New Economics of Advertising

IBM patents TV remote that blogs, tweets

2009-08-31T09:48:00.000-07:00

Triangle Business Journal

Want to let Twitterville or the blogosphere know automatically what you are watching on TV?

Researchers at IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) may have the answer for you.

IBM, which employs about 10,500 in the Raleigh-Durham area, has applied for a patent on a network-enabled smart remote control that sends out a message to Twitter, Facebook or a blog when you start watching a TV show.

Users can choose from a list of installed text messages or they can type in something themselves. They can also embed a snapshot from the show.

The remote would also show messages between Facebook friends, bloggers and Twitterers.

The patent can be found through this link.

It’s Broadway Gone Viral, With a Musical Meted Out via Twitter (@nytimes)

2009-08-17T22:00:00.000-07:00

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Aaron Tveit, left, Alice Ripley and J. Robert Spencer in “Next to Normal,” the Tony-winning musical that was reimagined for Twitter and found an ardent fan base.

By ANDREW ADAM NEWMAN

Published: August 16, 2009

At a recent performance of “Next to Normal,” the Broadway musical at the Booth Theater on West 45th Street, Alice Ripley, who won a Tony for her portrayal of Diana, a suburban mother with bipolar disorder, was reaching to answer a cordless telephone when she knocked it off the stage. Fourth wall broken, Ms. Ripley asked, with a smile, “Could you hand that to me?”

The writer of “Next to Normal” saw the Twitter interpretation as a creative challenge as action was translated into tweets.

Audience members were suddenly on all fours, but when they could not find the prop, a woman in the front row held up her cellphone, which Ms. Ripley accepted and spoke her lines into before tossing it back, to laughter and applause.

It is, it turns out, strangely fitting that a theatergoer’s cellphone should play a role in a “Next to Normal” performance, since many people have been introduced to the musical by the devices. In early May, six weeks after opening, the production began what is by all accounts a Broadway first: over Twitter, the social networking site, an adapted version of the show began to be published in the form of short text messages, or tweets — just a line from a character at a time. Several times daily over 35 days, followers of N2NBroadway eagerly awaited the arrival of the tweets on their cellphones and computers.

On May 12, about a week into the serialized Twitter performance, “Next to Normal” had 30,000 followers; when it ended on June 7 with the last line of text and audio from the final song, “Light,” about 145,000 had signed up. Then, as the cast began text messaging back and forth with followers, their numbers continued to grow, recently topping 550,000.

According to the tracking site Twitterholic, N2NBroadway is ranked 210th, attracting more followers than celebrities like Paris Hilton and Stephen Colbert and brands likeStarbucks.

Damian Bazadona, president of Situation Interactive, an online marketing and advertising firm that conceived of the Twitter performance, said that text messages have avoided marketing the play explicitly by, say, offering ticket discounts.

“You wouldn’t go to a social event and start selling someone something,” said Mr. Bazadona. “The content itself was doing the selling for us, so we didn’t need to bang someone over the head and say, ‘Here’s how to buy tickets.’ That would have smelled so advertising.”

Brian Yorkey, who wrote the book and lyrics and — with the composer Tom Kitt — won aTony Award for the score, said that when first approached about adapting his play for thumb-typers, it sounded like “a bit of a chore.”

Mr. Yorkey grew to view it as a creative challenge, though, since the adaptation entails characters sending Twitter messages during moments they deliver no lines. During the first scene, for instance, when Diana makes sandwiches on the floor, her husband, Dan (played by J. Robert Spencer), humors his manic wife onstage, but in the virtual version tweets, “Do all wives end up sprawled on the floor making sandwiches for no one?”

In the performance, Mr. Yorkey said, “we didn’t know what Dan the father was thinking when she was on the floor making sandwiches. But this is what they would say if they were tweeting, so it’s telling the story of the show but telling it from a lot of different perspectives. It was the show — but a new multiangle way of thinking of it.”

Adam Chanler-Berat, who plays the character of Henry, knew nothing of the Twitter version until an encounter with a fan after a spring performance.

“Someone at the stage door asked me if I was Twittering while I was on stage,” said Mr. Chanler-Berat. “I guess they got a Twitter message from my character while I was actually performing.”

While marketers resisted selling the show on Twitter, followers bought tickets on their own steam.

“I saw the show because of the tweets,” Janet Aguhob wrote in a message to the Twitter group. “I read/heard great things abt N2N but was nervous abt the subject. Tweets broke the ice.”

Ms. Aguhob, who lives in Astoria, New York, and works for a pharmaceutical company, said in a phone interview that she had known people in “similar situations” to that of Ms. Ripley’s character and was “afraid it would bring back memories.” But less than halfway through the Twitter performance, Ms. Aguhob bought tickets.

“It was like Twitter was the appetizer and then I got the main course, and it was great,” Ms. Aguhob said. “I’m going again when a friend comes to visit in November. On Twitter they’re really nurturing the show — they’re not doing it in a gimmicky way at all.”

The Twitter adaptation ended June 7, the morning of the Tony ceremony, with the hope that followers would tune in to CBS that evening to see the cast perform. The entire Twitter transcript is available at www.nexttonormal.com/twitterperformance.pdf.

The show, which sold $226,000 in tickets and filled 72 percent of its seats in the week before the Twitter production began, made $363,000 and reached 99 percent of capacity the week it ended, according to the Broadway League, although that bump is largely attributable to its 11 Tony nominations. On the week ended Aug. 9, the production made $480,000, selling 95 percent of seats. (The average ticket price over the four-month run has climbed to $82, from $51.)

“They’re selling to 90 percent-plus audiences. I think Twitter has something to do with that,” said Mr. Bazadona, of Situation Interactive.

Since the end of the Twitter performance, which often included links to audio clips from cast recordings, tweets between the production and fans have included a monthlong question-and-answer period.

When a follower asked what actors did between performances on the days of two performances, Saturday and Wednesday, Mr. Chanler-Berat responded, “Eat until I have to unbutton my pants.” Asked by another for their favorite aspect of the show-staging process, Jessica Phillips, the understudy for Ms. Ripley, wrote, “seeing people backstage in their underpants.”

Mr. Kitt and Mr. Yorkey recently invited followers to suggest ideas for a new song for the production, and will collaborate on lyrics with them over Twitter. While they will not incorporate the song into the production, they are planning to stage a public cast performance of it and make the song available as a digital download.

“In the process of this I became a Twitter convert, and I don’t say that lightly,” Mr. Yorkey said. “I’m always a little skeptical of whatever next new big thing comes out. I know that all of the half million followers are not equally engaged, but to think that we can have a relationship with an audience this size — far more than will ever see the show live — feels really new to me.”

Emmys needs a new way to draw TV viewers; Can Twitter help?

2009-08-13T20:29:00.000-07:00

Protests prompt the academy to abandon plans to pre-tape some categories.

By Matea Gold and Richard Verrier

August 13, 2009

Forced to abandon its plan to truncate the presentation of some awards during the Emmys, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences now faces limited options in its efforts to broaden the appeal of next month's telecast.

After push-back from the Hollywood guilds, the academy announced Wednesday that it was dropping the idea of pre-taping eight categories before the Sept. 20 show and airing edited clips of those acceptance speeches.

"This decision was made to mend relationships within the television community," said television academy Chief Executive John Shaffner in a statement. "Our goal is to celebrate the year in television, honor excellence and this year's great achievements with the support of our industry colleagues and our telecast partner, CBS."

The move marked a clear victory for the unions and cable networks like HBO, which had the most nominations in the categories that would have been pre-taped. But the academy's reversal robs producers of a tool they hoped would have boosted the ratings of the Emmys, which last year was dominated by niche cable shows with small followings.

Just 12.3 million viewers, one of the smallest Emmy audiences in two decades, tuned in for last year's production on ABC, which was co-hosted by a gaggle of reality show hosts. A record-low number of 18-to-49-year-olds watched.

Executive producer Don Mischer did not return a call seeking comment about the approach that will be taken in next month's show. CBS also declined to comment.

The Emmys isn't the only awards program that has seen its viewership slide and has sought to energize and widen its appeal with new schemes and tactics. In June, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced it was expanding its best picture category from five to 10 films after last year's show drew the lowest ratings for an Oscar telecast.

Executives at the television academy and CBS had hoped to make this year's Emmys a bigger draw by shortening the amount of time spent on the movie and miniseries awards, which are dominated by the cable networks.

Under the plan, announced last month, the academy planned to announce the winners of eight categories 45 minutes before the broadcast began at 5 p.m. PDT. Edited versions of their acceptance speeches would be woven into the program later.

Producers said the move would have saved 12 to 15 minutes of airtime, which they had planned to devote to live entertainment and a look at popular shows such as "American Idol" and "CSI" that get little critical acclaim.

"We're trying to make the Emmys more relevant to mainstream viewers while honoring the choices of the television academy properly and respectfully," Mischer said at the time.

He promised that the pre-taped awards would be "presented with dignity and respect." Footage of the winners walking on and off stage would have been edited, but he said no one would be cut out of the telecast.

But HBO, which has 18 nominations in the eight categories that Mischer proposed to pre-tape, complained that the maneuver would showcase broadcast network programming at the expense of cable's awards.

And the creative guilds strenuously objected to the idea. The Writers Guild of America released a petition signed by 157 television writers and executive producers requesting that the academy retain all the writing categories in the live program. The Directors Guild of America sent the academy a letter saying the change would violate its agreement that the Emmys air live. The Writers Guild took a similar position.

The unions have substantial pull, as they could have yanked the waivers they usually give the academy to air clips without paying licensing fees. Guild officials estimated that could have cost the academy an estimated $500,000.

"We're pleased the academy listened to the writers' concerns," the Writers Guild of America, East, said in a statement Wednesday.

The Writers Guild of America, West, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Directors Guild of America all applauded the decision as well in brief public statements.

Some guild officials said they would welcome the opportunity to help the academy find ways of improving future shows and boosting viewership.

"It's in our interests to make sure that the show is watched and appreciated and the important players in the industry are recognized," said Patric M. Verrone, president of WGA, West. "We're certainly here to consult and collaborate with the academy."

Advertising 101, Comparing Online, TV, Cable, Radio, Newspaper, Magazine, Billboards, and Twitter

2009-08-11T14:01:00.000-07:00

Q: I’m trying to decide between newspaper, magazine, billboards, online, radio, local cable… how do I evaluate different media opportunities?

A: Every media form has different strengths and weaknesses. Some are better for long-term branding, some better for driving transactions.

But there’s a simple formula that will help evaluate your options… the CPM, or “Cost Per Thousands.” (‘M’ being the Roman numeral for a thousand.)

CPM = [Cost of Advertising Package / Projected Impressions] x 1,000

Writers sometimes approach math as though it were a dead language only spoken in Mel Gibson movies.

But math can sometimes be your friend. Especially when it prevents you from getting screwed by someone with an ad to sell.

Let's start with the definition of Ratings. The Super Bowl – doing a national 42.6 rating – translates to 93,890,400 adults watching the big game. Thus, each Super Bowl ad delivered 93.4 million “Impressions,” or sets of eyeballs that had the potential to view the commercial message.

Impressions are the universal currency of media planners. Every time you run an advertisement, you should have an idea how many potential impressions it will deliver. Some other examples:

One ½-page newspaper ad in Columbus Disptach à daily circulation of 231,881

One radio spot on San Fran’s KFOG à 2.0 rating (with each rating point translating to 1% of the population or 52,432 adults) = 104,864 impressions

One ½-page magazine ad in Entertainment Weekly à1,760,815 paid circulation x 3.5 pass-along readership = 6,162,853 weekly impressions

One freeway billboard on I-105 in Los Angeles à 188,000 daily commuters passing sign x 30 days = 5,640,000 monthly impressions

To figure out the CPM for the above examples, take the cost of the advertisement, divide by the potential impressions, then multiply by 1,000.

