Social Marketing Insider

May 20 2013

Online Advertising, Social Media, Social Network

Yahoo hopes for new life in deal for Tumblr

This week marks a new era for Yahoo and popular blogging service Tumblr. In a $1.1 billion deal on Sunday, Yahoo acquired the site in hopes of planning to shift itself as the technology industry heads towards social media agencies. This deal would exceed the largest acquisition of a social networking company in years, even Facebook’s $1 billion purchase of Instagram in 2012. Yahoo says that it will keep Tumblr as a separate entity, as founder David Karp will be kept on board as CEO.

With this deal, Yahoo will have access to a younger user demographic, as Tumblr’s age bracket is strongest from 18-24. In addition, this age bracket is a fast-growing number of consumers who are in general very engaged with the Internet and social media. Yahoo expects to expand its audience by 50% to more than a billion monthly visitors, and to grow traffic by 20%, through its acquisition of Tumblr.

The biggest question about the deal is how Yahoo and Tumblr will be utilizing advertising and other monetizing services on the site. Although it seems likely that some type of advertising will be used on the site, both Yahoo and Tumblr confirm that advertising opportunities will be created seamlessly to enhance the user’s experience. All in all, Yahoo and Tumblr are a big deal and only time will tell if users will adapt to new changes to make it successful, or if bloggers will jump ship and deem the deal a failure.

As the tech industry moves towards social media motivated ventures, digital marketing agencies can use this towards their advantage. With greater resources from large corporations, many social media outlets that were once small startups can now be more efficient in consolidating searches and information, as well as fixing problems faster and widening the audience.

It’s Official: Yahoo is Buying Tumblr for $1.1B, Vows to Keep It Independent

Tagged tumblr, Yahoo

Apr 16 2013

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Pinterest, Social Media

Innovative uses of social media: The Age of Post-Social Media?

Over the last decade the world has developed an expertise in all things social media. We are connecting, interacting, sharing, performing and working social. Within this globalized social landscape, information barriers and cultural boundaries are no longer obstacles. The world and its people are at the click of a ‘like’.

UNICEF’s Pinterest Board: Really want these

The uses of social media have become traditional, making it all the more opportunistic for out-of-the-box initiatives. Mashable’s recent article, “10 Innovative Uses of Pinterest” by Matt Petronzio sheds light on the many unconventional ways non-profit organizations are using social media, highlighting a recent UNICEF platform on Pinterest. Pinterest is driven by the content of images, but UNICEF looked beyond images and took a new perspective on the use of Pinterest boards.

“The [UNICEF] team began pinning through the eyes of Ami Musa, a fictional 13-year-old girl from Sierra Leone,” writes Petronzio, “The sole board is named “Really Want These,” and it showcases objects we generally take advantage of, including running water, soap and shoes.” The relationship between the content of pinned images with the context in which they were pinned shed light on the many ways social media is meaningful in the world.

UNICEF’s pinned image

In March the Human Rights Campaign used social media to advocate for marriage equality, asking supporters of the issue to change their profile picture to HRC red equality logo. The campaign went viral across the country and throughout the world. The millions of profile swaps painted the Internet red, symbolizing that marriage equality was much more than a political issue in America.

Social media raises awareness, fosters relationships, and dissolves barriers to communication. It is grounded in the international community, influencing everyone directly and indirectly. Organizations are understanding the impact that social media has on the world. It can foster movements that impact social norms, popular culture, and political ideologies. If we are entering a post-social media age, this adds yet another dimension of meaning to our world.

Tagged globalized network, image content, social media trends, viral media campaign

Apr 01 2013

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Uncategorized

Value-Added Services in Digital

Growing a business is all about adding value to the customer experience and gaining their trust. Mobile makes it easier to discover customer needs and determine what features they find most important in a product or what things they are looking for. Companies like Nike and Procter & Gamble are doing an excellent job at providing value-added services to drive brand loyalty and recognition.

Digital marketing technologies such as mobile applications allow companies to create meaningful customer engagement and better meet customer needs anytime, anywhere. The Nike+ community is a perfect example of recognizing what customers need and providing them with solution such as tracking runs for avid runners. P&G’s created an app for its Charmin brand that shows the locations of public restrooms across the United States.

