Clickilicious – Top Clicks in April

Clickilicious – top clicks in April

My most clicked stories in April 2012

Storified by John Refford · Fri, Apr 27 2012 22:32:10

Funniest thing I saw all month
awesome AND informative –>Tracy Morgan Explains Twitter http://reff2.me/HOn9wnJohn Refford
…and why I’ve been at the same company forever
Girl On Girl Crime: When Being Too Pretty Costs You The Job – Forbes http://reff2.me/HX65T6John Refford
Top content from Forrester’s Marketing Forum
New post: Day 1 at Forresters Customer Intelligence Forum http://reff2.me/HUunjG #fmf12 #fcif12John Refford
More Marketing Technology lovefest
Here are my 5 take aways from Day 2 at #fmf12 #fcif12 http://reff2.me/IYAeVZJohn Refford
I’m giving myself +klout in Jeff Cutler.  (really, you guys like this share?)
.@jetblue, won’t you please make @JeffCutler’s bday wish come true? http://reff2.me/IeOlEQJohn Refford


Feature photo credit: basketman

5 Marketing Technology stories you might have missed 4-28-12

Marketing Technology 5

Marketing Technology Stories you might have missed

MT5 Edition:  #35

Stories This Week: twitter is bigger than you think, changes in marketing/ad spending, data into dollars, Google Drive, Kickstarters Dark Side

1. Why Twitter Is Bigger Than You Think

[BrandSavant] While only 10% of Americans use Twitter, 44% HEAR ABOUT TWEETS EVERYDAY.

My Take: This supports the idea that while facebook is the key platform for reaching consumers,  Twitter is a great place for reaching influencers.

Change In Spending in Ad/Marketing

Change In Spending in Ad/Marketing

2. Marketers Leverage a Mix of Tools and Tactics

[eMarketer] US marketing professionals are leveraging more tools as they embark on each new individual campaign or program, and social media is taking a larger role in terms of spending and usage.

My Take: These survey highlights the need for Marketers to continue to raise their digital IQ. Are you shifting your Marketing dollars from traditional to digital?

3. Five Companies Turning Your Data Into Dollars

[Gigaom] Check out these five companies that are making money with consumer data.

My Take: I realize that on Facebook you are the product. Hey, it’s a free service and in return for the free service you are giving up your data (interests, behaviorial, purchasing intent). But explain to me why companies that sell services and products to consumers get to make extra revenue off of consumer data?  Why doesn’t the consumer get a cut?!?

4. Introducing Google Drive

[Google]

My Take: Tell me if you’ve heard this one before…. a startup up launches and does something very well (dropbox, box.net) and then incumbents (Google Drive, Microsoft Skydrive) rush to copy the features?

 

The Dark Side

The Dark Side

5. Kickstarter’s Dark Side

[BostInno] Interesting story of how a $37K kickstart provided only $4K in funding.

My Take: This example highlights that many/most/some entrepreneurs don’t have a sufficient business background to estimate the costs associated with operating and marketing a new company.

[important]

Are you picking up what I’m laying down? Sign up to receive updates automatically:

  • Subscribe via RSS
  • Subscribe via email

[/important]

Regulated Social

Regulated Social

Presentation given to Bentley’s graduate eMarketing course.April 24, 2012. As with all my social content, it does not reflect the opinions of my employer.

Regulated Social  

Featured photo credit: Freedigitalphotos


5 Marketing Technology stories you might have missed 4-21-12

Marketing Technology 5

Marketing Technology Stories you might have missed

MT5 Edition:  #34

Stories This Week: mobile wallet adoption, klout brand pages, Instagram ushers in new era, the fifth screen, Path isn’t the next Instagram

1. Pew: 65% of Experts Say Most People Will Adopt Mobile Payments By 2020

[VentureBeat] There’s a lot of smart minds looking at how to facilitate purchases using a smart phone instead of a credit card.