Super Bowl TV: $2,600,000 per spot / 93,890,400 x 1,000 =$27 CPM
Columbus newspaper: $6,680 per insertion / 231,881 x 1,000 = $29 CPM
San Fran KFOG radio: $900 per spot / 104,864 x 1,000 = $9 CPM
Ent Weekly magazine: $72,025 per week/ 6,162,853 x 1,000 =$12 CPM
LA freeway billboard: $20,000 per month / 5,640,000 x 1,000 = $4 CPM

Comparing the different options, you can see that the freeway billboard is the most cost-effective way to reach 1,000 people.

Does that mean that everyone should start putting all their ad budgets into outdoor advertising?

No, because there are other factors in play… like how long consumers get to spend with your message (60 seconds in radio vs. 2 seconds as you’re zooming past that freeway billboard while late for a meeting and still trying to scarf a double cheeseburger).

Typical Advertising CPMs
Outdoor = $1-5 CPM
Cable TV = $5-8 CPM
Radio = $8 CPM
Online = $5-30 CPM
Network/Local TV = $20 CPM
Magazine = $10-30 CPM
Newspaper = $30-35 CPM
Direct Mail = $250 CPM

Generally, the more targeted the advertisement towards a certain demographic, the higher the CPM. So something with broad appeal like TIME Magazine (3,882,000 subscribers) can have a $15 CPM, while American Police Beat Magazine (60,000 subscribers) will have a CPM closer to $50.

But if you’ve written a mystery that has specific appeal to beat cops, advertising in American Police Beat might still be your best option – despite the high CPM – because of the low out-of-pocket cost ($3,000) and minimal waste. If you’re spending $150,000 on a ½ page TIME Magazine ad in the hopes that it’s noticed by a bunch of police officers, when 99.9% of TIME’s readers are not in law enforcement, that’s a bad decision.

CPMs are a guide, but used properly, they can help you negotiate for a better rate. Let’s say your buddy offers to let you run a banner ad on his website, which gets 2,000 homepage views per month. If he wants to charge $500 per month – which would be a $250 CPM – you need to tell that so-called “buddy” to stop smoking crack, or get more homepage views… because his CPM is nearly 10 times higher than a Super Bowl commercial. If he were to slash his price to $50/month ($25 CPM), now you’re in business.

Definition of Twitter Impressions

Tweets * Followers = Impressions
Waste factor = high
View time = seconds
Cost to service = lowest among ad channels
CPM = cost per million??

Social Maven Succumbs to the Dark-Side? (@Scobleizer)

2009-08-08T10:50:00.000-07:00

After 2 years of aggressive following strategy at Twitter (see Twitterholic history) to entice 100,000 fans to return the follow, Robert Scoble, a self-made social maven in Silicon Valley has decided to drop all his followers.

Has this nice guy turned to the dark side?

Gaining Followers on Twitter

A common practice on Twitter is to invite people to follow you by following them first. In the early days of Twitter, 50% of the users returned the follow. A class of Twitter users, I call social whales, built up tens of thousands of followers with this patient practice. (i.e. a whale has more than 10,000 followers on Twitter.) Mr. Scoble was one of tens of thousands of social whales.

At the advice of friends, Mr. Scoble dropped 100,000 of his followers. His excuse is that he wanted to clean up his Twitter stream. (You are SO unfollowed!)

Dozens of social whales have faced this issue. The common-sense answer is to start a new Twitter account that follows only those of true interest to himself. Thus, the new account becomes an inbox - while the primary account is the outbox. Dozens of social whales have chosen this solution.

By dropping 100,000 fans, Mr. Scoble has become a pho-celeb, a practice where users entice you with a follow and drop you to make themselves look popular. Tens of thousands unfortuantely behave like pho-celebs on Twitter. Mr. Scoble has just declared himself the King of pho-celebs with his public dismissal of 100,000 fans.

Has Mr. Scoble made a social mistake and succumbed to the Dark Side? Should he publically apologize to his fans? Should he encourage more pho-celebs with this narcissistic practice?

What do you think? Please RT.
Do you approve pho-celebs?

Southern Comfort Pours Entire Media Budget Into Digital

2009-07-30T11:31:00.000-07:00

Move Allows Brand to Buy Popular Network Shows Online Instead of Overcrowded Cable Fare

By Jeremy Mullman
Published: July 29, 2009

CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- Brown-Forman's Southern Comfort brand -- weary of jostling for notice with other spirits brands during the narrow nightly window when they are permitted to advertise on cable -- is taking its entire media buy digital, allowing it access to programs online it couldn't touch on TV.

SoCo is a presenting sponsor of Playboy's 'Uncovered.'

Last year, SoCo spent $6 million of its $8 million measured media outlay on cable TV, and another $1.5 million on magazine ads. This year, both those numbers will drop to zero in favor of online properties such as Facebook, Spin, Fader, Pitchfork, Thrillist and Hulu.

Lena DerOhannessian, the brand's U.S. marketing director, said SoCo's tight focus on the youngest legal-drinking-age consumers drove the shift. "As we've focused more on 21 to 29, TV becomes less and less effective at reaching that audience," she said. "It was getting harder and harder to hit our target without so much waste."

The issue, Ms. DerOhannessian said, was the intense crowding of spirits brands within a few nightly cable shows, a result of restrictive rules about where and when spirits companies are permitted to advertise. (National networks still do not accept liquor advertising, although a growing number of affiliates have been breaking with that practice of late.)

"You're usually in the same program, if not the same pod, with another spirits advertiser," she said. "That was just a game we didn't want to keep playing." Instead, SoCo is opting to grab digital properties where it can be the sole alcohol sponsor. And those include network programs that the brand would've been forbidden from touching on TV (see the full list at the bottom of this story).

It's also cheaper. Ms. DerOhannessian said savings from the switch to a 100% digital media buy will allow the brand to bolster its presence in bars and at retail, as well as through events. It will also give it a significant footprint online, where a $10 million budget stretches very far.

The media-budget shift comes amid tough sales trends for the brand. It suffered a mid-single-digit sales decline during the fiscal year that ended April 30, Brown-Forman Chief Financial Officer Don Berg told Wall Street analysts on a June earnings call. "Southern Comfort has suffered from the consumer switch to the off-premise, where consumers are less inclined to make complicated drinks," he said.

The brand's media agency is Interpublic's Universal McCann, and its creative shop is Havas' Arnold Worldwide.

Southern Comfort's digital partnerships

Facebook: Fan page featuring custom video, exclusive events, party pics, SMS programs, news, recipes and video clips.

Spin: Sponsorship of the top 50 cover songs of all time, with 10 free downloads, "tab covered by" Southern Comfort.

Playboy: Presenting sponsorship of the Playboy "Uncovered" series highlighting artists paying tribute to legends who have inspired them.

Fader's 'At the Bar' series

The Fader: "At the Bar" with Southern Comfort series featuring 10 pop-up sessions with local artists performing acoustically and discussing their musical influences.

Pitchfork: "Faces in the Crowd" series featuring artist interviews by fans, Pitchfork Music Festival, Monolith Festival and Voodoo Experience.

Thrillist: E-newsletters touting the brand, story, events and drinks.

NBC: Online spots running in and around prime-time NBC shows such as "30 Rock," "The Office," "Jay Leno," "The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien" and "Saturday Night Live," among others.

NBC Local: Friday-through-Sunday takeover of the "What You're Doing Tonight" section, with home-page coverage before each Southern Comfort music-series event.

Break.com: "Southern Comfort House Rules!" original series featuring a cast of characters showcasing how they prepare for, host and entertain during various themed house parties.

My Damn Channel: Sponsorship of "Grace Crashers," an original series starring Grace Helbig as the ultimate party crasher as she and her crew show up unannounced at parties around Halloween, Holiday and Mardi Gras

Comedy Central: "Holiday Survival Guide" featuring Comedy Central comedians providing tips for getting out of sticky holiday situations.

Hulu: First spirits advertiser to run the Ad Selector model, where consumers will be able to choose the Southern Comfort message they want to watch.

CBS, Fox and FX: Full player takeovers around top-rated prime-time shows such as "How I Met Your Mother," "Late Show With David Letterman," "Rules of Engagement," "CSI," "24" and "Arrested Development," among others.

Advertisers, Consumers Disagree on Ad Effectiveness (Harris)

2009-07-26T10:35:00.000-07:00

Advertisers, Consumers Disagree on Ad Effectiveness

Though advertisers and consumers both agree that amusing ads are effective and scary and guilt-inducing ads are not, they don’t see eye-to-eye on the efficacy of other types of advertising appeals, including those that make people stop and think, provide new information, and show before/after scenarios, according to (pdf) a LinkedIn Research Network/Harris Poll.

The study also found that ads that “talk money,” including those that show a value proposition and offer luxuries for less during the recession are much more appealing to consumers than those that take an empathetic or cheerleading approach in these times of economic hardship.

Effectiveness of Specific Ad Types

When it comes to types of ads, the study found that advertisers and consumers agree on the effectiveness of some, but disagree on others:

While more than half of advertisers believe ads that make people stop and think (53%) and ads that give people new information (51%) are very effective, just three in ten consumers (30% and 29% respectively) feel the same.
26% of advertisers think ads that are integrated into the feel of the program, that is has the same tone as the program it is based in, are very effective compared with just 7% of consumers.
When it comes to ads that show before/after, 24% of advertisers say they are very effective while 13% of consumers say they are very effective.
One in five advertisers (21%) say ads that reinforce a message already known are very effective, compared with only 10% of consumers.
Consumers and advertisers both like ads that amuse. More than one-third (34%) of consumers and 41% of advertisers say entertaining ads are very effective, and one-third of both consumers (33%) and advertisers (32%) say funny ads are very effective. However, there is a fine line in amusement as just one in ten consumers (11%) and 14% of advertisers say ads that don’t take themselves seriously are very effective. Almost one in five consumers (18%) say these ads are not at all effective.
41% of consumers (41%) 32% of advertisers believe that scary ads are not at all effective.
27% of consumers and 18% of advertisers say ads about a serious topic that make people feel guilty are not at all effective.

Recession Consumers Like Value Propositions

The study also examined the perceived effectiveness of ads currently being used to address the economic crisis, and revealed that value proposition strategies and “luxuries for less” approaches resonate most with consumers.

Notable findings:

Three in five advertisers (61%) say they are using a value proposition strategy, promoting sales, coupons and discounts. Almost three in five consumers (57%) say that this strategy is working very well or well to help them sell their products or services.
Two in five advertisers (39%) are using empathy approaches, attempting to convey that companies understand what consumers are going through. But only one-quarter of consumers (24%) say empathy works very or somewhat well, and one-third (33%) say it does not work at all.
One-fourth of advertisers (25%) say they are using cheerleading (”we’ve made it through tough times before, we’ll do it again, and we can help you do it.”) Almost two in five (38%) of consumers, however, say that these types of ads do not work at all.
Though less than one in five advertisers (18%) say they are using the “luxuries for less” proposition, one-third of consumers (34%) say these types of ads work very well or well in selling products or services

The study also found that there is a generational divide as the younger age groups (18- 34) are more likely to say each of these four strategies works very well or well. In fact, more than half of 18-34 year olds (51%) say they think “luxuries for less” works very well or well compared to just 19% of those 55 and older.

Previously published results from the same poll also revealed that consumers are very frustrated by many of today’s popular types of internet ads.

About the survey: The poll was conducted online within the US from June 24-26, 2009, among 2,025 adults (ages 18+) and between June 22 and 30, 2009 among 1,105 advertisers. For the adults, figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents‘ propensity to be online. Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who agreed to participate in Harris Interactive surveys. The data have been weighted to reflect the composition of the adult population.

5 Rules for Buying and Selling Advertising on Twitter

2009-07-22T18:11:00.000-07:00

Can you buy a tweet as an ad on Twitter? Yes.

Can you sell a tweet as an ad on Twitter? Yes, but...

Here's some background to guide your decisions.

Rules for Sellers

With high jobless rates, millions are eager to make money from Twitter; or justify the time spent on Twitter to gain followers. Since Twitter is seemingly simple, millions are incentivized to try. But...

