Marketing Technology Stories you might have missed
MT5 Edition: #42
Stories This Week: Beginners Guide to Social, amazing Civ II game, top content tactics, fewer Zynga players and Microsoft buys Yammer.
1. The Beginner’s Guide to Social Media
[Mashable] Simple guides to Tumblr, LinkedIn, Reddit, Facebook and Twitter. Maybe they are useful to you or to someone you know.
My Take: I read the Reddit guide and learned about its quirky customs.
2. Man plays Civ II for 10 Years
[Reddit] Reaching the year 4,000 AD, the world is a nuclear holocaust as people of the world suffer a war that has gone on for 1,700 years.
My Take: I had to include this story in this weeks post. While I’m not much of a gamer, but Civ II is a great PC strategy game that I spent countless hours playing. Â This story got picked up because it seemed somewhat prophetic, when in reality the game is supposed to end around the year 2,000. Â I liked how commenters gave the player some ideas on how to finally win the game. If you’d like to check the game out, or a more recent version, I recommend buying the iPad Civ Revolution game.
3. Develop Your Audience With Top Content Marketing Tactics
[MarketingSherpa] A study of 1,745 B2B Marketers indicated that multi-channel communication,
improved thought leadership and segmentation are the three most effective content marketing tactics.
My Take: Well…duh…but there’s more to it. Â Picking the best tactics is a good start, but ultimately it comes down to execution. Â How well does your content strategy stand out from your competitors? Are you solving customer problems?Â
4. Why Zynga is Shedding Users
[CNBC] Cowen and Company issued a report titled “Facebook Gaming in Accelerating User Tailspin,†which highlights the fact that Zynga’s social gaming daily active users declined by 8.2 percent in May.
My Take: The report points to the shift to mobile gaming as the chief reason people aren’t playing “-‘ville” games. Â Personally I think there’s a bit of a social stigma associated with Facebooks gaming platform due to the annoying way it posted game updates to the players timeline (so and so needs a cow!). Â So my point is, Facebook and Zynga might have structured the social gaming aspect to keep it social, but less irritating. Â The larger point is Zynga’s dip eludes to Facebook’s mobile problem – they need a better mobile app. Â Recent updates have focused on photos (the Instagram effect) but aren’t really compelling. Although I’m not a big Google+ user, the mobile app is pretty good. It’s fast, attractive and easy to use.
5. Yammer Agrees to Sell Itself to Microsoft
[WSJ] Business-software company Yammer Inc. agreed to sell itself to Microsoft for $1.2 billion.
My Take: This buy plugs holes in Microsoft’s cloud Office productivity suite and adds social capabilities to their arsenal. Â How will Microsoft integrate Yammer with Sharepoint, Office365, Office (desktop) and Skype??? That’s a lot of products (and code) to bring together in a compelling fashion.
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