My Take: If you click through and review the Pew study, you’ll see the factors believed to stall the adoption of the mobile wallet: device fragmentation, security concerns and industry adoption.  Still, I think 8 years is a relatively long time in technology and I expect innovation will hasten the adoption.  There’s too much value on both sides of the mobile transaction to slow down the trend.  Customers will benefit from specials and coupons; brands will enjoy the ability to market to customers at the moment of purchase intent.

2. Klout Launches Brand Pages To Help Companies Engage Influencers

[BrandChannel] Brand Squad pages offer three benefits to marketers: the reveal of top influencers associated with a brand or topic; a showcase for content; and another burgeoning platform (beyond Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest) for brands to reward social media influencers with exclusive perks.

Example: Red Bull Brand Page

My Take: On the whole I think this is a positive development. There seems to be a good value exchange between the brand and the consumer.  The brand page doesn’t currently provide for engagement between the brand and consumer, but perhaps it’s not intended to.

Red Bull Klout Page

Red Bull Klout Page

 

3. It’s Not About Instagram — It’s About Mobile

[TechCrunch] The author says some incredible stuff:

Web 2.0 is over. Instagram is the Netscape IP of the new era. Mobile or death.

My Take: For me, there’s still a lot of uncertainty going on: Are we in another tech bubble? Was Instagram a bargain? Did Facebook buy Instagram to keep it out of the hands of twitter?

4. The Fight For The Fifth Screen (Fifth Screen!?) In Your Life

[FastCompany] Smartwatches, AR goggles, and more: There’s a mighty scramble afoot for your last sliver of attention. Is the start of ad-mageddon?

My Take: I kickstarted Pebble and I’m looking forward to see what apps are developed for it. I’m less excited about Google’s Project Glass, those glasses look odd and I’m not sure I want to experience the internet that way.

5. Cool App Update: Path 

Path

Path

[Gigom] The Instagram acquisition has pundits looking around for the next big startup that’s ripe for being gobbled up.  The post argues why Path will remain independent.

My Take: I know not everyone likes Path, but I like it. It’s got a great UI and it’s a more intimate network.  The author argues that Path doen’t have a distinctive feature that makes it stand out, and he’s right. What bugs me is the over-emphasis on feature-apps. I’ll have to write a separate post on this, but the gist is, well rounded apps are overlooked in favor of single function apps.

[important]

Are you picking up what I’m laying down? Sign up to receive updates automatically:

  • Subscribe via RSS
  • Subscribe via email

[/important]

5 Take-Aways From Day 2 @ #FCIF12

Cool --> Critical

Cool --> Critical

5 Take-Aways From Day 2 @ #FCIF12

1. Personal Identity Management

Forrester Analyst Fatemeh Khatibloo wowed the audience by posting content that 3 attendees had posted to the internet. The information showed the attendees were interested in running, music, coffee and dogs.  this display highlighted the challenges associated with protecting one’s data.  In a super-classy move, Forrester made a donation in the honor of the three attendees to charities that support their interests.

Considering nearly all companies manage customer data, the question becomes ‘What can companies do to responsibly manage customer data?

Five Principles for managing Customer Data

  1. Privacy
  2. Security
  3. Transparency
  4. Portability
  5. Economy

Companies that ignore Personal Identity Data Management are likely to…

  • Lose crucial access to customer data
  • Lose trust and loyalty
  • Incur fines as privacy and consumer rights regulation increases
  • Incur massive operational costs to correct data breaches

2. Using Marketing Technology to Drive Loyalty

[notice]Why does customer experience matter????   Because customers are in control.[/notice]

Melissa Boxer of Oracle demonstrated that customers’ are in control. They have:

  • More choice – how when and where they want to engage
  • Higher expectations – customers expect recognition at every touch-point
  • More influence – peers influence decisions more than traditional marketing

 

3. Driving Competitive Advantage Through Science

Stephen Jalkut of Chartis, formerly known as AIG, provided an interesting data point:

Companies that have embraced Science have consistently outperformed the S&P

Science adds value across the spectrum of Chartis’ business:

  1. Enabling – Traditional: loss models, data mining, visualization
  2. Strategic – Sophisticated: price to value, customer lifetime value, client risk analysis, blending loss model techniques
  3. True North – Transformative research: making the world a safer place, game theory in commercial sales, real options in claims

Science Teams Mission

  1. Tier 1 – Reporting – what happened
  2. Tier 2 – Forecasting – What might happen
  3. Tier 3 – Predictive modeling – why is this happening
  4. Tier 4 – Optimization – what is the best outcome

4. Taking Social Media from Cool to Critical

A session I looked forward to during the conference, Forrester Analyst Nate Elliott, challenged Marketers to connect their social media activities directly to your overall marketing plan.  Why? If you don’t even the best social media marketing campaigns fail to provide value to the business. Worse, if a business relies too much on social channels at the expensive of other marketing channels, marketing’s overall success will suffer greatly.

Want an example?

  • Best Buy is learning that being really good at social media has not meant really good things for the company. They are shuttering 50 stores
  • Pepsi – skipped super bowl in favor of social media campaign. They had a very successful social campaign, more people voted on social good efforts than voted in the presidential campaign. HOWEVER, Pepsi ultimately lost market position.

Why do social media marketing campaigns fail?

Two reasons social media marketing fails

  1. We treat social media as an island. The engagement has little to do with the marketing strategy. They don’t turn followers into customers.
  2. We ask social to carry the weight of the world. Other, traditional marketing channels suffer.

So what should a brand do?

[important]Treat social as a solution, not a problem![/important]

Customers and prospects to through four stages in the ‘customer lifecycle’

How to Use Social Media in the Customer Lifecycle

  1. Discover – Focus on reaching the right audience
  2. Explore - Provide depth of information about products and services
  3. Buy
  4. Engage – Engage customers and prospects in their signaled interests

 

Choose the right social strategies to support each stage:

Reach - Depth - Engage

Reach - Depth - Engage

 

Focus on which channels offer which benefits to your marketing plan.

Social should be used to support each layer of your brand ecosystem

  • Social media on your own site supplies depth
    • This aids exploration and pushes customers towards purchase
  • Public social media profiles offer engagement (Facebook)
    • This engages existing customers and pushes them toward further discovery
  • Word of mouth creates reach

5. Emerging Media Showcase For Interactive Marketers

Forrester Analyst Elizabeth Shaw provided a suite of examples from some of the best agency uses of interactive marketing.

Why? Technology has invaded our lives

Consumers…

  • Have shorter attention spans
  • Are on more platforms and devices than ever before
  • Are reading less
  • Have more products and services to choose from
  • expect MORE

Marketers are using new technologies to:

  • Drive engagement
  • Target new audiences
  • Align their brand and products with innovation
  • Evolve with their consumer
  • Grow brand awareness
  • Test and learn
  • Create more immersive marketing experiences…

Here are my three favorite examples:

Razorfish 5D

A 5D platform connects digital devices such as kiosks, large-screen displays, tablets and personal smart phones to better attract consumers into the store, drive product engagement and arm store associates with ore contextualized digital tools

Razorfish Connected Retail Experience Platform (codename “5D”) from Razorfish – Emerging Experiences on Vimeo.

 

Adaptive Advertising: Immersive Labs

Software that can automatically determine: age, gender, attention time, and adapts content on digital sights automatically based on who is looking at the screen.

Immersive Labs – Adaptive Advertising Demo from Immersive Labs on Vimeo.

 

Augmented Reality: Olympus Camera

Brand Objectives: Generate consumer buzz and logins to the Olympus Camera website

A Demonstation of Olympus Pen Augmented Reality from edward boches on Vimeo.

[important]

Are you picking up what I’m laying down? Sign up to receive updates automatically:

  • Subscribe via RSS
  • Subscribe via email

[/important]

 

Load more