Do you have 50,000 followers? Or at least 20,000? Advertisers have no interest to buy a smaller audience.
Can you tweet frequently enough to give advertisers the impressions that they need?
Can you deliver enough clicks to beat AdWords? Does the rate you charge beat Adwords' average of $0.50 per click?
Assuming that you can deliver 100 clicks per day for an ad buyer, who will sell the ads? How much will it cost to sell the ads?
At $50 per day, does this revenue cover your selling cost and tweeting time?

Like any media, building the circulation, selling ads, and distributing tweets is a fulltime job. Do you have the will, skills, and tenacity?

Why Buy Ads on Twitter

Why would marketers buy tweets as ads on Twitter?

Twitter is the first comprehensive marketing tool that allows a marketer to track the entire marketing funnel. (ed: You read this first, here. No doubt, other blogs and journalists will copy and fail to attribute the source. Sad ;-)

Gain suspects as followers
Call to action through clicks on tweets
Digital word-of-mouth through satisfied customers

No other media provides countable returns at the top, bottom, and through the funnel. It's not only the cheapest marketing, but the most comprehensive. No other media, TV, radio, newspapers, AdWords, coupons, deliver the full funnel.

As most Twitter users have learned, it's not easy to get huge followings. Further, it's very difficult to gain clicks on tweets. Most tweets are simply ignored. Without followers and clicks, can one gain retweets and digital word-of-mouth?

This is the role of a Twitter network.

Rules for Buying Twitter Ads

Hundreds of Twitter networks claim to deliver. A strong Twitter ad network helps marketers gain on all aspects of the marketing funnel, i.e. followers, clicks, and re-tweets. Here's what to look for:

Huge followings and tweet frequency matters. Without both, advertisers cannot gain enough impressions to earn followers, clicks, and re-tweets.
Avoid the hard sell. Keep your tweets entertaining and educational. Twitter is a social network, not condusive to a one-tweet close.
Can you target with relevant ads? Not in the traditional sense of a purchased mailing list. Those who say otherwise, don't understand Twitter. They are selling what you want to hear. The majority of people follow on Twitter as a social gesture, not necessarily common interests. Further, the Twitter SUL (Suggested User List) pushes newbies to follow random accounts. However, the clicks are targeted since users opt-in on tweets that interest them. Thus, #1 above rules completely when applied to Twitter marketing.
Should you use a random third-party ad system that sends tweets on unknown accounts? Like all advertising, it's better to associate with known parties when sending your ads as tweets. Rather than 20,000 accounts with 50 followers each; it's better to use 50 accounts with 20,000 followers each. The latter lends more credibility, brand image; and thus better results.
Many tweets is better than one repetitive tweet. As stated in rule 2, keep the conversation entertaining and interesting.

Should you buy Twitter ads?

Yes.

It's inexpensive, more comprehensive in terms of measured ROI; and in the hands of the right Twitter network - incredibly effective.

Have you had success with Twitter marketing?

Project Lifetime - The reality is, to beat her competitors in cable TV, Andrea Wong has to put on a good show.

2009-07-16T16:45:00.000-07:00

The reality is, to beat her competitors in cable TV, Andrea Wong has to put on a good show.

BY JAKE HALPERN

IT'S A SUNDAY EVENING in a deserted office building in midtown Manhattan and Andrea Wong, the 42-year-old CEO of Lifetime Networks, is midway through a dress rehearsal for a sales pitch. Wong isn't hyping a new star, or a new movie, or even a new series. She's touting an entire year's worth of programming and, if she succeeds, she'll secure the majority of Lifetime's ad revenue for an entire year. This is a mega-pitch, worth several hundred million dollars, and Wong, MBA '93, needs to nail it.

The pitch, running precisely 53 minutes, involves short speeches and a number of video clips. Wong and her staff are watching a clip from an original sitcom—Sherri —starring Sherri Shepherd, the boisterous actress who co-hosts The View.Sherri is explaining why she won't give her two-timing husband a second chance.

Wong's staff has devoted more than 200 meetings and 2 1/2 months of work to fine-tuning this presentation. They know this clip's punch line by heart, and even so, most of them chuckle. Wong doesn't crack a smile: The only question that matters now is whether ad executives will laugh.

In the coming week, Wong and her staff will shuttle around Manhattan to make their case in the boardrooms of 13 major ad agencies. They won't be the only ones out there selling. Each spring, usually at grand centralized events, the heads of the major broadcast and cable networks converge on Manhattan to pitch their shows. The ritual known as upfronts (a time to buy ads "up front," before the season begins) can make or break a network or, for that matter, the network's CEO.

full article

Can Early Hype Benefit New TV Shows Come Fall?

2009-07-14T12:18:00.000-07:00

Networks Are Using Multiple Forms of Media to Start Creating Potential Audience

by Brian Steinberg
Published: July 13, 2009

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Can you interest a TV viewer in a new fall show when he or she is wholly immersed in the activities of early summer -- or, more removed still, enjoying older programs in the late spring? TV networks are trying to determine whether promoting new shows earlier can bring them bigger audiences come September and October.

ABC ran promos for 'Flash Forward' even before the network had publicly admitted it was picking up the show for the fall.

Photo Credit: ABC

Walt Disney's ABC sparked thoughts of fall in late April by running seconds-long promos for its new mysterious drama "Flash Forward" even before the network had publicly admitted it was picking up the show for the fall. News Corp.'s Fox, meanwhile, aggressively promoted its highly anticipated sing-along drama "Glee" by running the show's pilot after one of the last episodes of "American Idol" for the 2008-2009 season. CBS has embraced an intriguing tactic to arm itself for fall: It's giving affiliates promotional materials to tout programming in the 10 p.m. hour in advance of NBC's "Jay Leno Show" talk-show launch.

Within the industry, the failure rate for new broadcast-TV programs is widely estimated to be 75% to 80%. So it's no surprise the networks have begun to stray from business-as-usual launch plans that call for nearly all of the promotion for a new show to start mere weeks before its autumn debut. Thanks to the rise of social-networking techniques involving YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, tipping off die-hard fans to early peeks at selected programs can lead -- or so network executives hope -- to more buzz and a viral priming of the pump that create larger audiences of interest come September.

"When you launch a show in the fall, it's like the box office: You've got to get everyone there for the premiere. And then you've got to get them back for week two, which only gives you six days to convince those who want to come back and to try to get new people," explained Joe Earley, exec VP-marketing and communications, Fox Broadcasting. "What we're doing now gives us four months to try to get people to sample and come on board."

Time to break tradition
The networks aren't abandoning their pre-season maneuvers. Late August and early September have been filled for years with clever promotional stunts, such as putting ads for specific CBS programs on eggs and deli packages -- even supermarket freezer doors. Fox once orchestrated a city-by-city tour for its now canceled "Terminator" series. "There is no substitute" for heavy marketing in the weeks before a program's launch, said Rick Haskins, exec VP-marketing for the CW.

And yet the networks are realizing that they needn't stay rooted to tradition. New dramas and comedies cost millions of dollars to produce and promote, and many of them are substantially more complex and harder to explain than those of the past. "Flash Forward" centers on a worldwide phenomenon that leaves people seeing months into their future, then trying to tie their present to their visions of days ahead. "Glee" boasts a radical new concept for prime-time TV: a story about a chorale group in a local high school whose members hail from different strata of teen society (try mixing "Cop Rock" with "Freaks and Geeks"), and includes songs in every episode.

As a result, networks are starting to give certain fall-season candidates priority, and then use many different forms of media to build exposure to potential audiences, said Michael Benson, exec VP-marketing, ABC Entertainment Group. "You've got to start earlier on" TV shows, he said. Not only will ABC try to get promos in front of audiences for notable spring and summer content, such as season finales, the NBA Finals or "Wipeout," but will also use emerging venues, such as search terms and viral web sites. "We've got to go beyond just putting a promo out to build awareness," said Mr. Benson.

Indeed, many networks followed the official announcements of their fall lineups by putting up clips on their own sites and on YouTube. NBC went out and purchased ads related to keywords for its new comedy "Community" as well as the "Jay Leno Show," said Adam Stotsky, president-marketing, NBC Entertainment. "We can be there with not only links to our website but also be driving messaging through paid placement," he said. Likewise, the CW had YouTube clips of its fall dramas up online right after its upfront presentation, said Mr. Haskins, and has created "fan" pages on Facebook (As of Tuesday, a page for the coming drama "Vampire Diaries" had 7100 "friends.")

Tried and true techniques
Some of these techniques are tried and true. ABC has long used its NBA Finals as a promotional venue, and running ads on TV for the fall right after an upfront presentation is a technique NBC has used in the past. Still, there's an emerging sense that networks can do more to goose interest over a longer period of time, thanks to the rise of the web as a media vehicle.

Because online media tends to attract enthusiastic niches of people with very specific interests, TV marketers end up "talking to an audience that is voracious in its appetite for information," said Mr. Stotsky. "What was historically germane to just fanboys is become how the mass mainstream is learning about new ideas, new shows, and building relationships with those shows and expectations for those shows -- well in advance of their actually coming to air."

Of course, none of this precludes the heavy hype and promotional artillery fire TV viewers come to expect as the leaves get ready to turn color. "Every year, there is more pressure to get attention," said George Schweitzer, president-CBS Marketing Group. "This is early-awareness stuff. This isn't the heavy lifting yet."

Are All Social Networks the Same? BW asks: What's a Friend Worth?

2009-07-13T18:58:00.000-07:00

In an age when Obama has become President, it's embarrassing for the primary press to continue to lump new technology trends into one bucket.

Are all social networks the same? Are all Chinese slant-eyed geeks? Are all blacks the same? Are we asking the wrong questions?

As with race issues, a little knowledge leading to general ignorance shouldn't be tolerated.

What's a Friend Worth?

The cover of the June issue of BusinessWeek asks, "What's a Friend Worth?" Not to single out BW, but many primary news organizations have promoted the same thinking - flawed thinking.

The assumption that all social networks depend on the notion of expanding circles of friends makes them all the same. This notion IS in common among Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, NYTimes, and others are trying to copy the same notion. Thus, are all social networks the same?

No.

Only to superficial analysts who can't see beyond the color of faces.

Facebook for Friends

Facebook is about past friends. I've reconnected with hundreds of old friends via Facebook.

Facebook is not particularly effective for making new friends. The policy for dual agreement to connect - slows one's ability to gain connections on Facebook. With my open policy to connect, about 150 of my connections are new. And many of those who spam frequently, I wish I had not connected with them at all.

LinkedIn for Business Development

LinkedIn is about business connections - some old, some new.

LinkedIn is not effective for maintaining touch among friends. LinkedIn does do a good job to introduce people with common business interests.

Twitter for List Development

Twitter is not for friends, but for lists.

A minority may use Twitter to maintain touch among true friends. But, it's not particularly rich in features to support contact management.

In reality, Twitter is list management. Celebrities use it to manage their fan base. Millions compete to develop their mutual lists. It's an adult game, popular among marketers and entrepreneurs.

Everyone loves it for receiving, sharing, and distributing information.

Myspace is Neverland

Myspace was the leader. I'm not sure what community they serve. Not surprisingly, they are losing share rapidly to the new leaders.

What will happen to Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and NYTimes' efforts to build social networks? If they have poor execution and follow the mixed vision from the likes of Business Week, they will have the same future as Myspace. With a clear vision, there's room for more communities based on the common social network notion.

Copying Features

When social networks copy features from each other, are they moving to displace the other?

Not necessarily.

The stronger companies will copy only those features that reinforce their position in the marketplace. We don't need alarming headlines that suggest XYZ is after ABC by copying one feature of their services.

American capitalism requires competition. It also makes great headlines. But, don't believe everything you read.

What's a Friend Worth?

Back to the question of the worth of a friend. Is it a relevant question - given the different focus of the various sites?

Is a subscriber a friend? Is a friend a friend? Is a follower a friend? Is a connection a friend?

Apples and oranges.

Stupid question.

Combine Social Media with Traditional Tactics: 3 Campaign Examples from IBM

2009-07-07T10:42:00.000-07:00

SUMMARY: As the number of social media channels continues to grow, it can be daunting to figure out which tools suit which purposes for marketing.

See how an IBM VP combines social media with traditional tactics for product development, event promotion, and demand generation. Includes lessons learned and highlights from three campaigns.