Providing services is one thing, but understanding customer behavior and interests is another. Aggregating comments and complaints into trends creates consistency in data which leads to better collaboration between departments. However, the easy availability of customer data can create unexpected issues for businesses, especially when it is unstructured. For businesses hoping to learn about what customers actually want, it is important that they listen carefully and hone in on what customers are truly saying.

Digital Hones Brands’ Value-Added Services

Photo by: Seán Venn

Mar 26 2013

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Analytics, Google, Mobile

Mobile ROI Calculator from Google

These days, everything goes mobile – people, businesses and even Google. The year 2013 has been called already the year of mobile majority. The number of mobile devices is increasing and so does mobile advertising. Being world’s leader in mobile advertising, Google is a long-term thinker and is currently focusing on creating a full portfolio of metrics that would measure mobile advertising success. The new Google’s service called the Full Value of Mobile is developed to help businesses to analyze their mobile marketing effectiveness, both online and offline. As we know, Google has been playing with its AdWords program earlier this year. It was simplified in order to increase mobile advertising. However, companies had troubles to see a complete picture of how their mobile efforts influence their business. That’s is why a need for the Full Value of Mobile service emerged.

For a local company, let’s say Michigan marketing agency, the launch of a new Google service predicts a brighter future. The Full Value of Mobile platform would give the opportunity to use features that Google has created outside of the AdWords service. Companies with limited financial resources for larger campaigns might benefit from Google’s mobile calculator and get a better sense of their mobile marketing effectiveness.

Google Launches “Full Value of Mobile” Calculator To Help Businesses Measure Online And Offline Impact of Mobile Marketing.

Tagged analytics, google, Mobile, online advertising

Mar 15 2013

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Digital Marketing, Facebook, Search Engine, Twitter

Facebook’s Potential Adoption of Hashtags a Bid for Ad Revenue

Social media giant Facebook is reportedly planning to co-opt the use of hashtags, a search trademark of their rival Twitter. The move has the potential to put the two social networks in direct competition for advertising dollars from social media marketing services.

Facebook is now testing a new feature that would allow users to click on hashtags in posts, which would send them to a page where content and discussion utilizing the hashtag would be grouped. This is similar to how Twitter currently integrates hashtags into their search functions.

The new Facebook feature is notable for its integration into the Graph search function, which allows users to search their social networks in very specific terms. The Graph search currently uses Facebook likes to catalog and deliver results, but this is flawed because users like posts and content on an impulse or whim, or out of social obligation. Hashtag use, and therefore search, signals a more deliberate use of the term, and is more valuable to digital marketing companies seeking high ROI.

Facebook is making a play for the audience’s eyeballs during live or ongoing events, like The Superbowl, NBA Finals, or the Grammys. However, the major hurdle Facebook would have to clear is its own privacy settings. Unlike Twitter, many users keep their posts private or contained to their personal networks of friends, and therefore wouldn’t show up in a hashtag search. It means that the public posts that would show up would only be a very small portion of the conversation actually happening on the platform.

Facebook Hashtags: a Play for Real-Time Ad Dollars

Photo by Mike Cogh

Tagged Digital Marketing Agency, Hashtags, twitter

Feb 25 2013

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Analytics, Instagram, Pinterest

Curalate Helps Image Based Marketing

Curalate was one of the leaders of Pinterest based analytics. It has now released a series of tools for the brand that uses Instagram in its image-based marketing approach. It is now the only company that offers Pinterest analytics and Instagram analytics in the same dashboard.

This is good news for the smaller education marketing company. Finding an appropriate set of tools is difficult and having them work together across platforms is a special help for the smaller education marketing company that is continually trying to keep up with the larger firms that might have in house statistical teams. Having the ability to see Pinterest and Instagram analytics together will help measure image based campaigns. Sometimes there is a small difference in one social network that might have a different effect than in the other. Being able to compare the two next to each other will help the smaller firm notice these discrepancies and better refine its approaches.

Photo by diwatamisa

Curalate Adds Instagram Analytics, Expands Beyond Pinterest

Tagged analytics, digital marketing, instagram, pinterest

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