5 Marketing Technology stories you might have missed 9-22-12

Marketing Technology Stories you might have missed

MT5 Edition: #54

Stories This Week: Social Media proves its value, LTE coverage, Facebook makes free cost $5, Marketing Technology supergraphic, “the next big thing”

1. Social Media Proves Value, Gets Budgets

[eMarketer] Despite difficulty in proving ROI, 52% of US B2C marketers and 41% of US B2B marketers planned to increase their social marketing budgets in 2013

My Take: Depending on your company, social media may be easy/hard to quantify.  However, I haven’t met anyone who qualitatively isn’t finding value in social marketing.

Also, I’m starting to separate social a bit:

  1. Social Media – including branding, outreach, listening & engaging with influencers, PR
  2. Social Networking – empowering employees and sales, events, etc.
They have different success measures don’t they.

2. Where You Can Actually Get 4G LTE With the iPhone 5

[Gizmodo] LTE speeds are awesome, unless you can’t use them.  Click through to find AT&T, Verizon and Sprint LTE coverage maps.

LTE Verizon Coverage

LTE Verizon Coverage

3. Facebook to charge for promotional offers

[ABC-CBN News] Facebook Inc said it will start charging businesses to run promotional offers on its social network, turning a free service into a potential revenue generator as investors and analysts demand new sources of growth from the recently listed company.

My Take: Oh this is good.  FB revenue and stock prices are lagging and Facebook is going to charge for previously free services?!? Marketing executives, already not happy with their return on facebook marketing dollars are not happy with this decision.

4. Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic (2012)

[ChiefMarTec] Scott Brinker updated his Marketing Technology Landscape graph. I’m amazed by how much effort must have gone into researching and classifying these companies/products.

Marketing Technology Landscape 2012

Marketing Technology Landscape 2012

5.Don Dodge: Why Indoor Location Is The Next Big

[TechCrunch] The video in this article starts with some interesting comparisons between Google and Microsoft and then moves to “the next big thing.”

My Take: I agree. If you’ve ever shopped a big box store (Target, Home Depot, Ikea) you realize how much the customer experience could be improved by connecting people with the stuff they want to buy.

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5 Marketing Technology stories you might have missed 9-15-12

Marketing Technology Stories you might have missed

Hey everybody.  My side project site lives(!) (kidtun.es), but it doesn’t do much yet.  Hoping to model  the iTunes interaction over the next few weeks and code that out.  You can create an account, but there’s not much else to do after that – for now. Once I get it to Alpha I’ll put a new skin on it.

MT5 Edition: #53

Stories This Week: Feedburner is dying, go to school with Google, create your own whiteboard animations, iPhone 5 review, K.I.S.S

1. Feedburner is dying. Here are your alternatives…

[knolzone] The Feedburner forum is dead. The Feedburner Twitter account is dead. The Feedburner blog is dead. What little support documentation Feedburner had isn’t being updated. Some bloggers claim that their RSS feeds are not updating at all anymore.

My Take: If you’re using Feedburner for RSS and/or email feeds – WAKE UP! Consider your alternatives and decide if you want to jump to another platform or wait it out.

2. Google Launches Free Tool To Let You Run Your Own Online Courses

[edudemic] Google’s new Course Builder software comes on the heels of a massively popular online Google class ‘Power Searching With Google‘.

My Take: This seems like a unique content generating tool for Marketers. What do you think?

3. Whiteboard Animation Sales Videos That Grab Attention

[FillTheFunnel] Sales videos that grab the attention of the recipient are valued treasures when you come across one. Creating one of these masterpieces is always a challenge and innovation and experimentation is going on all the time to find the next big thing.

My Take: Another unique content creation utility!

4. iPhone5: How Does It Stack Up?

[FastCompany] FC breaks down the screen, camera, WiFi-4G and chassis.

My Take: Is the iPhone5 revolutionary or evolutionary? Okay, it’s evolutionary.  But if it seems like it’s the best at doing everything, except maybe Maps which Android still has a lead on.

5. The Rise of Simplicity

If you’ve missed the trend, many apps and web services are focusing on doing one thing well.

Here are some examples:

  • Lift – Track your goals against reading more, drinking water, taking vitamins, or many other items
  • Timehop – sends you an email telling you what you did one year ago
  • Sunrise – sends you an email each day reminding what you have going on for that day
My Take: I’m fascinated by the focus on simplicity. One one hand, who wants a million apps that do a million different things? On the other, the more integrated apps become the more niche they are.  It seems developers are finding greater success (market, funding, adoption) in focusing on simplicity.  
Start small. Do one thing exceptionally well and build/learn from those successes.

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5 Marketing Technology stories you might have missed 9-8-12

Marketing Technology Stories you might have missed

I spent the week holed up at home this week honing my programming skills.  Some ups: getting a working user model, a functioning log in, and some downs: controller issues, db corruption and javascript errors. Nonetheless, I enjoyed focusing on building this website all week.  Now, on with the show.