Sandy Carter, VP Service Oriented Architecture and WebSphere, IBM, has been incorporating social media into IBM’s marketing since 2006. She and her team started slowly with corporate blogs, and lately have pushed into hosting forums and using third-party social networks.

A key lesson learned is that is that using social media channels is not a strategy unto itself.

"All of our campaigns involve a combination of traditional marketing, plus social media," Carter says. "We actually don’t believe in a solid social media campaign. We always combine it."

We spoke with Carter to discuss three IBM marketing campaigns that featured prominent roles for social media and online communities. Read on to learn how social media fit into the context of these larger strategies, and how the team combined social media with traditional tactics.

Campaign #1. Harnessing group knowledge for product development

In 2007, Carter and her team were building an IBM platform for Web-based applications called WebSphere sMash. At the time, IBM’s website had a robust set of online forums where developers discussed technical topics. That community represented a large skill and knowledge base.

To make sMash as strong as possible, the team listened to developers’ needs through traditional methods, including focus groups and analyst reports. Then, Carter’s team supplemented that information by going to the Web to ask developers for their opinions.

Channels included:
o IBM-hosted forum
o IBM-hosted blog
o Twitter feed

The team explained their vision for the product, and asked developers:
o "Is this something you want?"
o "What sort of features do you need?"

Information came pouring in, with about 4,500 postings to the IBM forum alone, Carter says. The team gathered this information, mined it for insights, and incorporated some of the advice into subsequent beta releases.

- On-going updates

Traditionally, the team’s development process followed this basic schedule:
o Issue a beta release
o Accept feedback for about six weeks
o Make updates to the product
o Release the final version to the public

The process for sMash’s release was more on-going, Carter says.

"We actually did beta releases on the blog, websites and forums we had. And almost every night we would take some of that feedback, post a new build, and people would download it and provide us feedback. And we did this continuous loop on the information that came in."

The community helped design everything from the user interface to the product’s name.

- Successful launch

Since its 2008 launch, WebSphere sMash has been regularly growing in usage, Carter says.

"We’ve already had 81 subscribers on Amazon EC2, which is more than any other product placed there." Amazon EC2 is a service used by developers to access resizable computing capacity.

The number of people downloading the platform from IBM’s website has increased 20% over the last four months.

Campaign #2. Building a community, promoting an event, generating leads

The team ran a 100-city road show on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) during the first two weeks of October, 2008. The goals were to bring together the SOA community in-person, further the community’s knowledge, and help IBM generate leads for its tools and solutions.

Furthermore, Carter’s team wanted the SOA community to stay connected online before and after the event. The team used social media and interactive elements to not only promote the event, but to hold the community together afterward.

-> Step #1. Promotion

In addition to traditional marketing -- including direct mail, display advertising, and one-to-one invitations -- the team used the following social and interactive elements to promote the event:

- Bot

On arrival to IBM’s SOA website, visitors saw an animated, 3-D person walk around the page with an offer for the event in her hand. When clicked, the person brought visitors to the event registration page. The "bot," as Carter calls it, increased clickthrough rates to the registration page a whopping six-fold.

- Twitter

The team sent messages on the micro-blogging service that included a promotion code. When customers signed up for the event with the code, they were allotted 30-minutes to talk with one of IBM’s Chief Technical officers at the conference.

Within three days, 40 people registered to speak with the CTO in Amsterdam alone, Carter says.

- Blogs

The team also blogged about the conference on several of their developer-oriented blogs. These posts, combined with the efforts on Twitter, encouraged some developers to mention the event in their personal blogs, feeds, and social networking pages. Some customers created groups on Facebook, and at least one created a LinkedIn group, Carter says.

"With all these social media add-ons, we got an incremental 10% lift in our registrations for virtually no cost."

-> Step #2. Connect customers

The team worked with a third-party provider to build an online community website called SOAsocial. Having a third-party host the community was important to avoid the appearance of an IBM-dominated and -based community. The team wanted the community to grow on its own.

-> Step #3. Encourage engagement and user-generated content

The team encouraged customers to take pictures at the events and post them to the photo-sharing website Flickr. This helped spur the community into action, and also helped Carter’s team save money.

"We usually have a photographer take pictures of the events. We had 100 events, and it would have cost us about $100,000 to have a photographer at each and every one of those cities, taking pictures and recording that for us," Carter says.

-> Step #4. Follow-up widget

After the event, the attendees stayed connected through the SOAsocial network. Carter’s team wanted to stay connected with them too, since the attendees were potential customers for IBM’s SOA tools.

The team built a widget that supplied the often-requested event presentations. The widget could be placed on a blog or website, or downloaded onto a computer.

"The cool thing about that for us is that the widget is driven by RSS feeds. So now that they have that widget, when we have news, we push that information out to those customers," Carter says. "If there is a new product, we can push a demo out to them."

Best of all, about 67% of the conferences’ attendees downloaded the widget, Carter says.

- Additional sales promotion

The widget also linked to and encouraged users to visit IBM’s SOA website to check out products.

Campaign #3. Energizing the market with interactive game

To help stimulate, build and further educate the market about SOA technology, in 2006 Carter’s team created a free 3-D game called INNOV8.

The game featured all the elements you’d expect from a computer game: interactivity, a hero, a villain, and a plot. The game also included SOA lessons throughout the experience.

During 2007, over 1,000 universities downloaded and played INNOV8.

- New educational content

Although not a socially-oriented game, INNOV8 served as an accessible way for people to learn about SOA and eventually become contributing members of the community that IBM was building.

"INNOV8 helps customers learn SOA concepts in a much more consumable way," Carter says.

Through research done in 2008, the team found that students taught through the game had an 80% higher recall on SOA topics than other students. They also found that graduates who had used the game in school were taking it with them into the business world to teach their coworkers.

- More accessible

INNOV8’s second version was Web-based, meaning it could be played on any computer with an Internet connection. That platform made it easier for people to share the game.

- Social promotion

For the second version, the team also created leader boards that listed the players with the highest scores.

They promoted the game through a separate Twitter feed, and through IBM’s blogs and forums. Promoting in social forums made it easier for people to connect with like-minded friends and coworkers after learning about the game.

Learning Twitter? Don't Take Your Cues From Ad Agencies

2009-07-06T10:21:00.000-07:00

Some Tweet Deftly, While Others Lag Clients

Posted by Rupal Parekh on 07.06.09 @ 08:00 AM

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- As Twitter moves into the business mainstream -- nearing some 35 million unique global visitors, according to ComScore -- it's increasingly clear that one community has yet to fully embrace the social-networking tool du jour: agencies.

The irony is that the same people clients hire to erect communications and social-media strategies often appear uncomfortable using Twitter themselves.

One stark example: A couple of months back, Volvo struck a landmark ad-placement deal with YouTube to promote the Twitter feed for its XC60 model (@VolvoXC60). But the agency that created the innovative rich-media ad for Volvo, Havas' Euro RSCG, has an account (@Euro_RSCG) that's never been used.

Asked what gives, a Euro spokeswoman said: "We're developing our Twitter strategy and in the meantime want to hold onto the name. It's a Catch-22: You don't want your Twitter handle stolen, but you also don't want to start using it before you're really ready."

Whatever the case may be, save for a few shining examples of shops that "get it," agencies need to catch up with their clients -- and fast.

Marketers offer better examples
Many marketers are known for successfully leveraging Twitter to boost brand awareness and interact with their consumers, among them Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh (@zappos) and the chief marketing officers of Best Buy (Barry Judge, @BestBuyCMO) and Express (Lisa Gavales).

Computer maker Dell's strides in integrating social media into the company's marketing communications have been well-documented. But its lead marketing agency, Enfatico, doesn't own the handle @enfatico, and roster shop Mother, New York, has an account (@motherny) with a single update from May.

Sure, the argument can be made that Twitter isn't for everyone. And perhaps it's better to not be there at all than to be there poorly. Case in point: Digital shop Publicis Modem, London (@PublicisModemUK), declares in its bio that it is "one of the world's leading digital agencies operating in 36 countries," yet its tweets are sloppy, riddled with grammatical errors and say things such as "2 hours to work...not that fun."

'Thinking about tequila'
Grey has set up a Twitter account just for its interns, but it might want to keep a better eye on its content.@GreyNYInterns has informed the world it is "thinking about tequila" (at 9:30 a.m.; let's hope they're working on a liquor brand) and talked about seemingly proprietary information: "E*Trade brainstorm session. Do we use the baby or not?"

Then there's the problem of ownership of agency brands. Check out the Twitter feeds @BBDO and@Publicis, and you'll land on the pages for the networks' Dusseldorf, Germany, and Zurich outposts, respectively, rather than the pages for the motherships.

It's even worse at the holding-company level. The handle @Havas is following zero people, has zero followers and has one update: "on vacation." Meanwhile, the world's biggest holding company, WPP (@wpponline), has the biggest presence of its competitors, with an impressive 3,000 or so followers. Hard to understand why, though, because it follows no one back -- not even its own agency brands -- and the feed reads as a series of links to press releases.

Balancing self-promotion
Over-promotion is a big problem on Twitter. At the same time, an agency's Twitter feed should share relevant information -- not only press releases -- so the balance can be hard to find. The feed for BBDO, New York (@bbdony), for example, displays many tweets about gadgets and mobile-marketing trends but rarely posts anything about BBDO or its clients.

Still, the big agency networks often get a big rap for being staid, but at least many of them, Ogilvy and McCann, for example, have a Twitter presence and are trying to wrap their brains around it.

While ad types worldwide tweeted about hotshop Droga5's impressive showing at the recent Cannes International Advertising Festival, the agency itself doesn't have a feed, nor does founder David Droga. CEO Andrew Essex would say only: "Several individuals at the agency are on Twitter, which seems to work best for us at the moment."

Publicis' VivaKi is marginally better than some others in that it tries to attach a face to its Twitter feed, but the person who oversees the account (@VivaKi) identifies herself simply as "Stephanie" -- surely not what you'd expect from a company that earlier this year partnered with media owners to build a "Social Media Marketplace."

Tweeting CEOs
Humanizing your brand on Twitter with a known personality can be a great strategy, provided the person is good. Examples include JWT Chairman-CEO Bob Jeffrey (@bobjeffreyjwt). But a search for JWT's handle will come up empty. Ideally, agencies should have a company feed and a strong leader who shows he or she "gets it."

Tom Bedecarre of AKQA is a prolific tweeter, and one who's willing to put himself out there. Tweeted @tombed: "another awkward #CannesLions moment: I mixed up David Lubars and David Droga (double d'oh!)." At the same time, he uses his following to drive traffic back to his agency's feed, @AKQA.

Digital agencies, unsurprisingly, seem to have a bit of an edge over traditional shops. Interpublic's R/GA has appointed its senior VP and managing director of copy, Chapin Clark, to manage the shop's feed (@_rga). While he does the majority of the information mining himself, he also accepts suggestions from staffers.

Another, Razorfish, "encourages our employees to be on Twitter," said David Deal, the agency's VP-marketing. "Our CEO, Bob Lord, is one of those voices, and openly tweets, as do many employees on various levels. It's part of a deliberate strategy, along with Facebook, YouTube, employee blogs and more traditional forms of brand building such as speaking events. It's important we practice what we preach."

Drafting guidelines
Mr. Deal said Razorfish uses Twitter to announce company news; raise awareness of thought leadership by linking to research pieces; drive traffic to the company blog; build employee morale by congratulating staffers for use of the tool; and as a recruitment tool by posting job opportunities.

It is one of few shops (Campbell Mithun, @cmithun, is another) whose authors sign their Twitter posts, something that it does to reflect accountability and accessibility. The agency has gone so far as to draft guidelines for social-media use for staffers to help them be more effective. "I think it actually makes them more comfortable," Mr. Deal said. "Their level of blogging and tweeting began to rise after we shared [the guidelines] with them."

23 Comments

By mgchildr | Athens, GA July 6, 2009 08:02:29 am:

While using a name-brand Twitter to promote a brand gives that brand a more distinct personality, it is still viewed by consumers as part of the brand's advertising (which, of course, it is). What about encouraging CONSUMERS to tweet about their favorite brands on Twitter? Personal recommendations are the most effective means of advertising, and Twitter provides an outlet for consumers to share their experiences with a brand, thus improving brand advocacy.

