EU Cookie Laws Will Affect User Experience

New privacy rules going into effect for members of the European Community, under the auspices of the European Commission, will have some negative implications for content publishers. Basically, the new EU rules on use of cookies will impose an opt-in environment for tracking "cookies" often used in e-commerce and online advertising applications.

That is going to lead to re-working of many websites and undoubtedly some clumsy attempts to comply with the new opt-in rules. The new rules also highlight the inherent tension between "privacy" and "personalized" experiences.

Implications of EU Cookie Laws

Implications of Exploding Media Voices and Channels

With some caveats, especially the observation that "not all media are created equal," media voices have multiplied quite significantly over the last half century, in ways that are important for brand and end user "voices" in media. 

Fifty years ago, the ratio of content consumers to creators was something on the order of a million to one, Seth Godin estimates, using the metric of network news anchors to TV viewers.

The explosion of magazines brought the ratio down to 100,000:1. There was one magazine writer for every reader.

Cable TV and online e-zines further reduced the ratio of content creators and content consumers to something like 10,000 to one. And now, when it's easy to have a blog, or an Youtube account or to push your ideas to the world through social media, the ratio might be 100:1, Godin says.

Granted, a single consumer blogging about a favorite restaurant, or tweeting their views or checking in to a retail location is not really in the same category of media influence as the Wall Street Journal or ESPN. But you get the point: there has been a dramatic explosion of "media" content over the last 50 years. At the same time, there has been a significant change in experience, with less-linear formats growing most, allowing content consumers to reply, comment and participate. 

Some say stories now often are shaped by content consumers in new ways, as the replies and comments lead conversations in new directions. The other big change is the growing importance of social media in shaping the volume and speed with which stories are discovered on the Internet. 

Offline content does not have to be designed for easy sharing. Virtually all online content (except professional entertainment video and audio, where "sharing" might be a violation of copyright laws), on the other hand, should typically be built, from the ground up, for sharing.

Consumers and creators

How Social Media Has Changed the Restaurant Industry

A decade ago, much restaurant content was driven by professional reviews. Once every couple of months a food critic would come along and a kitchen would cook its best food and await the review in the newspaper.

Then restaurant review sites came along and changed all that. These days, reviews can be completed while a diner is still in the restaurant. That has many implications, largely around the velocity of information and the extensiveness of information.

What is important for restaurants is to recognize that reviews can happen with almost every customer interaction, since mostly every diner has a mobile, and over time, virtually all those devices will be smart phones capable of uploading reviews and photos on the spot. Nor can a restaurant owner assume that there are only a few places any such reviews will be posted. They will be "all over the place."

The practical implication for restaurants is that content marketing of any sort is going to have to contend with a tidal wave of potential content posted lots of places by its own customers. And it is fair to say that there is only so much any particular brand can do about managing content, under such circumstances.

The best way to fend off bad reviews is of course to cook amazing food and provide superb service and the upside is that restaurants doing that will benefit from massively powerful word of mouth like never before.

How social media has changed the restaurant industry

Do Small Businesses Understand "Word of Mouth" and "Social Media?"

Uptake of social media marketing among small and medium-sized businesses has become widespread, according to eMarketer. Small business owners and managers tend to see it as a cost-effective, easy-to-use marketing channel that can boost customer acquisition as well as fulfill other marketing goals.

But it might also be fair to say that most small businesses still don’t see social media as a necessity. On the other hand, at least half of small business executives surveyed on behalf of insurance provider Hiscox said they used social media for business purposes, but a plurality also declared that it wasn’t necessary to their business. Just 12 percent considered it a “must” activity

At the same time, 50 percent of respondents said the marketing tool they could not do without was word-of-mouth. Just four percent said the same about social media, even though the goal of most social media marketing efforts is to create word-of-mouth.

As with most other important new innovations, it takes a while for people to adjust to new tools and understand their value. Social media is all about word of mouth. It appears people just don't widely appreciate that fact.

Are Small Businesses Apathetic About Social Media?

"Growth is Everything," says Eric Schmidt

"Growth is everything," says Eric Schmidt, and he's not talking about Google. Interviewed by Neil Cavuto on Fox Business, Schmidt pointed out that the view in Asia is that the United States represents the past, in part because the Asian expectation is that annual growth should be in the six percent to eight percent range, not the one percent rate the U.S. economy now exhibits, and not the three percent rate that would make just about everybody much happier. It would be harder to speak more truthful words.

How Content Maps With Phases of a Buying Process

Certain types of content, and certain types of media, arguably are "best" in various phases of a customer buying cycle. Articles, videos, infographics and other general sorts of content are best early in the cycle, before prospects actually begin an active buying process.

Webinars and white papers arguably will be more useful a bit further into the process, when users are actively conducting research.

Case studies and analyst studies probably get used when prospects are actively researching particular suppliers.

JESS3 partnered with Eloqua one year ago to create the "Content Grid," a depiction of how content types match up with phases of a buying cycle.

The latest grid illustrates the role content plays in helping brands meet business objectives and buyers reach their individual goals.

The latest version of the grid outlines the connection between content type and distribution channels, matching content to the buyer’s stage in the purchase process, equipping marketers with key performance indicators for each type of content.

Eloqua - The Content Grid

Mobile Ad Intermediaries Must, and Will Consolidate

"The real pain point in mobile advertising is removing the friction in spending the way that brands want to spend," says Eric Litman, Medialets CEO and chairman. A major reason there is friction is that there is so much market fragmentation.

So you know what's coming: a massive consolidation wave that will create a relative handful of market intermediaries that take friction out of the market.

Marketers say device fragmentation and lack of standardized metrics and ad formats are among mobile advertising's biggest challenges, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau's recent survey of 300 U.S. marketers that use mobile advertising.

Pervasive systems for serving, measuring and creating mobile display ads will require both standards and firm consolidation, with the latter arguably more significant than the former.

Right now, there are too many isolated solutions that work for specific ad networks, apps or devices. The infrastructure to make one ad, then run it many places, with easy measurement, remains to be created.

Read more here.