Social Commerce: In Friends We Trust

Social networks generate very-large numbers of pageviews and longer times on site than other sites, which has made them attractive for advertisers. But some say social networks actually aren't like traditional media, meaning traditional advertising and campaigns might not work as people think they will.

The gist of the argument is that social networks are about users communicating with other users, making marketing messages a bit of an intrusion.

None of that seems to be slowing advertiser interest, though.


link

User-Generated Content More Important, at Least for Google Rankings

While search engine providers have talked about fresh content for years, Google Caffeine's emphasis on freshness gives user-generated content a lot more weight. Maintaining a good ranking according to Google's algorithms now requires that at least some of the page's content is fresh and dynamic, which indicates to Google that the page is still relevant.

Adding customer reviews or user-generated questions and answers can obviously help provide fresh content.

link

What's the Next Game Changer in Digital Marketing? Mobile

Mobile devices, will be the "number-one platform for persuasion" in 10 to 15 years, predicts BJ Fogg, director of Stanford University's Persuasive Technology Lab. "If you want to influence people, it will be more important than the Web, than TV."

But we are only at the beginning of a long learning curve, for practitioners and end users. "We're going to see a lot of failure," he said.

Others might argue that is why there is at the moment so much optimism about all forms of mobile marketing, communication and commerce. But it will take a while. Many will find they are "too early" in the market. Just about all of us will find we didn't understand the medium very well.


link

Ads As Entertainment: 3 Tips

Increasingly, developing online ads that are built to entertain is a necessity rather than an agency preference. The handful of brands that are currently making the effort are setting the bar high, and setting a standard all others will soon be expected to meet.

link

Social Media Is Not Free

Marketers can probably agree that the "cost" of using or producing social media is nearly free, in terms of "placement." What is demonstrably not free are all the other tasks that go into creating and sustaining a social media initiative.

Designing and building a Foursquare application costs money. Beyond that, it takes time to promote, interact with and manage a social media effort. 

The typical pattern is that a company gets into social media in some way using volunteer effort. Then it becomes clear that everybody has a "real" job with real tasks, and that the effort diminishes over time. That leads to adding new people, with dedicated responsibilities, to the effort. It might not take lots of out-of-pocket money on the operating expense front. It will take people, and that will mean money. 

link

Could Facebook Create Its Own Ad Network?

Facebook has got serious traction. It is becoming ubiquitous in most age and social demographics.  People spend lots of time on Facebook and visit it every day, if not all day. With its massive user base, no matter what a particular niche audience looks like, Facebook could probably aggregate and target them.

At some point, Facebook could pose a challenge to the Google AdSense network. Facebook could create its own ad network and sell incredibly targeted ads that reach Facebook-profiled users on other sites, not just its own, some might speculate.


link

The Rise of the Demand Side Platform

Because advertisers are able to rely on more behaviorally-driven ad models today, which page an ad appears on is becoming less and less significant. Instead, second or third tier online inventory can now be sold at a premium price, not because of where or when the ad runs, but because of who is seeing it when it does. This allows publishers to increase the value of all of their site impressions without having to weigh in on a page popularity contest first.

link