8 Takeaways from ad:tech San Francisco

TopGetting social in real time
The recent ad:tech San Francisco conference had a good mix of topics (social and mobile everywhere), interesting presenters (although Guy Kawasaki and Arianna Huffington are hard acts to follow), and a great sense of energy. I walked away feeling that if you glanced away from this industry, you’ll be left in the dust as a marketer.

Here were my top eight takeaways from the conference:

1) “This is a more transformational time in marketing than ever before,” said 25-year industry veteran Antonio Lucio, the CMO of Visa. So true! Why? Mobile is anything, and anything is mobile. Power has shifted to the consumer. Everyone is multi-tasking, with one-third of people using three screens. The marketing funnel is now dynamic loops where consumers seek information from many sources and then become a source.

2) Given this, digital engagement and outreach must be integrated throughout organizations. For companies to succeed, digital must be an integral part of marketing, customer service and product development. Lucio also advises setting a directional goal for digital spend (Visa’s was 30%) and then tracking the impact on transactions, revenue and brand equity to find your right media mix. Hint: It’s higher than the 10% allocated on average today.

3) Define your media plan first: Given the power of the consumer, it’s even more crucial to “Think Audience First.” Lucio recommends starting by defining your media plan, essentially an engagement plan, based on consumer behavior with your products and their media consumption. Next, you should develop creative. Feels like opposite-land now, but it won’t soon.

4) The five (instead of four) “Ps” of Marketing: Brian Solis, Principal, Altimeter Group, believes we all need to add people to product, place, price and promotion in our marketing plans. Marketing is now about shaping and steering experiences. It’s about talking to the mind and heart of your customers via trans-media storytelling, not with marketing-speak.

5) KISS now means “Keep it Simple and Sharable,” ideally in 120 characters or less so that it can be easily retweeted, according to Solis.

6) Resist the desire to “market to” your fans. Per Solis, your fans are looking for value. If there isn’t value, then they will leave—it’s assimple as that. From the customer perspective that means regular engagement with special offers, interesting content, fun ways to participate and give back, not marketing messages.

7) My favorite quote came from Lucio’s keynote as he talked about the social web approach: “Marketing will become like sex. Only the losers will pay for it.” OK, that’s a stretch, but you get the point. Yes, companies will still pay to develop high-quality products that consumers buy and recommend, to support their customers, and to raise awareness. The key is to seed, nurture and support it properly (marketing 1:1:many) to get more reach and frequency from your marketing spend.

Some predictions from Dr. Jeffrey Cole, Founder of The World Internet Project: 1. Screen time explodes, 2. Privacy concerns will reach a peak, but because digital content needs digital advertising they will get addressed, and 3. Social networks will fragment over time. Facebook will reach 1B UVs and then decline. We’ll see!

One more thing… Try a Yahootini, which was featured at the Yahoo! “Powering Performance” party. Here’s the recipe:

1 shot of Ketel One Orange Vodka
Splash of Blue Curacao
Splash of Raspberry Liqueur
Splash of Lychee Puree (or more to your liking)
Lemon Wedge
And then while you are being oh-so social, multi-screening and enjoying your Yahootini, share your thoughts about Lucio’s principles of the social web:

Sharing is the new Giving.
Participation is the new Engagement.
Recommendation is the new Advertising.
By Christine Beury

NJ Moms Rule When It Comes To Social Media

If one were to draw an avatar-like cartoon of a typical social-media user and consumer electronics consumer, chances are he/she would look like a college student or young professional. That, according to the Consumer Electronics Association, would be inaccurate. Moms rule.

The firm says in a new study that U.S. moms spend an average of $822 on gadgetry each year and account for more than half of their household's total consumer-electronics spending. The study found that moms who post information online about electronics tend to be affluent and interested in technology. Half are early adopters, and one in three has a household income of $75,000 or more.

Among the 64% of moms who told CEA that they read information posted about consumer electronics products and retailers on social networks, nearly two in three said they also purchased an electronic device as a result, and half recommended that friends or family make a purchase. By comparison, 43% of all online adults have done so.

The brief, "Moms and Social Media: Influencing CE Purchases," also said about half of moms surveyed said they decided not to buy a device because of something they read online, and nearly as many said they have exhorted others to do likewise.

Ben Arnold, senior research analyst at CEA, said moms favor social media sites including blogs, message boards and product fan pages to research products and get firsthand product reviews and recommendations.

About a third of moms queried said they have posted reviews, opinions or experiences about electronics products and retailers in the past year, compared to just a quarter of all women online. "Online moms are a particularly important consumer segment, as they are both active on social media sites and possess substantial buying power and influence," said Arnold. "As social media continues to evolve, it is essential for companies to embrace brand evangelists to further extend the reach of their marketing initiatives."

The numbers please: the report finds that 84% of moms visit social media sites like Facebook, versus 74% of all adults; 65% visit social video sites like YouTube versus 56% of adults; and a little under half visit product review sites versus 38% of adults. The biggest gap was 44% of moms who visit blogs versus 33% of adults.