If you have not seen this video, it details the process by which consumers' use of Twitter can benefit a brand: http://bit.ly/szW0U

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By Stevewax | NEW YORK, NY July 6, 2009 08:28:52 am:

At my company (Campfire) we see Twitter as a gathering place for individuals to share ideas and experiences. It's probably inappropriate for a company or brand to have a Twitter account. Much better for individuals at the company, even the CEO, to speak up via an individual voice.

I see Twitter as a lunch date or cocktail party with individuals of my choosing, some friends, some interesting strangers. So I'm more interested in what @eveon (one of our employees) or Craig Newmark (@craignewmark) or John Perry Barlow (Grateful Dead Lyricist: @johnperrybarlow) have to say than what a corporate site for General Foods or JWT might reveal.

Take a look at a Honda saleswoman in Charleston, South Carolina is doing to influence car fans and shoppers for instance: twitter.com/brunroxy09. No Honda Twitter account needed there.

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By stephenpbyrne | Australia July 6, 2009 08:37:45 am:

It's sure a sign that some of the agencies you named are SO far behind the social media tsunami, they aren't going to catchup anytime soon, if they are already absent Twitterers, Twitter seldom or so ineptly. It seems indicative of the state of agencyland that there is such a vast chasm between agency's so called "thought leadership" vs actual digital know how beyond media planning and ad design. In most cases, even their digital front doors are so poor they can barely answer an email or update a blog. So why do clients keep going back? And why do we take any notice of what they have to say anymore? Hurrah to those like Razorfish & AKQA that do as they say.
Stephen Byrne
www.diffusion.com.au
www.diffusionblog.blogspot.com
twitter @spbyrne

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By JOHN | WASHINGTON, DC July 6, 2009 08:40:02 am:

At Ogilvy, we put our effort into being out there across social media as ourselves, not behind a corporate account. That's what social media is all about - not the corporate handle (which serves a purpose yet a small one in comparison to all of us Ogilvy People being active in social media.

We have been bloggers, twitterers, facebook group owners for more than 5 years. Not sure your assessment of agencies by their coporate IDs is that telling an analysis. Take a look at the thought leaders and people across the agencies who are very active throughout social media. I doubt you will find a group as involved and participating as Ogilvy.

I can speak for my corner of the universe - Ogilvy's 360 Digital Influence team and you will see a very active social media culture via our hub here including cross links to our brothers and sisters across the globe and across all of the disciplines:

www.360digitalinfluence.com

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By craigcooper | craigcooper.com, NY July 6, 2009 08:57:37 am:

"35 million unique global visitors"

Of those, how many are regularly active?

Of that percentage, how many are "real" people and not marketers, hookers and get-rich-quick schemers?

And of those, how many have an income that is not best described as an allowance?

That's the number that matters, please and thank you.

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By ehmie | TORONTO, ON July 6, 2009 09:00:42 am:

I'm the publisher of YummyMummyClub.ca - an online magazine for moms. When I joined twitter I was shocked at how most of the agency and Pr peeps I knew were clueless about this important marketing tool. Together with @unmarketing, the self proclaimed Mayor of Twitterville, we invited a large group who work in advertising/marketing for a seminar on the Do's and Don't of Twitter. Here's a short video with hightlights many may find useful:

http://www.yummymummyclub.ca/twitter_101.

Erica Ehm
twitter.com/yummymummyclub.ca

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By SingularityDesign | Philadelphia, PA July 6, 2009 09:03:17 am:

I think a lot of agencies tend to suffer from "shoemaker's children" syndrome. When they prepare for their clients' accounts, they gather their sharpest minds and follow a prescribed process that leads to success. In many cases, when agencies do their own promotion, they lose that self-discipline and just work on it whenever they can with whatever spare resources are around.

Agencies need to treat their own Twittering, email newsletters and websites with the same TLC and structure that they do for their clients, if they want to get the same level of results. Sometimes its not easy without a client to establish solid expectations, but you just have to bear down and commit to doing it the right way no matter what.

- Jeff Greenhouse
President, Singularity Design
http://www.SingularityDesign.com
http://Twitter.com/SingularityDsgn

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By scottmonty | Dearborn, MI July 6, 2009 09:05:30 am:

I echo what John said (doubly so, since we work with Ogilvy 360). I'm a little troubled that Ad Age's assessment didn't dig deeper to find exactly who from various companies is on Twitter. Various brands have different conventions for naming their accounts, and most companies allow employees to tweet under their own names.

What matters are the interactions with individuals from companies, not a nameless, faceless brand or logo. Since you mention Zappos, I think it's disingenuous to simply focus on Tony (although he leads by example). There are over 400 more Zappos employees on Twitter, having interactions with customers all day. That's a much more scalable - and human - approach than a single company-specific account.

Scott Monty
Global Digital Communications
Ford Motor Company
www.thefordstory.com

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By dilaram | istanbul July 6, 2009 09:17:48 am:

I do agree with Stephen, Erica, etc.

If as an agency you are not aware, or active in these social networks, how can you use them for your brands?

We are, Runway Interactive agency, a rather young, dynamic team here in Istanbul.

The most interesting, innovative brief just landed on our lap.

THY (Turkish Airlines), last week invited us to their Mobile pitch. AND this is where they did a genious job. Instead of sending us the brief itself, they sent us a document with only clues to get to the brief. We had to use several Iphone apps, as well as visit social networks, etc to get to the brief.

Another genious idea that is in the brief, is to seed information during the preparation of the pitch (2 weeks), about THY Mobile brief, our agency, and most importantly document this for the pitch.

They want to see that we can actually use, as well as our expertise on this medium. How smart of them.

I believe all brands should employ this strategy from now on while they are choosing their agencies.

You can follow our adventures on twitter @ thymobile or @thylounge, as well as on thymobile.mobi

Dilara Z. Moran
Runway Interactive
Strategic Planning Advisor

twitter @dilaram

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By DMOSS | Buffalo Grove, IL July 6, 2009 09:27:16 am:

>> Stevewax ... At my company (Campfire) we see Twitter
>> as a gathering place for individuals to share ideas
>> and experiences. It's probably inappropriate for
>> a company or brand to have a Twitter account.

Try YAMMER. Registration (and viewing) is locked down to people who have your company's @address. It has a Twitter-like interface that allows spontaneity while maintaining the security of an Intranet.

As for Twitter, maintaining your marketing presence is a full-time job. If a company isn't willing to dedicate a person to that position, they're better off not having a Twitter presense. On Twitter, bad is globally bad. But good has terrific ROI: ask Starbucks, Wendys, Discovery, Dell, CNN, NPR, TMZ, etc.

Which Ad Agency is going to be the first to develop a Twitter Dept and sell 24/7 marketing for small companies that can't have a dedicated Twitter-position?

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By brianvandeputte | Macomb, MI July 6, 2009 09:43:50 am:

GreyNYInterns

Our four day vacation continues! We aren't even working but we're sort of famous- @adage article about Twitter. http://tinyurl.com/ol4rku26 minutes ago from web

From this tweet, the Grey NY interns come off as sort of egotistical and somewhat ignorant. Did they even read this article? It doesn't exactly sing their praises...

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By Paul | New York, NY July 6, 2009 09:44:01 am:

I am new to Twitter - about a month. Shame on me. But when I learned how to use it, which didn't take very long, I found it both gratifying and addictive. I spent my first couple of days trying to find senior agency executives and agencies to follow and, as has been said, I was stunned to find out how few where there. Agency's are way behind the curve. And how do they expect clients to perceive of them and their services if they are not using the very same media they preach to their paying clients. But that is no different than the poor web sites that most agencies have, including the interactive shops. Agency's still don't "get it" - the first place client's go for information is the website and places like Twitter and Facebook. What a sad commentary this all too true article is.

Paul S. Gumbinner
President
The Gumbinner Company
New York, NY
www.thegumbinnercompany.com

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By AnneDeeterGallaher | Mechanicsburg, PA July 6, 2009 10:28:13 am:

Twitter is a refreshing opportunity for the smaller agencies to compete with larger houses and to attract the attention of larger businesses. Our influence on Twitter is powered by the value of our information. More importantly, it's not the vast number of followers that is a measurement of success, but who those followers are--who is listening to what we're saying.

It doesn't take long on Twitter to understand who in the agency kingdom and who in the business/corporate world "gets it." And thanks to the transparency of the public timeline, a business can easily discern the quality and influence of an agency's Twitter insight. If it's a litany of media releases and self-promotion, the followers and influence dry up. If it's an anticipated flow of marketing wisdom and business expertise, the followers listen and the influence expands.

At the Deeter Gallaher Group LLC, we tweet from our personal profiles (@AnneDGallaher, @MarisaCorser, @JoshMGallaher), and our clients and colleagues appreciate our transparency. We are able to convince our clients/CEOs to engage in social media, because they can see our own efforts. We listen, learn, and share. Social media engagement has produced impressive results for us and our clients and provides an additional messaging platform for traditional communications pieces.

During a Social Media panel for tourism in central Pennsylvania, I told the business audience that before they partner with any agency for social media strategies, ask the agency for their profile names. For Tweeting CEOs and brand humanizers, I have learned volumes from Peter Aceto at @CEO_INGDIRECT Canada and Ford's @ScottMonty. We look forward to more listening, learning, and leading.

Anne Deeter Gallaher,CEO/Owner
Deeter Gallaher Group LLC
www.deetergallahergroup.com

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By giles | london July 6, 2009 10:35:28 am:

@ogilvy has over 14,000 followers, around 10,000 more than most of the other users you mention in the article.

The majority of the content is aggregated from the Ogilvy employee blogs that John mentions above and focuses on the impact that technology is having on the relationships between brands and their audiences.

These posts come from all countries, companies, disciplines and levels and are unfiltered. Consequently the views don't necessarily reflect those of the corporation but the people within it. A fine but very important line.

We endeavour to follow everyone back (we are at about 11,000, it is holiday season after all). We also try to respond the all DMs and @ogilvy comments.

I believe this authenticity and open attitude is one of the drivers of it's relatively large and loyal following (there has been about a 5% drop off over the life of @ogilvy). The majority of feedback is positive and very often enlightening and thought provoking.

We find experimenting in the space for ourselves, rather than talking about it, provides valuable feedback and insight that we can bring to bear to help build our clients businesses.

Giles Rhys Jones
http://interactivemarketingtrends.blogspot.com/
http://www.twitter.com/ogilvy

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By John | Alpharetta, GA July 6, 2009 11:03:05 am:

Parekh writes "perhaps it's better to not be there at all than to be there poorly."

You really can't do poorly if you know who you want to speak with, have something of value to discuss with them, and say it in a way they can appreciate The problem always comes when companies and their agencies lose site of why they are communicating and what results they want the messages to deliver.

Also, it is nearly imnpossible for agency professionals who don't have anything to say to not say anything.

John Ribbler
www.media-proinc.com
www.media-proinc.com/ribblog

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By smackerony | Rotterdam, ZH July 6, 2009 11:18:49 am:

what about @mediaedgecia or @mecglobal and @mecinteraction -> wpp's main media agency / outlet

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By hartmanjon | Minneapolis, MN July 6, 2009 11:35:28 am:

The premise of this article felt a little old school to me.

Social media isn't just another media platform. It's, well, social. It's about interaction.

People interact with people. Like several people have commented above, agencies (or especially holding companies!) with twitter accounts are are kinda weird - like my dad trying to befriend me on Facebook. They're clearly not in on it for altruistic reasons. No one would argue that agencies need to monitor and engage with what's being said about them in the social media world, but to periodically engage in some forced broadcasting of their ideals or offerings? Awkward!

The beautiful thing about twitter is that is transparent, quirky, and personal. God bless the Grey interns for thinking about tequila at 9:30am. You know what? I'm kinda relieved that they are. They're people... I'm guessing 22 or 23 year-olds who aren't getting paid much and are supposed to be creative. Tweeting about tequila makes them real.

