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    Digital Marketing

    Google Buzzed?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    “Fall forward fast” is a marketing maxim many have followed with great success. Be bold, be quick, correct as needed. It’s a fist-mover approach and it was good advice back in the day.  But the Internet has sped things up a bit don’t you think? Fast today is a lot faster than it was 4 years ago.

    Google Buzz was brought to market too fast. Is it correctable?  Sure.  Will Google take some heat? Sure. Will it recover, sure.  That said, I suspect there’s a little tainted blood in the Google bloodstream thanks to this effort and Google needs to take a breath.  When you launch a new service and the phrases “opt-out,” “disable,” “sorry,” “feedback” and “critics” become keywords of the coverage you have not done enough homework.  Google “google buzz”+”critics” and see what pops up.

    Facebook‘s Beacon advertising program wasn’t thoroughly vetted before launch nor was the Google Nexus One, released before back-end customer care issues could be properly handled.

    Overdogs.

    Did you watch the Superbowl? Which team did you root for?  The overdog or the Saints? Overdogs are leaders.  They, more than anyone, need to be careful when bringing new services to market. Take a breath. Do some reconnaissance. Let power users spank the brand a bit (“brand spanking” is a great overdog research methodology). Then launch. Too much Starbucks, as Zack de la Rocha might say, “can killa man.”  Peace!

    Aol. vs. Yahoo

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Aol. and Yahoo have both finally figured out that good content begets readership, viewership, referral, and participation which begets — the same.  These two seminal online brands will be dooking it out for years to come. They both took different paths to get here and both have CEOs with unique perspectives, but the battle should be fun to watch. Coke and Pepsi, AT&T and Verizon fun.

    Armstrong vs. Bartz

    My bet is on Aol. Tim Armstrong hitched his ride to a rising star (Google) and got that success smell on him — but I think he created some of that smell with his focus and good leadership. Carol Bartz’s career advanced by good blocking and tackling and good business decisions, something Yahoo hadn’t had for a while prior to her arrival.  Yahoo made lots of decisions, just not with a solid brand idea driving them. Until proven otherwise, I’ll give Mr. Armstrong the edge and write it off to “derring do.”

    Ad dollars are moving online, no doubt, but those in the know will tell you the lion’s share are going to Google thanks to AdWords and their direct-to-consumer, DIY, analytics-powered ad model. As Aol. and Yahoo re-create their online brands and lead the market in the generation of original content (paid and contributed), search will stay a powerful, lucrative utility, but won’t be the best way to find good content. That will be the domain of Aol and, hopefully, Yahoo. Peace!

    Facebook and Google Hit the Highway.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    1

    Steve Rubel is a “beyond the dashboard” digital commentator.  That’s what I love about him. He doesn’t spend his day looking through the rearview mirror, he looks ahead.  Check out this Paste from his stream today:

     “I believe business web sites will become less important over time. They will be primarily transactional and/or for utility. Brands will shift more of their dollars and resources to creating robust presence where people already are and figure out how to activate employees en masse in a way that builds relationships and drives traffic back to their sites to complete transactions. Media companies will do the same – they will be “headless.”  Google and search will remain important for years to come. However, what we’re seeing is the beginning of big changes where social networking and Facebook will further disrupt advertising, media, one-to-one and one-to-many communications, not to mention search.”

    Beyond the Dasboard

    I like to look forward too — beyond the car dashboard as the metaphor goes.  And a car metaphor is appropriate when talking about Facebook, Google and social media.  Content is still king in my book. Mr  Rubel’s very believable notion that corporate websites will diminish in importance, save for transactions, is accurate. Today.  But I see Facebook, right now, as the highway.  The road that takes you somewhere.  It’s a highway filled with signs, and people and so much traffic that you can learn lots by being there, yet it’s still just a highway. Corporate websites are losing relevance because they have no pulse. They tend to be static. The action, the pulse, is on the highway. Google is the map and the directory and it’s fighting with the signs and the traffic.  (Check out Mr. Rubel’s post for some comparative traffic numbers showing Facebook overtaking Google by some measures.) 

