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Archive for September, 2009



Maura DeBartoli

09/30/2009

All The More Reason: Integrate Social Media & Email Marketing Campaigns
06:20 pm by Maura DeBartoli

As it turns out, Twitter is more like email than we think. According to a recent article published by AdAge, when viewed in context, the leverage that Twitter needs is to study exactly what it was that made email so successful. In turn, these practices will ensure that the little bird stays put…for a while.  Because Twitter groups, like Twibes, are made up of people with a high interest, make note of them, for they are your community with intent.

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“Many email-like capabilities would be valuable to Twitter advertisers – the ability to segment audiences, access dynamic reporting, test and optimize campaigns in real time, conduct A/B creative tests and port newly acquired consumers directly into the Twitter engagement stream. “

You may be surprised, however, to find that the more time people spend on social networks, the more time they will also spend on email, according to Nielsen. You’d think the latter but the more time people spend online, allowing push email notifications, receiving email notifications for their many social sites and updates, the more they’ll be married to their email. How novel.

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Jessica Carlson

09/29/2009

The answer to “Is social media a fad?”
07:06 pm by Jessica Carlson

abc_fads_090508_mnI’ve noticed a lot of people asking the same question on Twitter… “Is social media a fad?” I’ve seen varied opinions ranging from, “Yeah, people will eventually forget about Flickr and Twitter,” to “It’s more like a necessity.” Despite what people think, the facts point to one answer: Not really.

Blogger launched a decade ago in 1999. While it’s numbers are declining, MySpace has held it’s presence on the web since 2003. Facebook, now the number two site in the world according to Alexa, and Flickr, one of the largest photo sharing sites, launched in 2004. YouTube was up and running a year later.

With most of the major social demonstrating success for several years now, I think that it’s safe to say that social media itself isn’t a fad. To me, it’s similar to calling emailing or texting a fad. Social media is just a means of communication, and therefore shouldn’t be (and isn’t) considered a fad, since it’s not likely to change until the next new thing comes along.

I think the more appropriate questions are “Is Twitter a fad?” and “Was MySpace a fad?” Some social networks may demonstrate a lot of popularity for a few years, but then something better comes along (or they don’t keep up with new developments and improvements) and people move on to the next thing. In that case, then, yes, that site was a fad. Other social networks may have a lot of initial appeal, such as Twitter, Posterous and Flickr, but people may not see the value in keeping up with it since their friends and family aren’t there, and in that case, the site is somewhat of a fad for particular users.

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Jessica Carlson

09/23/2009

Measurement is the key to success
07:05 pm by Jessica Carlson

eMarketer SurveyeMarketer recently reported that the majority of professionals are using social media to market, collaborate internally and manage customer service. And, we think this is great that so many people are embracing these tools that can help make their day-to-day tasks more efficient, help them reach a wider audience and can help manage consumers’ opinions and perceptions.

The bad news? The minority are actually measuring the effects that their social media outreach has.

Social media can be measured quite easily, but only once you have concrete goals in place. Goals such as “Increase Facebook Fans by 10 percent this month” can easily be tracked using Facebook Insights. Third-party Twitter apps even offer solutions for measuring your outreach via the micro-blogging site. For instance a goal such as “Double @replies this month,” can be assessed and measured using services such as Twitter Friends.

Whether you’re just starting to use social media, or you’ve been ahead of the curve, always make sure to set goals and measure your outreach’s effectiveness.

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Maura DeBartoli

09/21/2009

Trends That Become Habit, Become Necessity
04:20 pm by Maura DeBartoli

If the public leads marketers, and the public’s eyes wander over to social networking sites, what’s an SMO to do? Follow them (pun intended).

Regardless of how social networks and the millions of users feel about it, the social media environment is increasingly going to be used as a marketing tool. As Internet users gravitate towards this realm and towards each other, online marketing is likely to take a community-based focus. We know that the ultimate goal here is to expose a marketing campaign to as many eyes as possible.

What’s going to happen when The Wall Street Journal starts charging money each week for people to view their news content? It’s happening, according to paidContent. With social media gaining popularity exponentially and the rate at which news content is distributed, sources are going to have to get creative. Sure, there are going to be a select few who will pay for the news, but the rest will join the large number of people flocking to Twitter for engagement, their local news, New York Times or BBC fix.   News (worth paying for) more than likely will have gone viral after the first two hours anyhow.

Personalized communication can be maintained between a brand and its audience or customer base.  More than ever, social media marketing can open up endless opportunities for smaller organizations. Do you own a small business or are you starting up a local non-profit? Keep in mind some simple SMO methods to generate maximum publicity – be social.