MT5 Edition: #52

Stories This Week: Smartphone wallets, new gadgets on the way, top email list building tactics, Twitter sets date for lock down, 5 new marketing trends.

1. When Will Your Smartphone Really Replace Your Wallet?

[Wired] Near Field Communications. The iPhone 5 and Passbook. Google Wallet. Square. PayPal. Every day brings news of new developments in mobile payments and mobile-pass technology. So when can we finally get rid of our wallets?

My Take: Hope you’re not in a rush – 10 years until the systems are integrated and reliable.  And it will take some people longer to trust this new technology. Hang on to your credit cards a bit longer.

2. September Will Bring a Full Roster of New Gadgets

[Bloomberg] It’s the most wonderful time of the year, at least for gadget hounds. September is packed with events where consumer-electronics giants plan to unveil new, widely anticipated products.

My Take: Amazon is shipping new Kindles. Along with new phones from HTC, Motorola and of course – Apple. Great new mobile devices on the way!

Capture subscribers with top list building tactics

Capture subscribers with top list building tactics

3. Capture email subscribers with top list building tactics

[MarketingSherpa] B2B Marketers rely on email marketing as a critical lead generation tool.  This survey lists the most effective ways to gather email addresses.

My Take: Bottom line – here are the top five email gathering tactics: 

  1. Registration during purchase
  2. Online events
  3. Website registration
  4. Paid search
  5. Offline events

4. Twitter’s more restrictive API has arrived

[VentureBeat] Twitter just announced anticipated changes to its API, intended to “deliver a consistent Twitter experience.” Or to tighten Twitter’s grip even more on how Twitter users’ tweets are used off the social networking site … and prep for the continued growth of Twitter monetization.

My Take: I’ve covered this topic before so I’ll just mention the changes take effect in 6 months.

5. Meet the Five Big Tech Trends Changing Marketing

[AdAge] Media Kitchen put together 5 Marketing Tech Trends click here to see the presentation on Slideshare.

 

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5 Marketing Technology stories you might have missed 9-1-12

Marketing Technology Stories you might have missed

I took last week off since I was in Acadia National Park. The forests have great camping, hiking and biking but lousy wifi! Check out Christina’s recap of our adventure in Maine.

MT5 Edition: #51

Stories This Week:  Facebook to allow marketers to use their email lists, Romney & Obama turn to social media, top email marketing tactics, Google+ for business, and the world of comment spam.–

1. Facebook To Roll Out Email- and Phone Number-Based Ad Targeting Next Week

[VentureBeat] Facebook will be launching new features next week that allow advertisers to target their ads to customers based on contact information that the advertiser has already collected. It’s a way for businesses to connect their Facebook ads with the customer lists they may have built up elsewhere.

My Take: A powerful tool indeed as it mergers the traditional email campaigns with Facebook.  Marketers have to ensure their Marketing Automation vendors are planning to integrate this feature into their product suite, otherwise their ability to manage the Facebook campaign will be stunted.

2. Presidential Race Turns To Social Media

[theVerge] Romney buys a Twitter trending topic – #RomneyRyan2012

[Mashable] Obama holds an Ask Me Anything on Reddit

My Take: I’m not convinced either tactic was terribly effective.  With America largely polling down the middle, purchasing a hashtag to promote a campaign, a campaign that every American is already aware of, doesn’t make much sense to me.  Looking at the tweets on #RomneyRyan2012 you’ll see what you’d expect – Romney lovers and bashers taking swipes at the other side.  So it probably wasn’t a wise spend (trending topics start at $120,000) other than it does allow the campaign to focus their supporters on a single hashtag. I’m sure the Romney war chest could easily afford the ad and it gives them another way to “check the social media box.”

The big winner in Obama’s AMA was Reddit.  Most people probably have not heard of Reddit so this was a nice coming out party for them. I tried to jump on the page and Reddit servers were swamped with traffic and the site went down.  Obama scored points with the geeks for showing up on this niche social network.

Email Objectives - need, difficulty and popularity

Email Objectives – need, difficulty and popularity

3. Marketing Research Chart: Ranking 12 top email marketing objectives

[MarketingSherpa] Limited marketing budgets often force marketers to select from a variety of possible email marketing tactics. This survey shows which tactics marketers turn to most readily.

My Take:  I prefer charts that have the preferred quadrant as top right, but alas….  The bottom line: segmentation, testing and creating relative content are considered the most important tactics to email marketing today.

4. Google+ Launches Tools for Businesses

[Mashable]

After a private beta test period, Google is releasing on Wednesday a suite of business tools for Google+ users.

The tools are available for free through the end of 2013, but users will then need a paid subscription to Google’s cloud-based software for businesses, Google Apps, for continued access.

