should look for a lesson on how not to do things in Web 2.0 darling Twitter.

Griping Online? Comcast Hears and Talks Back

New York Times, July 25, 2008 — Brandon Dilbeck, 20, a student at the University of Washington, was complaining recently on his blog, Brandon Notices, about Comcast’s practice of posting ads in its on-screen programming guide. He assumed he was writing for his own benefit. “It feels like nobody ever really reads my blog,” he said. “Nobody has left a comment in months.”

Why Brands Need a New Kind of Leader†

As conversations with customer matter more, brands seek social-media evangelists

Adweek, July 14, 2008 — When it comes to social media, Ford is an admitted neophyte. It dipped its toe in the water with its well-received "Bold moves" campaign in 2006, and it hired a social-media consulting firm to create blog-friendly press releases. But for the most part, it has remained on the sidelines when it comes to using new technology tools to foster two-way conversations with customers and its employees.

NPR opens the Kimono - Inside NPR

FastForward Blog, July 8, 2008 — One of the aspects that I love about NPR’s new morning Show Bryant Park is that the show shows you what is going on behind the scenes with their Twitter feed and a daily video showing what will be on the show the next day. BPP was tested in beta by allowing a lot of interaction - real time research.

Social Media Mistakes of Five Big Marketers†

Blogger Joseph Jaffe Lambasts Sprint, Sony, T-Mobile, Target and Starbucks

Advertising Age, June 19, 2008 — Nothing aggravates blogger Joseph Jaffe more than marketers that employ fakery, manipulation and heavy-handed lawyers in their social-media interactions with consumers. Author of the books "Life After the 30-Second Spot" and "Join the Conversation," Jaffe is the head of the marketing consulting company Crayon.

MySpace Might Have Friends, but It Wants Ad Money

Monetizing social networking Web sites is proving to be an arduous road and ad revenues have not come in as quickly as planned

New York Times, June 16, 2008 — When the News Corporation added MySpace to its portfolio nearly three years ago, it expected that if its base of 16 million users kept growing — and each user kept adding friends, sharing photos and swapping flirty messages — the advertising dollars would roll in.

The social networking site has grown — to 118 million worldwide users — and the flirtations have not stopped. But the cash is not coming in as quickly as the company had hoped.

Secrets Of The Always-On

Forbes, June 16, 2008 — It's 8 a.m.--and it's time to Tweet.

I reach across my bed for my cellphone--before coffee or even before sliding out of bed--and send my broadcast to the world. I type "Awake" or "Here I am!" and to an address: 40404. (This number is the equivalent of a phone number that everyone sends their messages to in order to submit to Twitter.)

Marketers, Don't Just Blindly Follow Latest Media Trends†

Why 'Because All the Cool Kids Are Doing It' Isn't a Good Excuse for Running to Nontraditional Media

Advertising Age, June 2, 2008 — One of the first messages ever posted to my profile on Facebook was from my 16-year-old niece in Nebraska. It said: "What are you doing here?" Even though they were just words on a screen, I could hear the tone in it. What are you doing here? In her mind, her 40-year-old uncle was intruding on a space she thought of as reserved for people more like her. And the thing is, I think she believes I'm pretty cool for an uncle. I've got some credibility: I live in New York, I'm in the ad business and she knows I'm associated with some pretty good brands. But despite this, she still asked the question. It wasn't exactly the reception I had in mind. And my response was equally bad: "Um, because everyone else is?"

In a media environment that is increasingly... continue reading

Why Twitter Matters

Can the fledgling microblogging service become a social media powerhouse to rival giants like Facebook—or will it be gobbled up?

BusinessWeek, May 15, 2008 — t's easy to laugh at nonsense on Twitter, the microblogging rage. "My nose is leaking," writes someone called Zapples, "so imma go to sleep now.…" But I've heard lots of similar drivel (and even produced some myself) on the phone—an important technology if there ever was one. The key question today isn't what's dumb on Twitter, but instead how a service with bite-size messages topping out at 140 characters can be smart, useful, maybe even necessary. Here's why I'm looking. In the last few months, the traffic on Twitter has exploded, growing far beyond its circles of bleeding-edge tech enthusiasts and hard-core social networkers.