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Brian Michael

09/20/2009

Buying Friends
02:12 pm by Brian Michael

A new company from down under is shaking up social networks by offering friends and followers for sale. Featured in this week’s Economist,  uSocial from Australia claims they’ll roundup 1,000 Facebook friends for $177.  They also provide similar services for helping your business or campaign gain popularity on Twitter, Digg, and other social bookmarking sites.  Although most of the social networking sites oppose this kind of inorganic growth, it does present them with an explicit question of quality vs. quantity.  Surely the networks want increase interaction among its members, that’s why Facebook upgraded their ad platform with the capability to become a fan within an ad; but will stretching the networks too thin decrease the depth of interaction?

This situation reminds me a lot about buying email lists for political campaigns and non-profits.  No one expects all the purchased records will become  quality leads, but if say, 20% of them do, then it still can definitely be worth the money.  I’m sure the same theory is principally true for the leads provided by uSocial.   As with any recruitment plan however, it should be just one tactic in a diverse plan to gain supporters of different audiences.

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Jen Cieslak

09/09/2009

Where’s Augie?
02:34 pm by Jen Cieslak

wheresaugieHow do you handle social media when your team is one of the worst in Major League Baseball, attendance is down by the thousands and your promotional giveaway doesn’t get delivered?

Create a diversion.

That’s just what the Arizona Diamondbacks have done with their “Where’s Augie?” campaign, launched after their Augie Ojeda bobble-head figurines didn’t show up.

“Where’s Augie?” is a goofy gimick where a photo of the bobble-head doll is superimposed on a photo of some landmark or travel destination.

And it worked — the first day.

Fans loved it and posted positive remarks and hit the all-important “like” button in Facebook. But that good feedback isn’t lasting, and it appears the D-Backs are beating a dead horse with this one.

In just a week, the “Augie” feature has become a bulls-eye for negative feedback about the team and the front office, with little oversight from the social media administrator of the page.

The lesson? Social media moves quickly, and you need to match that speed. A good idea may only last a day — or an hour — so keep up. Make sure your site is monitored — and don’t ignore negative comments. The only way to get the page (and your message) back on track is to address the problem, fix it (if you can), and move on.

Read more about Augie’s adventures on the Diamondbacks’ Fan Page.

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Jen Cieslak

09/04/2009

Online political engagement is growing
02:22 pm by Jen Cieslak

pewinternetlogo1 News agencies and bloggers have been buzzing about Pew’s latest research on “The Internet and Civic Engagement” since it came out earlier this week.

The buzz concentrates on the relative education-level and wealth of internet users: More well-educated people are more likely have access to computers and to use them frequently. But you knew that.

The more interesting — and unfortunately somewhat ignored — findings focus on who uses the internet and social media for some form of political engagement. And this “online participatory class” is growing. As many as 19 percent of people online use the internet for political action, when that number was previously believed to be only 5 percent or 10 percent.

Adults ages 25 to 65 tend to take part in online activities similar to those they’d do in “real life” like signing petitions and making donations. Surprisingly the 55-64-year-old demographic had the highest percentage of these kinds of online political activities, though younger people dominate the political social media arena.

Read Pew’s full report.

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Jessica Carlson

09/01/2009

Advertise to a crowd, not crickets
04:50 pm by Jessica Carlson

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ComScore recently reported that social media sites account for over twenty percent of all U.S. online display ad impressions. Of those social networks, MySpace and Facebook represent about ten percent of all online display ad impressions in the U.S.

While these numbers seem huge, it makes a lot of sense. With the rise in social media usage, I now can go to the New York Times Facebook Page or follow them on Twitter to get my news, instead of going to their website. The way that people are accessing information has been changing drastically over the last several years and it only makes sense that companies and organizations should be dispersing their message where the people are. And where can you find most of your audience? On social networks.

To reach a large, yet diverse group, advertising on social networking sites will provide you with a great return on your investment. Not only are these ads uncharacteristically cheap, they can be custom targeted based on user’s information. ComScore’s senior vice president goes into detail about the growth in social media and advertising on these sites:

“Over the past few years, social networking has become one of the most popular online activities, accounting for a significant portion of the time Internet users spend online and the pages they consume,” said Jeff Hackett, comScore senior vice president. “Social networking sites now account for one out of every five ads people view online. Because the top social media sites can deliver high reach and frequency against target segments at a low cost, it appears that some advertisers are eager to use social networking sites as a new advertising delivery vehicle.”

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Max Fose

09/01/2009

Paul McKay Returns to IWS
10:40 am by Max Fose

Today is a great day at IWS as we welcome back Paul McKay.

Paul worked with us for over six years before taking a “sabbatical” to run the interactive division of a D.C. based public affairs firm. He returns with over 14 years of public affairs and interactive experience.

Paul will be returning to the firm as a Partner and can be reached at 202-251-2570 or Paul@workwithiws.com.

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