    Content Still King

    As we settle down and as companies being to truly invest in bringing their brands and value proposition to life through their web presences, corporate websites will come back in importance.  All this talk about the conversation is great. But at some point the conversation has to stop so commerce can start. Corporate marketers will learn this soon enough.  That’s the future Yo.

    Apple Tablet + RE (Reader Experience)

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    The Apple Table launches today and it makes me think about its transformational nature.  If the tablet is a combination of reader and iTouch as most report, with a few extra wireless bells and whistles, it should be quite so. 

    Some articles appeared yesterday that suggested print media companies will be developing reader experiences (RE – just make that up) to make reading digital content more enjoyable.  Think the printed word with sound, video and geo-linking.  But here’s my prediction — rather than embedding links in situ in a story, they will be organized at the end of the story or chapter, like a bibliography.  The written word needs a flow and pacing. A thought stream.  In both magazines and book form.  Clicking out to videos, communities, maps, audio files, etc. while reading is a very ADD and though something we’ve become accustomed to in the digital world, a behavior that good publishers will want to minimize. 

     There will be great attention paid to Reader Experience over the next couple of years.  It should be interested to see who establishes leadership.  I’m thinking the MPA (Magazine Publishers of America) should step up.  Tablet ho. Peace!

    Photomontage: Robert Galbraith/Reuters

    Corporate Social Media Departments.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I met with someone smart yesterday and shared my view that in the future large corporations will have their own social media departments — staffed with writers, videographers, photographers, coders and digital editors.  This senior strategy and innovation officer processed the thought, nodded in partial agreement, then noted that the level of creativity likely to come out of this type of group would be modest.  He was right. 

    An internal social media department will do a good job of relating the corporate viewpoint, organizing proof and demonstrations of product value, and it will do so accurately… but in the end it will lack that creative oomph provided by an agency. And here, I mean a digital or a brand agency. 

    That’s not to say internal social media departments won’t happen, they will. They already are.  But the talent level required to do it BIG, won’t be found on staff.  Sure, some implementation can be handled inside, but not the big honkin’ creative idea. Not the polished sight and sound. And agencies need to figure out how to charge for that idea? Beyond production and mark-up that is.  Does the answer reside within Google?  Hmmmm. Peace!

    Paid vs. Free Media.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    There are big discussions these days about whether or not media properties will continue to offer their products for free over the internet.  Will newspapers begin charging for daily news? Will magazines require subscriptions for articles and analysis? Will TV programming sites like Hulu submit to a fee structure?  There’s no question in my mind they will, so enjoy the free ride while it lasts.

     Citizen journalism will continue to grow and be free. It will be localized, time sensitive and a very vibrant source of news.  #carcrashamityville will turn up a story beating the local newspaper filings by hours. Blogger journalism and analysis will continue to be free but subsidized by book sales and speaking engagements. (When music piracy became a thing and musicians could make a living selling CDs, they acknowledged da monies was in concerts and merchandise sales.) Back in the day, valuable analyses and insight was sold in the form of paid newsletters, but that’s another business that has been drained.

    Professional journalism and media production (audio and video) will have to be paid. Why?  Because it will come with a branded, marketing infrastructure that requires upkeep. And though ad revenue will help, it can’t cover all the expenses. Peace!

    Where you at Rock, where you at?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    RFID stands for radio frequency identification.  It is a really haps technology with great marketing upside. If you have a phone that is RFID enabled and walk by a pastry shop with tarts fresh out of the oven, you might get a special alert. “Hot apple tarts.”  If you don’t pay attention and continue walking the shop may ping you with a coupon to slow you down. (Nuisance? Perhaps. Smart? Very.)

    Checkin

    Checkin (a term that foursquare would like to own) is a manual geolocation application that allows your followers on foursquare to know where you are. If you checkin to Mary Carrol’s Irish pub on St. Paddy’s Day, your friends can find you. If Mary’s Carrol’s knows you have lots of friends, they’ll be smart to encourage you to checkin.  Should you decide upon stealth mode, don’t do it.    

    These services subscribe to the marketing view that where you are is more important than what websites you visit.  Don’t get me wrong, visiting websites is a directional indicator of interest, but feet on premise or near prem is a big driver of da monies. And thanks to social media apps like foursquare, gowalla, loopt, etc. we marketers have new exciting mobile toys to play with.  Peace!

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