My Take: These Google+ updates are really updates to Google Apps which underscores the fact that Google+ isn’t a social networking service, its a layer over all of Google’s services. It means to add a social layer over its properties to create a better user experience for customers and improve it’s search results by adding in social content.

5. REVEALED: THE GRUBBY WORLD OF COMMENT SPAM

[kernal] This story does a deep dive in why we have comment spam in our blogs and the tools of the blog spam trade.

 

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5 Marketing Technology stories you might have missed 8-18-12

Marketing Technology Stories you might have missed

Banging out this weekly wrap up while waiting for my appointment at the Genius bar.  This Macbook Air developed a bad case of OS corruption after a Mountain Lion upgrade. Tough to get work done when your tools are broken. I better finish this up before it freezes up! Oh, and I had an awesome time at the Girl Talk show last night. If you don’t know Girl Talk, Google that. Lastly, there was, quietly, tons of activity in Marketing Technology, it’s a real challenge to find the best of the best. In the end I had to share 8 stories, all for the price of free.

MT5 Edition: #50

Stories This Week: App.net, Medium, Facebook tests prominent Ad placement, JiWire provides targeted mobile Ads, Windows RT, rating TOS, social observing vs. sharing and Pinterest Apps.

1. What You Need To Know About App.net

[ThisGuy] Tired of Facebook ads? Want to have data portability? Willing to pay $50 annually for a finer social network? Read this article for the full scoop.

My Take: As Facebook, Twitter (and perhaps Google+) mature they are walling off access to take greater control of their user experience – so they can ensure users are seeing their ads. At its core App.net is centered around a different revenue model. Instead of being Advertising supported will be paid for by the users.  As this version of the internet matures I believe some users will pay for a better service. Yet I’m not certain enough users will pay to use App.net – not enough to have it reach critical mass.  App.net is borne from a frustration with existing solutions. It’s experience is evolutionary (not revolutionary) and I’m skeptical at the notion users will pay for what they get for free now.

2. Medium

[CNET] The collaborative publishing tool takes submitted content and groups it into related collections, allowing multiple people to view and add to it.

My Take: Leave it to the founders of Twitter to focus on creating platforms based around a simple activity. Twitter provided a platform for short/quick communication. Medium is focused on creating the best collaboration experience yet. I haven’t used Medium yet, but it seems like a mashup of Storify and Google Drive. More [About Medium]

3. Facebook to Test Promoting Brands’ Page Posts to Non-Fans’ News Feeds

[Adweek] Here it comes, the big Advertising push on Facebook. Facebook is testing pushing Ads on user walls.

My Take: Facebook stock continues to get pummeled on the stock market. Big ticket brands are holding back spending on Facebook because Facebook is unable to demonstrate the effectiveness of their Ad spend.  The user wall is the main way users experience Facebook and that’s where Facebook is going to put Ads.  Get ready for Ads to move from the sidebar to the center screen. What will happen? Users will grumble for a while, but they aren’t leaving Facebook over this.  Users still believe they have a positive value exchange. They are getting free access to friends and family and all they need to do is avoid looking/clicking on annoying Ads.

4. JiWIRE builds a location graph to make mobile ads relevant

[GIGAOM] Location-based ad provider JiWire is trying to capitalize on mobile advertising with the launch of a Location Graph that it says will help it deliver relevant ads based on what it can learn from the way people move around from place to place.

My Take: Repeat after me…”what overcomes creepiness?” RELEVANCY.  Done right, mobile ad targeting has the promise of providing relevant, valuable information (coupons, events, offers) to mobile users and shoppers based on their demographics and activity.

5. Windows RT bridges the gap between Tablets and Laptops

[VentureBeat] Long battery life, small size, and multitouch screens: That’s what Microsoft is promising its PC partners will soon deliver using a version of Windows 8 known as Windows RT. This week, the company delivered some specifics.

My Take: This is a really interesting form factor. Sometimes I want a laptop, sometimes I want a tablet. I never want to carry both. But can Microsoft and it’s hardware partners deliver a pleasant user experience? They never have before.

6. Putting An End To The Biggest Lie On The Internet

[TechCrunch] credit Eric Andersen for this story. Website Terms of Service are a joke. No one reads them and there are no accepted standards. TOS;DR provides a rating system along with some easy to understand tags that show what you’re signing up for.

Observing vs. Sharing on Social Networks

Observing vs. Sharing on Social Networks

7. Users of Smaller Social Sites Share, Consume More Content

[eMarketer] Facebook is still the most popular in terms of user numbers, other sites are more popular for sharing content—and others still for reading and viewing, without necessarily sharing.

My Take: I find niche social networks really interesting.  I’m watching this space to see if and how they grow in relation to the bigger networks.

8. Pinterest launches first apps for Android and iPad

[TheVerge] <– I don’t use Pinterest, but maybe you do.

–

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