Web 2.0 Promotions

If you watch the commercials on TV, it’s easy to believe that the entire population of the Earth is walking around with a smartphone in their pocket. Not true, but that day is slowly approaching.

Google conducted a study of cell phone users in the US, the UK, France, Germany and Japan and found that globally, smartphones are on the rise. The UK had the highest concentration with 45%, up 15% from the first half of 2011.

The US is looking at 38% and Japan is the lowest with only 17%.

On the other hand, Japan has the highest percentage of daily internet usage on the smartphone. Germany had the biggest increase in usage from the first part of the year to the later.

Now, what’s up with France backing down to 36%? Suddenly they don’t like the internet?

You might think this means that smartphone owners have no need for computers, but 75% said they still use the old desktop to surf the web on a daily basis.

Tablets aren’t even close to taking over. The US has the highest mix of smartphone owners with tablets at 17%. Everyone else comes in closer to 10%.

Two other interesting facts from the survey:

• More women are using smartphones, particularly in Germany and Japan
• More people in the surveyed countries use a mobile phone (feature and / or smartphone) than a computer.

I don’t know if those two facts have any impact on your marketing, but they’re interesting tidbits that you can use to start a conversation at dinner tonight. You’re welcome.

Google+ has just lowered their minimum age requirement from 18 to 13. Young teens everywhere couldn’t care less.

Google VP Bradley Horowitz makes a great pitch though. . . .

Teens and young adults are the most active Internet users on the planet. And surprise, surprise: they’re also human beings who enjoy spending time with friends and family. Put these two things together and it’s clear that teens will increasingly connect online. Unfortunately, online sharing is still second-rate for this age group.

Oh, snap! Did he just call Facebook “second-rate?” So he didn’t mention them by name, but come on. . .

In life, for instance, teens can share the right things with just the right people (like classmates, parents or close ties). Over time, the nuance and richness of selective sharing even promotes authenticity and accountability. Sadly, today’s most popular online tools are rigid and brittle by comparison, so teens end up over-sharing with all of their so-called “friends.”

There he goes again! Calling Facebook a “tool,” a rigid and brittle tool, even! This means war.

With Google+, we want to help teens build meaningful connections online. We also want to provide features that foster safety alongside self-expression. Today we’re doing both, for everyone who’s old enough for a Google Account (13+ in most countries).

Safety and self-expression, all very nice, but how many 13-year-olds do you know that are clamoring for a Google+ account?

Then again, maybe they’ve got a point. With Circles, young Dylan can put mommy and grandmom in their own special circle then create special posts that only they can see. “I got an A on my math test! Yippee!”

Marketing Pilgrim’s Social Channel is proudly sponsored by Full Sail University, where you can earn your Masters of Science Degree in Internet Marketing in less than 2 years. Visit FullSail.edu for more information.

All the real stuff goes in the Friends Circle: (Insert remark you wouldn’t want your parents to see if you were a 13 year-old boy.)

In order to prevent oversharing, Google+ has a warning screen for teens who click the share all option.

Another, kind of odd safety feature, is the Hangout Lockout.

Google+ Hangouts bring people together using live multi-person video, and the results range from heartwarming to awe-inspiring. However, we recognize that connecting face-to-face is special and serious, so if a stranger outside a teen’s circles joins the hangout, we temporarily remove the young adult, and give them a chance to rejoin.

That whole paragraph sounds like the opening narration on a 70′s Afterschool Special.

I do believe that Google+ has many elements that would be helpful to teens, such as the ability to group followers and video chat on Hangout. But the decision to lower the age rage seems a bit premature. I think Google would have been better off expanding their push to bring in more adults who post on at least a weekly basis.

And can we talk about how ugly the opening screen is with all the colored arrows. Like a kindergartner gone mad. Ugh.

What do you think? Is the decision to lower the age range a good thing, bad thing, or ain’t no thing at all?

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While it may seem like a big deal that the most powerful sports league in the US (and maybe the planet), the NFL, is letting it’s players tweet during a game but let’s not run around ringing in the new era of social media and sports.

It’s pretty fascinating to consider, right? A player comes off the field after an incredible catch or incredible hit and immediately tells his followers how he feels. It’s the ultimate in letting the fans in on the emotion and intensity of such an emotional and intense game like football. From Yahoo we read

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has been accused of turning the NFL into the “No Fun League,” but Wednesday, he took a bold step to fight back against that label. He’s not only allowing players to tweet during the Pro Bowl ‒ he’s setting up computer stations on the sidelines to help them do so.

Which is exactly how a man who is no fun would combat allegations that he is no fun.

The NFL policy for real games is that players are banished from Twitter 90 minutes before a game starts, all the way until all the postgame interviews are conducted. For this Sunday’s Pro Bowl, it’s a Twitter free-for-all. Players still can’t have their mobile devices on the sidelines, but again, the league will be setting up “computer stations.”