Consumer brands (i.e., DMOSS' Starbucks, Dell examples) act as entities. Their brands need to be carefully molded, and so singular communication from them makes sense.

But clients don't hire an agency anymore, they hire the people... the real, live, quirky, breathing, individual people with ideas and opinions, and kids, and jokes. Those are the people I want to hear from on twitter.

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By jessebrightman | NEW YORK, NY July 6, 2009 11:53:35 am:

As a Grey Healthcare Group INTERN, not to be confused with Grey's summer interns, I feel like the @greynyintern twitter account puts interns in a bad light. I use to tell people I am interning at Grey, but since this article, I will be sure to make the distinction.

For me, the most dissappointing part is the fact that I have worked my butt off to get this internship opportunity and have been complimented on my ideas and work ethic (I am an account person). These creative interns at the other Grey building are setting Grey Healthcare Group and other agency interns back. I hope this AdAge article does not let this be the face of agency interns. Arrogance and ignorance should be the last thing any intern should have, because we are lucky to have the opportunity to prove ourselves while gaining insight into an industry that many of us feel so passionate about.

I BEG YOU ALL, PLEASE DO NOT LET A FEW INTERNS ON TWITTER LEAVE A SOUR TASTE IN YOUR MOUTH.

Jesse Brightman
Jesse@Brightman.com
Twitter: @jessebrightman

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By jdysart | CHICAGO, IL July 6, 2009 12:07:07 pm:

Interesting story, Rupal, with a diverse assortment of perspectives on the use of Twitter—from novices to more seasoned users. Between articles such as yours (and the comments that follow) as well as the examples of others, I think this is where the real learning takes place, giving everyone an opportunity to learn from others and improve on their use of the tool. So there are definitely some good takeaways here.

As manager of Draftfcb's Twitter feed (@draftfcb) I definitely feel our biggest challenge right now centers on responding to direct messages and replies. Not because of a concern with regards to messaging, but timing as I juggle all of the day's other tasks. I've actually found that a great resource has been other agency employees. If someone asks about a job, I can direct them to people here like @creativeadgigs or @AConnJob who are using their feeds to find talent. The same is true for people who are looking to learn about the agency's other disciplines or work. I think it's equally important to know what others in the agency are doing with their feeds and utilizing them as a resource if you can.

Josh Dysart
Manager, Corporate Communications
Draftfcb

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By craigcooper | craigcooper.com, NY July 6, 2009 12:30:34 pm:

Advertising Age (or have you already renamed yourself Twittering Age?), you have already described Twitter as "social-networking tool du jour."

Perhaps these agencies feel the same way.

Permalink

By craigcooper | craigcooper.com, NY July 6, 2009 12:34:49 pm:

Advertising Age (or have you already renamed yourself Twittering Age?), you have already described Twitter as "social-networking tool du jour."

Perhaps these agencies feel the same way.

Permalink

By nmckinney | AUSTIN, TX July 6, 2009 12:42:15 pm:

I help monitor our Twitter for GSD&M Idea City. I find our biggest challenge has been finding a voice that works for us and for our followers. Recently a twitter follower put @IdeaCity under a microscope saying that there was no "conversation" and nothing "personal" about our tweets. And, to be honest - that was something we struggled with when we first started posting.

Ultimately, we had to do what was right for us. We figured our followers were people who were either potential hires, potential clients, vendors, those interested in advertising or fans of Austin, TX (where we are headquartered). As such, we try to use this as the guiding light for our tweets: Is it about us, advertising, our people, clients or Austin? If it isn't, we don't put it out there.

Our advice? Do what fits your brand, and don't let people say you are doing it wrong. If you are there, reading tweets and trying to get a sense of the space, you are at least doing something right.

The Year The Newspaper Died. What's next? Blogs?

2009-07-04T10:01:00.000-07:00

from Silicon Alley Insider by Preethi Dumpala

As you may have noticed, newspapers have had a rough 2009. But you may not quite appreciate the magnitude of the collapse.

So far this year:

105 newspapers have been shuttered.
10,000 newspaper jobs have been lost.
Print ad sales fell 30% in Q1 '09.
23 of the top 25 newspapers reported circulation declines between 7% and 20%.

BET Awards Ratings Soar Thanks to Michael Jackson, Twitter

2009-07-01T21:41:00.000-07:00

Net Used Social-Media Tool to Announce New Acts, Encourage Fan Feedback

by Andrew Hampp
Published: June 30, 2009

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Broadcast networks may have gotten a boost from Michael Jackson tributes over the weekend, but the biggest beneficiary was Sunday night's BET Awards. The Viacom cable network's annual ceremony was the year's highest-rated cable telecast, with 10.65 million viewers watching live-plus-same day, thanks to its last-minute tribute to the late singer and more than a little help from a partnership with Twitter.

Jamie Foxx honors Michael Jackson on Sunday night's BET Awards.

Photo Credit: BET

On Thursday afternoon, just hours before Mr. Jackson would be pronounced dead at UCLA Medical Center, Scott Mills, chief operating officer, was touting the network's rapidly growing presence on Twitter, which had doubled to more than 20,000 by June 25 from just more than 10,000 followers on June 22. The @betawards Twitter account was used to announce new artists just moments after they had been booked to perform at the show. Viewer feedback and comments were collected for a "Wall of Tweets" that appeared on the network's website and will also appear on-air during the show's repeat airings on June 30, July 2 and July 6.

Mr. Mills said last Thursday of Twitter, "Unlike mobile or online voting, it's the immediacy that gives it extraordinary resonance. So many of the artists and celebrities that are part of the show are either participating or attendees and have giant followings online, so this is exactly the kind of thing their followers would like to be aware of. We want to leverage that opportunity to make the people who aren't in the venue but watching the show at home feel a part, too, by encouraging those constituencies to tweet while they're enjoying the show."

By Sunday night, the followers numbered 40,000-plus, with BET Awards-related terms accounting for all 10 Twitter trending topics at one point during the show's three-and-a-half-hour telecast. Traffic to BET.com also saw a 100% increase over last year's BET Awards coverage, and broke the site's records for best two-day total for unique users for the June 28 and June 29.

Although the Twitter partnership wasn't a revenue-sharing effort, Chloe Sladden, Twitter's director-media partnerships, said, "We're in an experimental phase -- we're focused on learning and developing creative audience-building approached with our broadcast collaborators."

The Jackson effect
Although the BET Awards regularly ranks as the network's highest-rated telecast each year, BET Networks CEO Debra Lee readily acknowledged the role Mr. Jackson's tribute played in helping this year's show go above and beyond all previous ceremonies.

"The number of viewers who tuned in to see the BET Awards '09 is a testament to Michael Jackson's far-reaching and long-lasting influence and legacy," Ms. Lee said in a statement. "We're thankful to everyone who played a role in the show, both onstage and behind the camera, and it meant so much to all of us to be there for our audience at this emotional time."

The show's sponsors also got a big boost from the larger-than-anticipated audience. Kmart sponsored its first award, the "Best Collegiate Athlete Award" on behalf of the Protégé Apparel athletic line sold exclusively at its stores, during the "106 & Park" pre-show, which attracted a network-best 3.1 million total viewers. Ford also used the pre-show to promote its 2010 Ford Fusion and the Lincoln MKS, the full-size luxury vehicles that served as hosts throughout the red-carpet coverage. Procter & Gamble sponsored the "My Black Is Beautiful Post-Show," which garnered a record-setting 5.2 million viewers, plugging its Queen Collection brand, endorsed by Queen Latifah.

Louis Carr, BETN's president of broadcast media sales, called the BET Awards the "black Super Bowl." "When you look at the numbers this show garners, the type of demand for tickets, the stars we have and the red carpet of any sort of tent-pole award show on television, it clearly comes off as the biggest family event for our audience," he said.

Fox Sports To Twitter During Baseball's All-Star Game

2009-06-30T08:45:00.000-07:00

Get ready for sportscasters to increasingly tweet from the booth as they call games. Fox Sports is offering a sample of what's likely to come when a roving reporter will use Twitter during the broadcast of baseball's All-Star Game next month.

Ken Rosenthal, who provides reports from the stands and elsewhere, will answer viewer-submitted questions between his on-camera appearances during the game July 14. He will also use Twitter as a venue to offer thoughts and opinions during the coverage.

Many believe the promise of Twitter is interactivity with those -- be they celebrities or simply people at work -- who were previously unavailable.

Fox Sports president Ed Goren called Twitter "a communications phenomenon that continues to grow. Our hope is that those who follow us on Twitter" will have a deeper connection with the broadcast.

Rosenthal, who is also becoming an on-air personality for the MLB Network, may be offering a template for sportscasters going forward: reporting on-air, as well as via Internet sites Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

"I'm sure time will permit me only a few on-air opportunities during the [All-Star Game], so this gives me a forum to answer as many questions from fans as possible and report more of what I learn and observe," Rosenthal said.

Has Twitter Displaced Search, Portals, and News? The New Portal to News?

2009-06-28T12:20:00.000-07:00

Michael Jackson, Twitter and TMZ

Following the tragic death of Michael Jackson last night, UK Internet visits to his homepage increased 17 fold. Yesterdaywww.michaeljackson.com was the 9th most visited Music website in the UK, and the highest ranked artist homepage.

TMZ, the website that originally broke the story, picked up 1 in every 1,100 UK Internet visits yesterday, making it the 73rd most visited website overall. Given that the site usually ranks somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 in the UK, this was a 20-fold increase in visits.

Of course, the subject is dominating conversations on Twitter and – as the chart below illustrates – the micro-blogging service had its busiest every day in the UK yesterday. That the spike wasn’t quite as huge as may be expected is probably due to the fact that news broke so late UK time. Given the time difference, my guess is that my US colleagues will have some more representative stats that show the true impact later today.

Twittering the Iran Election

Following the elections that took place in Iran on June 12, Twitter has become one of the most popular mediums for distributing information about the protests. Daily visits to Twitter.com (excludes mobile & desktop applications) increased 13% on June 12th as compared to the previous Friday and traffic jumped 23% Wednesday, June 17th from news and photos of the massive rallies taking place in Iran.

Among all of the search terms driving traffic to Twitter.com in the US, ‘iran election’ ranked #13 out of 4,303 last week. Conversely, Twitter.comreceived the highest share of clicks from queries for ‘iran election’, one of the most common hashtags for the coverage, even ranking aboveGoogle News.

In addition to Twitter, YouTube has also become another outlet for news as video coverage of the protest activities have been uploaded. The popularity of both Twitter and YouTube showcase the ability to disseminate information when many major news outlets are unable.

Twitter sending traffic to online media sites, but not online retailers

2009-06-25T13:38:00.000-07:00

Ed:

Huge growth for Twitter in UK to match USA growth. Easy mobile access adds to Twitter's mindshare.
Growing source of traffic for media sites - but legacy media/blogs has been slow to adapt (In contrast, with our top pagerank at Google and thousands of subscribers, Twitter has become the #1 source of traffic for this blog.)
Emerging source for commerce. (Tearn Media has already succeeded to turn Twitter followings to dollars retail. Optimization will lead to ROI surpassing legacy marketing.)

UK Internet traffic to Twitter, the “micro-blogging” service and social network, has increased 22-fold over the last 12 months. During May 2009 www.twitter.com ranked as the 38th most visited website in the UK and the fifth most visited social network. Just one year ago, in May 2008, it was the 969th most visited website and 84th most visited social network.

Twitter has been the fastest growing major website in the UK over the last 12 months, and certainly the most talked about. The noticeable thing about Twitter’s growth is that the vast majority of it – 93% in fact – has occurred during 2009. If anything, the service is even more popular than our numbers imply, as we are only measuring traffic to the main Twitter website. If people accessing their Twitter accounts via mobile phones and third party applications (such as Twitterific, Twitterfeed and Tweetdeck) were included, the numbers could be even higher.