Among the moms using social networking sites, 94% said they go to Facebook most often. About half of moms with social networking accounts say they have over 100 "friends." Of the 111 hours per month moms surveyed said they spend online, 32 hours are on social sites.


Moms also exhibit a wide range of consumer activity on social networks, per CEA. The study found that nearly half got discounts or coupons; about a quarter clicked an ad for an electronics retailer; about the same number became CE retailer fans; 22% clicked on an ad for an electronics device; and 15% became a fan of a product.

And the brief -- whose data comes from an online survey in August this year with a respondent pool of about 990 adults -- found that as "Deal of the Day" sites proliferate, microblogs like Twitter with see mom traffic increase because of time-sensitive offer notifications and sales for electronics.

by Karl Greenberg

7 Social Media Truths You Can Ignore and Still be Successful

By Rich Brooks

There are a lot of social media experts out there—including the ones who claim there’s no such thing as a “social media expert”—and they’re telling us how social media works, how it doesn’t work, and how we all must behave in the social media arena.

Much of this advice is framed as “universal truths” that every business must follow. Unfortunately, a lot of it is based on the expert’s personal experience. And that may not be appropriate for you. Even the most well-intended advice is often off the mark when it comes to your business.

There’s nothing wrong with sage advice, but when guidelines become rules, they need to be scrutinized.

What follows are some of the oft-quoted “rules” that you need to question as you use social media for your own business.

Claim 1: Social Media Has Changed Everything
Balderdash. Yes, we’ve got shiny new tools, and consumers can give more public, vocal feedback on your products and services. However, leads still need to be generated, sales need to be closed and invoices need to be sent; no business survives otherwise.

Furthermore, networking didn’t start with LinkedIn. Before there was social networking there was real-world networking. And you know what? It came with drinks and hors d’oeuvres, so it wasn’t all that bad.

In fact, arguably the best book on social media marketing predates social media marketing: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Go and (re)read that book; everything he talks about is still true today, it’s just that now it happens on Twitter.

Claim 2: You Can’t Sell in Social Media
This statement is the mantra of early adopters who remember “the good old days” of social media, before Facebook had ads and all the spammers realized how powerful and inexpensive the medium could be.

It’s well-documented that Dell has sold million of dollars of PCs and accessories through Twitter promotions. Local coffee shops use Twitter to take orders that are ready when you arrive or promote themselves using location-based apps like FourSquare or Gowalla. (In fact, if you’d like some advice on how to sell in FourSquare, check out Why Foursquare Drives Business.)

Now this doesn’t mean that you should go out and spam everyone you can reach through social media. In fact, that’s probably a quick way to lose followers and even get banned from popular networks. However, when you put the right message in front of the right person in the right social medium, sales happen.

Claim 3: You Have to Stay On Message
This is preached by many of the most successful social media experts out there. But you know who stays on message? Politicians and boring corporations. If you don’t count yourself in either group, then staying on message isn’t for you.

I’ve bonded with people over my love of Phineas & Ferb, photos I’ve uploaded to my personal Flickr account, and my fear of a zombie apocalypse.

In fact, my interest in zombies is so well-known that friends tweet me zombie news and I’ve even received several zombie-themed gifts at events. It seems strange, but the undead have helped build my network.

While that may not lead to direct sales—Google Analytics still doesn’t list “zombies” as a traffic source—it has helped me make new connections and opened up new opportunities that have led to business.

While zombies may not be your cup of tea, sharing your interests—whether it’s gardening, cooking or skydiving—will attract like-minded people to you and help build your network.

As Chris Garrett says in his post “How to Boost Your Personal Brand with Social Media”:

Using light humor, being kind, sharing about more than just your work—including your interests—allow people to connect with you on a human level as well as a business and technical level.

Claim 4: You Need to Have a Lot of Followers
When I asked my network about expert advice they disagreed with, the focus on developing a large following was the most often cited.

There are two types of experts who talk about social media as a numbers game. The first is the social media “guru” whose Twitter bio promises to teach you how to get hundreds of new followers a day, but is somehow stuck at 17 followers himself.

The second is the social media evangelist who is almost always on message and has a business model that requires a large number of customers to succeed. For her, a lot of it is about the numbers.

And in defense of this particular piece of advice, the bigger your network, the more people you can reach. All things being equal, that’s a good thing. If you ask a question and you have few followers, expect few answers. If you have hundreds or thousands of followers, expect a lot more responses.

There’s also the matter of “social proof”: without anything else to go on, we often “trust” someone with a lot of followers, or who gets a lot of comments on his blog or video. Twenty-five thousand followers can’t be wrong… right?

But beyond that, social media is not an arms race. It’s better to have 100 followers with whom you regularly engage than 10,000 who never pay attention to you.

Some people spend each day following as many new people as they can, then unfollowing those who don’t follow them back in 24 hours to free up space for more new followers. What kind of return on investment are they getting for that behavior? When your followers are following 20,000 people, how much attention is being lavished on you?