But here’s the rub, it’s being done during a “game” that is as meaningless as anything the NFL does can possibly be. The league allowing and even enabling its players to tweet during a game sounds great but it’s really a completely hollow and insignificant gesture. In other words, don’t expect this to happen during ANY other game that the league has in the foreseeable future.

This is a pure PR stunt that has no legs. Why? Because anyone who has any real understanding of the NFL knows that this game is a joke. The league has been trying to figure out how to make the Pro Bowl work in the Internet age and thus far they have failed miserably. A game like this used to have value because there were limited ways for fans to see and hear about the players. It used to have value back in the 70′s and 80′s because there was no Internet and the 24 / 7 sports news cycle hadn’t taken hold as it has today.

Marketing Pilgrim’s Social Channel is proudly sponsored by Full Sail University, where you can earn your Masters of Science Degree in Internet Marketing in less than 2 years. Visit FullSail.edu for more information.

So how do you breathe life into an event that traditionally has been held after the Super Bowl but has been pushed so close to the brink of irrelevancy that it is now played on the Sunday in between the last playoff game and the Super Bowl just so people would even remember it was being played? Make it a true gimmick, of course. Nice slippery slope you just stepped on Commissioner Goodell.

As a sports fan this whole effort just reeks of desperation and brings out the absolute worst in the social media space. Why do I say that? It’s because now the game is more reality TV than it is football. Oh and by the way, most of the players don’t even want to be there. They don’t want to risk injury that could cost them their livelihood in a meaningless game which doesn’t even include players from the Super Bowl teams any more.

I get what the league is trying to do. It is trying to boost the interest of the fans and the players (especially those who are smart enough to jockey for position regarding their post career options in a social media world) so that the game will be relevant again.

But here is what will happen. Social media proponents will start to crow at the start of next season that this kind of thing should be allowed in pre-season and possibly even regular season games. They will not let this idea go. The league, however, will likely NEVER allow this to happen in any game that matters because it could dilute their product which is a multi-billion dollar machine that can virtually print money the way it is now.

Social media types will say that opening the game to the players will enhance the fan experience. Most of these people wouldn’t be able to hold a football without dropping it let alone understand what it takes to actually play the game well. It’ll be nerds dictating football. There is NO upside for the league in doing that because the egos and the like will turn the NFL into a reality TV show and it will alienate its fans that allow it to roll on and make tons of money.

I’ve gone on long enough about this. I’ll wrap up by saying that I think this is a ridiculous idea because it throws open the door for the NFL to go down the road of being turned into a social media joke. By allowing this it has now given the social media world real traction in the game and it may not be able to turn back without having more No Fun League accusations hurled at it.

Normally the NFL is pretty smart. This decision is just plain dumb.

Google continues to make changes in different areas of their business. Apparently, how that business is defined is causing pains for Wall Street types which is rather amusing, but I digress.

The latest adjustment comes in how average search position is calculate. From the Google Webmaster Central blog we get an example of just how this is being done.

Let’s say Nick searched for [bacon] and URLs from your site appeared in positions 3, 6, and 12. Jane also searched for [bacon] and URLs from your site appeared in positions 5 and 9. Previously, we would have averaged all these positions together and shown an Average Position of 7. Going forward, we’ll only average the highest position your site appeared in for each search (3 for Nick’s search and 5 for Jane’s search), for an Average Position of 4.

We anticipate that this new method of calculation will more accurately match your expectations about how a link’s position in Google Search results should be reported.

Check out the updated Top Search Queries data in the Your site on the web section of Webmaster Tools.

The critical point to note as well is that this not impact historical data, it will be moving forward only.

Admittedly, there’s not much to see here but for folks like the readers we love here at Marketing Pilgrim, it all matters, right?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the Super Bowl will be the biggest, one-day, social media event of the year.

Last year, during the final minutes of the game, fans posted 4,064 Tweets per second. This broke the sporting record which had been held by the World Cup, but it didn’t break the all-time record of 6,939 TPS. That happened the moment Japan welcomed in the new year.

Still, I believe that this year’s Super Bowl will trump all because the powers that be have a plan. Of course they have an official Twitter and Facebook and plenty of supporting accounts on both. They have a website full of bells and whistles and mobile apps so you can keep up with all the game info while on the go.

What’s really incredible is the 2,800-square-foot social media center that has been put together to handle this one event. MSNBC Digital Life says that this is the first time a center of this sort has been built for an event.

Let me stop here and say that the Olympics also have social media covered, but that’s not a single day event. The Super Bowl is one day, but the center will be operational for about two weeks.

The goal of the social media center is to act as an information hub for people coming to see the game. A staff of 50 has been assigned to scan Twitter, Facebook and other media for Super Bowl related questions. Since they’re specifically dealing with those visiting the Indianapolis area, it’s not as massive a job as it could be.

Marketing Pilgrim’s Social Channel is proudly sponsored by Full Sail University, where you can earn your Masters of Science Degree in Internet Marketing in less than 2 years. Visit FullSail.edu for more information.