One consequence of its phenomenal growth is that Twitter has become a key source of traffic to other websites. During May 2009 Twitter was the 30th biggest source of traffic for other sites in the UK, accounting for 1 in every 350 visits to a typical website. Over half of this traffic (55.9%) is sent to other content-driven online media sites, such as social networks, blogs, and news and entertainment websites. However, only 9.5% of Twitter’s downstream traffic is sent to transactional websites (i.e. travel, business and finance sites, plus online retailers). By contrast, Google UK (the country’s biggest search engine and source of traffic to other websites) sends 30.7% of its traffic to transactional sites, while for Facebook (the UK’s most popular social network), the figure is 14.7%.

Twitter has proven to be a fantastic source of traffic for content driven sites, and the media companies with a strong presence on the service are using it to great effect. However, with one or two exceptions (most notably Dell, which claims to generated $3m via Twitter), very few transactional websites have yet used Twitter to drive sales. During May, Google UK sent 365 times more traffic to transactional websites than Twitter. Given that Twitter has yet to settle on a business model that will take advantage of its huge, loyal user base, this is an issue that needs to be addressed by the people that run the company if they are to make the service a financial as well as popular success...

Smaller blogs and technology sites were amongst the first to benefit from Twitter, but mainstream media websites in the UK were quick to follow their lead. Twitter was the 27th biggest source of traffic to News and Media – Print websites in the UK during May, and all of the main newspaper websites now have multiple Twitter feeds.

The key to having a successful Twitter presence is to engage the community. Twitter is a great viral marketing channel, and for many users the aim is to have their story ‘retweeted’ – i.e. passed on by other users – as many times as possible. Although all of the newspapers have multiple ‘official’ feeds, these tend to be bland and have very low ‘retweet’ rates. Where journalists themselves are ‘tweeting’ themselves and engaging with the Twitter community, they typically have more success in creating viral stories.

5 Rules for Advertising on Twitter

2009-06-22T19:53:00.000-07:00

Can you buy a tweet as an ad on Twitter? Yes.

Can you sell a tweet as an ad on Twitter? Yes, but...

Here's some background to guide your decisions.

Rules for Sellers

Do you have 50,000 followers? Or at least 20,000? Advertisers have no interest to buy a smaller audience.
Can you tweet frequently enough to give advertisers the impressions that they need?
Can you deliver enough clicks to beat AdWords? Does the rate you charge beat Adwords' average of $0.50 per click?
Assuming that you can deliver 100 clicks per day for an ad buyer, who will sell the ads? How much will it cost to sell the ads?
At $50 per day, does this revenue cover your selling cost and tweeting time?

Like any media, building the circulation, selling ads, and distributing tweets is a fulltime job. Do you have the will, skills, and tenacity?

Why Buy Ads on Twitter

Why would marketers buy tweets as ads on Twitter?

Gain suspects as followers
Call to action through clicks on tweets
Digital word-of-mouth through satisfied customers

This is the role of a Twitter network.

Rules for Buying Twitter Ads

Hundreds of Twitter networks claim to deliver. A strong Twitter ad network helps marketers gain on all aspects of the marketing funnel, i.e. followers, clicks, and re-tweets. Here's what to look for:

Huge followings and tweet frequency matters. Without both, advertisers cannot gain enough impressions to earn followers, clicks, and re-tweets.
Avoid the hard sell. Keep your tweets entertaining and educational. Twitter is a social network, not condusive to a one-tweet close.
Can you target with relevant ads? Not in the traditional sense of a purchased mailing list. Those who say otherwise, don't understand Twitter. If they check their followers, it shows a rainbow of interests. Saying targeted, they are selling what you want to hear. The majority of people follow on Twitter as a social gesture, not common interests. Further, the Twitter SUL (Suggested User List) pushes newbies to follow random accounts. However, the clicks are targeted since users opt-in on tweets that interest them. Thus, #1 above rules completely when applied to Twitter marketing.
Should you use a third-party ad system that sends tweets on unknown accounts? Like all advertising, it's better to associate with known parties when sending your ads as tweets. Rather than 20,000 accounts with 50 followers each; it's better to use 50 accounts with 20,000 followers each. The latter lends more credibility, brand image; and thus better results.
Many tweets is better than one repetitive tweet. As stated in rule 2, keep the conversation entertaining and interesting.

Should you buy Twitter ads?

Yes.

It's inexpensive, more comprehensive in terms of measured ROI; and in the hands of the right Twitter network - incredibly effective.

Have you had success with Twitter marketing?

For TechCrunch, Twitter = Traffic (A Statistical Breakdown)

2009-06-14T07:57:00.000-07:00

Ed: Techcrunch finally gets 25% of the real Twitter story. Will the rest of the media get over the "p*nis-envy" and wake up to the new reality of web 3.0?

Some people use Twitter to organize street protests in Tehran. Some people use it to share their daily thoughts and observation. But it is increasingly becoming clear that one of the most powerful ways people use Twitter is as a social information filter and link distributor. Over the past few months, TechCrunch has experienced the power of this micro-media firsthand as the percentage of traffic we get from Twitter has grown to the point that it is now our second largest source of outside traffic after Google. In the past 30 days, Twitter accounted for 9.7 percent of all traffic to Techcrunch.com, up from 1.8 percent six months ago. This is out of millions of visits.

Looking at our Google Analytics numbers, here is the breakdown of visits to TechCrunch by source over the past 30 days:

Top Sources of Traffic To TechCrunch
1. Google: 32.7%
2. Direct: 22.7%
3. Twitter: 9.7%
4. Digg: 7.4%
5. Techmeme: 2.4%
6. Other: 25.1%

Twitter has been rising up that chart, just recently surpassing Digg. TechCrunch is certainly not typical of most Websites, but this data certainly shows the potential of Twitter to generate traffic. A large portion of that traffic comes from the TechCrunch account on Twitter, which has nearly 715,000 followers (it is one of the accounts suggested to new users). For many people, Twitter is replacing their RSS readers. One of the ways we use that account is to Tweet out links to our stories, which then spread virally as followers retweet those links. Retweets are becoming a new type of link currency. We are big believers in retweets (in fact, there is now a retweet button at the bottom of every post).

About a month ago we started using Awe.sm, which lets us send out our own custom short links (http://tcrn.ch) and track how much traffic we get from them. About 73 percent of our Twitter traffic comes from people clicking on an http://tcrn.ch short link. Another 23 percent comes directly from Twitter.com via other short links such as bit.ly’s.

We can also approximate how much Twitter traffic comes from desktop and mobile clients. At least 44 percent of Twitter traffic comes from clients, and that counts people clicking directly on http://tcrn.ch links from those clients. So the true number is easily more than half.

For us, and I’d argue increasingly for other large Websites as well, Twitter is not just about micro-media. The most powerful Tweets are those which point elsewhere. Or to put it another way, the shortened link may just be the most powerful type of micro-media there is. Those retweeted links are turning Twitter into a social broadcast media that rivals any other on the Web.

(Photo credit: Flickr/Brett Weinstein)

Facebook Trumps MySpace, Twitter Among NBA, Nascar Fans

2009-06-11T09:07:00.000-07:00

Ed: My guess is that the absolute number of participants was pathetic - raising questions about the statistical significance of this article/conclusion.

Turner: But Those on MySpace Are the Most Vocal When Using 'Social TV'

by Abbey Klaassen
Published: June 08, 2009

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Pop quiz: What is the social network to which Nascar fans flock?

If you guessed Facebook, you would be right -- at least according to data from Turner Networks, which recently made Nascar and NBA viewing social by letting users sign in to the various online networks to chat about the basketball games and races. But MySpace users are the most vociferous and accounted for the largest percentage of chatter about live sporting events.

Users watching the NBA's Eastern Conference Finals could log on to Turner's companion websites and chat with fellow viewers.

MySpace: Most vocal
Turner launched the social-viewing option using a service called Socialize from social-media technology provider Gigya. Users watching the NBA's Eastern Conference Finals or Nascar's Pocono 500 live could log on to Turner's companion websites using Facebook, MySpace or Twitter (or a combination of those) to chat with fellow viewers. The cable network found Facebook represented, on average, 48% of Socialize log-ins during the NBA games, while MySpace came in a very close second at 40%. Twitter users composed 12%. But from a message-volume standpoint, MySpace users were the most vocal, accounting for 53% of all the messages sent.

In last weekend's Nascar race, the Pocono 500, the difference among log-ins was more pronounced: Facebook accounted for 54% of users; MySpace was half that at 27% and Twitter trailed with 10%. Again, MySpace users talked the most, accounting for 44% of message volume despite only 27% of log-ins.

"I think everyone was surprised at how competitive MySpace was," said Dave Yovanno, CEO of Gigya. "It's not an all-Facebook social web -- users have choice. MySpace is not out and, in fact, was very competitive in terms of total connections and messages." Mr. Yovanno suggests there will be consolidation on the social web, "but we expect there to always be a few dominant platforms."

Turner's agnostic view
The practice of letting people log into TV network's website through their social-network IDs was made popular when CNN.com encouraged those viewing President Barack Obama's inauguration online to sign in using their Facebook accounts so they could chat live; shortly after that Turner used the same service, called Facebook Connect, to let users chat while watching the NBA All-Star Game. But over the past couple weeks, Turner became the first TV network to adopt an agnostic view, letting users sign into MySpace, Facebook and Twitter.

"We were going to allow the Facebook guy to chat with the MySpace guy to chat with the Twitter guy," said Matthew Hong, VP-general manager of sports digital at Turner Sports.

In both cases, on-air mentions drove people to the Turner sites where Socialize lived. During the Nascar race, the on-TV commentators also answered questions from the social-networked audience.

Turner isn't releasing total numbers of users who logged in using their social-network IDs, but Mr. Hong said it was pleased by the "better user experience and higher engagement," as indicated by the time people are hanging out in Turner's interactive environments. "The early return is it gives people an opportunity to participate in our content," he said.

That Twitter, which just launched its own Facebook Connect service, called Log in With Twitter, trailed the other two networks shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone following web traffic trends. Despite the hype and rapid recent growth, Twitter has far fewer users than Facebook or MySpace. According to ComScore's figures for April, Twitter notched 17 million unique visitors to Facebook's 67.5 million and MySpace's 71 million.

How the numbers break down

Nascar on TNT (Pocono 500) Users:
MySpace: 27%
Facebook: 54%
Twitter: 19%

Nascar on TNT (Pocono 500) Messages:
MySpace: 44%
Facebook: 37%
Twitter: 18%

NBA Eastern Conference Finals Users (average of all games):
MySpace: 40%
Facebook: 48%
Twitter: 12%

NBA Eastern Conference Finals Messages (average of all games):
MySpace: 53%
Facebook: 35%
Twitter: 12%

Why YouTube Will Sink or Swim With Midtail-Shows like Obama Girl

2009-06-10T09:00:00.000-07:00

'Midtail' Content Safer for Advertisers Than User-Generated Fare

by Michael Learmonth
Published: June 08, 2009

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Forget Hollywood. YouTube's future lies less in "Desperate Housewives" and more in low-budget fare from producers such as Next New Networks, Machinima, Howcastand MondoMedia. That's because for all the sound and fury over studio deals, long-form content just isn't that popular on YouTube. Rather, it's the so-called midtail content, which fills a niche somewhere between studio-produced and user-generated fare, that's exploded.

It's a category that didn't really exist before YouTube, but will play more than a bit part in its future because it supplies the biggest pool of brand-safe ad impressions, fertile ground for YouTube's overlays and banners, and malleable content for brand integrations it can peddle to Madison Avenue.

2 billion views
The top-100 midtail producers -- including names such as College Humor, Smosh and MyDamnChannel -- have racked up more than 2 billion views during the past six months on YouTube, growing nearly 5% a month on average, according to video analytics firm TubeMogul. Meanwhile, the full-length hour-long and half-hour TV shows on YouTube, 3,215 episodes in all, have accumulated 19.5 million views.

YouTube's biggest TV partner to date, CBS, has only 6.9 million views across 315 TV episodes in the year it has had shows on the site, which represents the equivalent of a bad night for "Two and a Half Men" on TV, and a mere speck on the 1.5 billion views YouTube streams around the world each day. (Granted, part of YouTube's dismal numbers for studio-produced shows are because its TV catalog consists of titles such as "I Dream of Jeannie" and "Fantasy Island," not current hits such as "30 Rock" and "24.").