Likewise, if you’re following tens of thousands of people, how many can you truly engage with? The rule of diminishing returns is at work here.

Claim 5: You Need to Have a Lot of Comments on Your Blog
Nothing gives you a warm feeling like posting a blog that garners a lot of comments. It’s nice to know that your work is having an impact.

That being said, comments aren’t clients. They may make you feel good, but they don’t impact your bottom line. In fact, focusing on comments can be detrimental to your business. I know of businesses that quit blogging because they weren’t getting many comments on their blog. They stopped creating new blog posts that would have increased their online visibility and generated more online leads.

If comments are your business goal, then blog about politics, religion or American Idol. If growing your business is your goal, then focus on whether your blog appears in the search engines and delivers warm leads to your website.

Claim 6: You Can’t Measure Social Media ROI
Of course you can. There are “soft” numbers, like how many people viewed your last YouTube video, how many people subscribe to your podcast, and how influential your blog is according to Technorati. It’s also easy to know how many Facebook friends you have, how many people follow you on Twitter, and how often your most recent blog post has been “dugg.” (Keeping in mind that not all friends or followers have the same importance and social media is not an arms race.)

There are also “hard” numbers, like the traffic social media and blogs send to your website, and how much of that traffic converts into business. If your contact form asks “How did you hear about us?” you may be seeing more people respond with “I follow you on Twitter” or “Your video came up in a Google search I did.”

As you can see from the graphic above, most of the non-search traffic to our site came from blogs (our own and those of other companies) and social media sites where our company and employees are active.

Claim 7: You Have to Be on Facebook (or Twitter, or Have a Blog…)
There’s only one reason to use a specific social platform for business: your audience is there.

There’s no platform that’s right for every company. If you’re using social media to grow a business, you need to focus on the sites and applications that are already being used by your target audience.

You should still reserve your “handle” on as many social media sites as you can, for two important reasons:

It protects your brand and keeps someone else from using “your” handle.
What seems like an unimportant platform now may grow into a popular place where your audience hangs out.
The important thing to remember is that there’s no one rule that’s right for every company. While much of the advice you hear might be solid, it may not be appropriate for your business. Just because it worked for someone else doesn’t mean it will work for you.

Except for this one rule…

One Rule Worth Following
Provide value. That’s it. In social media it’s all too easy to unfollow, unfriend or unsubscribe from someone who’s not providing value. Every tweet, status update, blog post, video, or check-in should provide value to your audience.

Value means different things to different people. Your value may be in creating thought leadership blog posts. It might be in always posting links to great resources. Or it might be creating irreverent, sarcastic or even off-color commentary on what’s going on in your audience’s lives. The key is to just keep providing that value to your audience.

Now it’s your turn. What social media advice have you heard that you feel is completely off base, or has been the key to your success? Please add your thoughts in the comment box below…

Forrester: Social Media, Web Spend Up, TV Down

A new Forrester Research/Association of National Advertisers survey says TV marketers plan to spend 41% of their media budgets on television in 2010 -- the same level as a year ago.

Still, this was down from the 58% level of two years ago. The survey says this illustrates a continued lack of confidence in the effectiveness of television ads.

The survey looked at 104 U.S. advertisers in 21 industries representing nearly $14 billion in measured media budgets. It included companies such as Cisco Systems, GlaxoSmithKline, ING, Kraft, Marriott, State Farm and Clorox.

Some 62% percent of companies say TV ads have become less effective in the past two years due to increased advertising clutter. Worse still, virtually all advertisers believe the TV industry needs new audience metrics beyond reach and frequency; 82% of respondents would be interested in ratings for individual commercials.

But one sign that has turned around for TV marketers: The expectant lifespan of the 30-second commercial. Now, 19% say the 30-second spot will be dead in 10 years. This is down from 28% a year ago.

The future of addressable advertising is showing some mixed signals. While 78% are interested in targeting consumers more precisely, only 59% would be willing to pay a premium for it.

Future branded entertainment deals will grow, according to 80% of advertisers. And in 2010, 38% say they will spend more on branded entertainment as an alternative to the 30-second commercial.

Social media, Web advertising and search are stealing budgets from TV and other media. Of those surveyed, 77% said they would be moving TV dollars to social media this year; 73% plan to shift money to online advertising, and 59% will be spending more on search-engine marketing and 46% on e-mail marketing.

Other non-TV traditional media doesn't seem to be part of this trend. Only 15% said they plan to increase spending in traditional media such as radio, outdoor, magazines or newspapers.

"CMOs need to prepare for television's digital future by forcing change upon the TV advertising ecosystem," said David Cooperstein, vice president and research director of Forrester Research.

"We recommend that advertisers get ready for the future of television by preparing to deliver targeted commercials, delivering true branded entertainment experiences and embracing the connected TV."

The survey findings will be presented at the ANA's "TV and Everything Video Forum" on Feb. 11 in New York.