"The closest thing as made-for-YouTube is this midtail; it's more snack-size -- you're watching at work when you have less time," said TubeMogul CEO Brett Wilson. "As audiences grow, this will be more profitable for YouTube than selling ESPN's content."

It is becoming even more important now that most of the valuable rights to major TV shows are locked up with Hulu for the next two years. But even if YouTube gets more studio content -- or a distribution deal with Hulu -- it's hard to see Google making a business out of YouTube without cultivating a healthy ecosystem of semi-pro or midtail video, whose brand-safe content has devoted, if small, audiences and is unencumbered by complicated rights issues around pay TV, DVD or international windows.

"Our shows are built to be semi-pro, a whole step up from user-generated but not intended to feel like heavily produced television," said Lance Podell, CEO of Next New Networks.

Not major money-makers
Making video for YouTube isn't making anyone rich, and production companies producing web fare operate on very low overhead and tiny margins, if they're making any profit at all. At least two have folded during the recession, ManiaTV and 60Frames. Several others are heavily venture-backed, and need to scale quickly.

But as audiences grow, they become more attractive to marketers looking for cheap video integrations. YouTube producers with their own sales operations routinely include YouTube in agency pitches, giving them entrée to brand-advertising dollars. And small content partners are routinely part of YouTube's pitch.

A few producers earn in excess of $1 million a month in the form of advertising revenue-sharing deals with YouTube, where the producer typically gets 55% of the gross. And because many of these companies live or die on small YouTube tweaks, such as a change to the home-page architecture, Google's VP-strategic partnerships, David Eun, includes YouTube's partners in talks about its plans through a program it calls Strategic Partner Development.

Some producers privately grumble that YouTube isn't doing enough and has courted Hollywood at their expense. It is making concessions to Hollywood that it won't grant to indie content providers, such as integrating proprietary video players for Disney and creating a "shows" section of the home page to showcase TV content away from the user-generated hoi polloi. YouTube softened its TV-only stance in that section, but it's unclear who will get showcased and who won't. Spokesman Aaron Zamost said YouTube is "flexible" on the content that ends up there and wouldn't rule out "graduating the most popular content from these kinds of midtail partners to the 'shows' section." The genre, he said, is a key way YouTube hopes to boost the percentage of videos it can sell to advertisers.

YouTube has begun working with Blip.tv, which is accumulating 70 million views a month with energetic little web shows such as "Average Betty" and the "The Mortified Shoebox Show," and Freewheel, a video-ad server founded by ex-DoubleClick execs that makes it easier for both producers and YouTube to sell video ad inventory.

"In the end, what works for YouTube is to be the default place to watch video online, like Craigslist for classified ads or Google for search," said Jim Louderback, CEO of Revision3. "In order to do that, they have to have everything there."

Where to Find the Marketer Opportunities in the New iPhone 3GS

2009-06-09T09:36:00.000-07:00

Ed:

$99 for old 3G
$199 for faster, better camera, more location integration 3GS
Repeat of 1990's ideas for mobile marketing

How Apple's New Device Changes Mobile Behavior

by Rita Chang
Published: June 08, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO (AdAge.com) -- Apple executives didn't throw any curve balls at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference today in San Francisco. But the iterative changes hidden within a new, faster iPhone -- and the previously announced software upgrade -- could change not just consumer but also advertiser behavior. Here's a run-down of what's new and what it means to marketers.

The iPhone 3GS is being billed by Apple as the 'fastest, most powerful iPhone.'

Photo Credit: Apple

What's new: Apple introduced the new iPhone 3GS, which includes an updated operating system. It will hit AT&T stores, its exclusive carrier, for $199 with a contract.

Why it matters for marketers: Speed (yes, that's what the "S" stands for) is the key. Billed by Apple as the "fastest, most powerful iPhone," the new handset from the Cupertino, Calif.-based company will provide faster downloads, while the phone's greater memory and processing speed will allow advertisers to dial up more rich-media ad units. The news coincides with AT&T's recent announcement that it is upgrading its 3G network to deliver data faster.

"People are already using their phones as mini-computers," said Tina Unterlaender, account director at digital agency AKQA. "But the faster speeds will change user behavior even more. It's going to change the way whole new generations access the internet, and it's going to mean that brands will have to redistribute their marketing mix if they want to reach a young group."

Krish Arvapally, chief technology officer of mobile ad platform provider Mojiva, said since Apple announced its new iPhone software in March, it has seen a 20% increase in the number of advertisers who say they want to target iPhone users.

What's new: Apple said it would lower the price of its current 3G iPhone to $99 (with a contract) to make room for the iPhone 3GS.

Why it matters for marketers: This should mean greater reach for a smartphone that has generated a lot of gadget envy but is still only used by about 5% of all U.S. wireless users. And, according to Chetan Sharma Consulting, a drop in AT&T's service plan pricing could yield the carrier an additional 20%-25% subscribers per quarter. But if AT&T doesn't budge on its service pricing, then about 5% of AT&T users would likely opt for the 3G iPhone.

Ms. Unterlaender noted if AT&T were to offer more attractive pricing, it could add younger demographic including teenagers to the mix of iPhone users, who until now have been mostly an affluent older set.

What's new: The new Safari web browser will have built-in location-based technology.

Why it matters for marketers: Until now, marketers had to count on users to enter their ZIP codes in a browser to geo-target offers via the mobile web. But this isn't optimal when a retailer wants to know when someone is within 100 feet of its front door. Now, with the Safari web browser pulling the users' location data into the browser experience, marketers could serve geo-targeted ads to any iPhone user with an open browser -- assuming the user has allowed the website operator to track his location.

On a related note, the iPhone 3GS will also sport a digital compass that tells users which direction they're facing, with integrated mapping applications to automatically orient the map in the corresponding direction. Jamie Wells, director of mobile at OMD's Ignition Factory, said he could see advertisers using the compass feature to make their creative more engaging -- for example, a vendor selling merchandise at a sporting event could serve ads that instruct users to point their iPhone at the nearest concession stand to get a coupon.

What's new: The iPhone 3GS allows users to record and edit video, then upload the clips directly to YouTube or share them via e-mail or multimedia messaging directly from the phone.

Why it matters for marketers: As advertisers wait in the wings for mobile video viewing to take off, some say Apple's introduction of video features could jump-start people's habit to view and interact with video on their phones. John SanGiovanni, VP of product design at Zumobi, an app developer and network, said the company is now talking to two brands about creating apps that lets users capture images of themselves doing green, eco-conscious things for the environment, and Michael Chang of Greystripe notes that the "better camera plus the faster network bandwidth could be the start of mobile video renaissance."

What's new: Currently, iPhone users have to punch in each character of their passwords, names, addresses, phone numbers, but a new "auto-fill" function, part of the new iPhone operating system, can remember that data.

Why it matters for marketers: For brands trying to expand their mobile-marketing database or acquire new users, the iPhone's new auto-fill feature could remove a barrier in getting users to sign on. "This means less friction to acquire users; it should lower acquisition costs for lead-gen advertisers like Netflix," noted Jason Spero, VP-general manager, North America, at mobile ad network AdMob.

Michelob Joins Keg Party at Twitter, but Will Its Tweets Draw Heat?

2009-06-02T08:14:00.000-07:00

Trouble May Follow A-B, Given Age-Verification Flap That Felled Bud.TV

by Jeremy Mullman Published: June 01, 2009

CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- Twitter users who opt to follow the online musings of Anheuser-Busch's Michelob may be surprised to receive a quick direct-message inquiry from the beer brand asking if they're of legal drinking age.

Being asked how old they are isn't likely to deter underage drinkers desperate to read Michelob's tweets, which focus on beer styles and food pairings and the like. But it does underscore how carefully alcohol marketers -- required by industry guidelines to limit ad messages to venues where at least 70% of the audience is of legal drinking age -- are treading into Twitter.

Michelob is A-B's only tweeting brand, while its chief rival, MillerCoors, has yet to use Twitter at all for marketing purposes. "It's appealing to us, but we're looking at how we'd wash it against the marketing code," said a MillerCoors spokesman.

Tom Shipley, senior director-digital marketing at A-B, said the brewer is using Twitter "because our adult consumers increasingly want to have a conversation with us." He said asking would-be followers how old they are is consistent with the age checks the brewer uses on its branded websites.

Age-verification concerns with online media have flummoxed A-B before. Its much-touted Bud.tv site, on which it spent millions creating its own content, was ultimately undermined by a vigorous firewall that checked viewers' age claims against databases of state IDs, in some cases keeping out of-age consumers. Yet activists and state attorneys general said A-B wasn't doing enough to keep underage users off the site, leaving the No. 1 brewer in a lose-lose situation.

'Lack of dignity'
It wouldn't be hard for brewers and distillers to provoke a similar backlash regarding social networks. "Twitter is for kids, and this is a way to put these brand names in their faces," said George Hacker, director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which lobbies for more restrictions on alcohol marketing. "This is just the latest example of a lack of real dignity in the industry."

And that's in response to relatively few efforts from older-skewing brands such as Michelob and Beam Global's upscale Tres Generaciones line extension of its Sauza tequila brand, which retails for upward of $40 a bottle.

Beam, which adopted more-stringent codes for its marketing in 2007, has created a Twitter persona for deceased tequila patriarch Don Cenobio Sauza.

Peter Wijk, senior director-global tequilas at Beam, said Twitter is a perfect fit with Beam's word-of-mouth-driven approach to brand marketing, which puts the company's entire marketing budget in the service of creating chatter about its brands. "We want to have brands people want to talk about, and social media is an excellent way to start a dialogue," he said.

But can Beam, which earned plaudits in 2007 by adopting tougher marketing standards than the spirits industry requires, do that without skirting its own guidelines? Mr. Wijk said it can, noting that Twitter provides the company with demographics information that shows that more than 75% of the people reading its communications are of legal drinking age.

Still, he said, social media is not a risk-free proposition for brewers and distillers. Sauza, he said, has spawned a series of fan pages on Facebook and other corners of the internet, and there's no guarantee those sites will show the brand in a good light, or to the right audience. "You do let go of some control in social media," he said. "In our industry, that can be somewhat worrying."

Google Wave Drips With Ambition. A New Communication Platform For A New Web.

2009-06-01T20:09:00.000-07:00

Ed: Despite the excitement:

What is Wave? The flash features aside, Wave tries to replace SMTP and POP, with a new infrastructure. No chance.
Wave is realtime structure for storing documents and edits in pieces, allowing many to edit and view at the same time; and playback of the edits. How often do we need realtime edit? Not often. How complex is this hack? Very.
Will it scale to hundreds of participants? Problably not. Thus, it does not address the Facebook model of friends, or Twitter's new publishing model - Apples to Oranges.
Even with a slick interface full of cheap thrills, will enterprises that are using Lotus or Sharepoint rip out their infrastructure and training to use Wave? Too expensive.
Will enterprises that are not using collaboration suddenly feel the impulse to try? Not likely.
Will small technology businesses adopt quickly? Absolutely.

In summary, Wave has its place, but won't be the big wave that they or the public hopes to see. If they execute poorly, it'll be a wave that disappears pretty quickly. Just an opinion.

by MG Siegler on May 28, 2009

Yesterday, during the Google I/O keynote, Google’s VP of Engineering, Vic Gundotra, laid out a grand vision for the direction Google sees the web heading towards with the move to the HTML 5 standard. While we’re not there yet, all the major browser players besides Microsoft are aligned and ready for the next phase, which will include such things as the ability to run 3D games and movies in the browser without additional plug-ins. But Google wants to take it one step further with a brand new method of communication for this new era. It’s called Google Wave.

Everyone uses email and instant messaging on the web now, but imagine if you could tie those two forms of communication together and add a load of functionality on top of it. At its most fundamental form, that’s essentially what Wave is. Developed by brothers Lars and Jens Rasmussenand Stephanie Hannon out of Google’s Sydney, Australia offices, Wave was born out of the idea that email and instant messaging, as successful as they still are, were both created a very long time ago. We now have a much more robust web full of content and brimming with a desire to share stuff. Or as Lars Rasumussen put it, “Wave is what email would look like if it were invented today.”