The secondary function of the center is one they hope they won’t need, that of emergency management. The staff is prepared to send out emergency information via Twitter in order to quickly reach a large portion of the 150,000 fans at the game.

The Super Bowl Social Media Center is proof that social media is now being taken seriously. It’s no longer an option if you have some spare time. Social media is now being recognized as a legitimate news source and as a practical way of communicating with a large number of people — particularly people on the move.

Super Bowl XLVI should break social media records. Let’s just hope it’s all Tweets and posts about the game, the TV commercials and the parties. This would not be a great time to test Twitter as an emergency management system.

It’s ironic that the top story on Yahoo’s front page is about how J. C. Penney is reinventing the brand. Perhaps the higher ups at Yahoo should read their own article, then maybe sit down with the retailer for a round of commiseration and cheering up.

The once powerful Yahoo, just reported a decline in net income of 5% for Q4. Recently, Yahoo invested a lot of money and effort into raising the quality of its content. That gave them the title of the “most trafficked news site on the web,” but apparently that didn’t help their bottom line.

A large part of the problem is the drop in their display advertising business. This used to be the jewel in the crown for Yahoo, but now they’re down 4% quarter over quarter.

In general, display advertising is on the rise. eMarketer’s numbers show a 24.5% increase in ad dollars over last year. Unfortunately, the competition is benefiting from the rise, not Yahoo. Google and Facebook are taking the lead, but why? How did Yahoo go from being the top site for display ads to third place?

It feels like Yahoo is going the way of AOL. Out with the old, in with the new. That leaves us with a two-horse race and that’s not good for marketers or consumers.

With Google and Facebook increasingly out distancing themselves from the pack, is it even possible for Yahoo to get back in the race? Or will it be Google or Facebook for the win from now on in?

If you can step back for enough time to see some of the other things that Google does you would maybe see less of the evil, greedy Google that seems to be the popular point of view these days and see places where they actually help people. They do this even without taking your data and “forcing” you to use their Google+ service which is simply their front for world domination.

Take the new Public Alerts feature in Google Maps. It’s pretty cool and it makes good sense. Whether you are traveling into an area where an alert might be in effect or you have concerns right near your home you can now check a map to get the information you want.

On the Google LatLong blog here is an example of what you would see on a map if there were public alerts set in motion.

If you click on an alert you will get the alert detail much like you would on the Weather Channel or from some other weather source.

There’s not much else to discuss about this other than the thought that while we like to get whipped into a SilVal frenzy about Google’s “evil intentions” we should pay some attention to the smaller things as well.

Maybe they should post a permanent alert over the Silicon Valley warning of heavy hot air gusts and limited visibility due to the fog of arrogance and self importance? I’m just wondering.

Ok, it may be that I took a liberty or two with the headline. However, when you read what the EU (European Union) is “allowing” itself to do if a company violates their first update to their data protection laws in 17 years and then look at the state of THEIR union its not a very far jump to get to my conclusion.

From Bloomberg

Companies face fines as high as 2 percent of yearly global sales for losing personal data under an overhaul of European Union privacy rules.

Data protection agencies in the EU’s 27 countries would gain the power to sanction companies that violate requirements for handling personal information proposed by the European Commission today. The measures, which also target online- advertising and social networking sites, update the EU’s 17- year-old data protection policies.

The EU overhaul would also clamp down on data lapses such as Sony Corp. (6758)’s six-day delay in warning customers about a cyber attack that exposed more than 100 million customer accounts, the second-largest online data breach in U.S. history. Industry groups with members including Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Google Inc. (GOOG) have warned against overly strict data-privacy rules that may stifle innovation.

At least we found something that Google and Microsoft can agree upon?

Just think about how much harder the EU will start looking for violations especially from companies with giant annual revenue numbers! You don’t think this kind of system isn’t ripe for corruption and misuse? Heck, every system is, so maybe that’s fair either.

Anyway, if you have any business happening within the confines of the European Union you better start studying up. Last thing you need is a bill in the Accounts Payable department that reads “Amount Due – 2% of Annual Sales”.

Image credit – Shutterstock

We all want more clicks. We all want a magic formula to get clicks. We also all know (at least those who are firmly planted in reality) that there is no such beast.

There is, however, research that is being done all the time to help give some guidance regarding how to best navigate the emerging social media marketing landscape. One person who does a lot of this research, especially around Twitter, is HubSpot’s Dan Zarrella. His latest look into the world of Twitter and how you might be able to optimize your efforts on the social network looks at some of the variables that go into generating more clicks on Twitter.

Take a look at this infographic that examines insights gleaned from Zarrella’s research. Have you found similar experiences in using Twitter? Do you have your own “secret sauce”? Care to share?

This post was written by our Social Media channel sponsor Full Sail University.

In a previous post here on Marketing Pilgrim, I wrote about personal branding from the perspective of how social media can help (or hurt) in finding a job. That article focused on the basic tactics like setting up professional profiles and who to follow. In this post I’d like to get into the strategy behind personal branding a little more.

The basic tenet behind developing a strong personal brand – or any brand, for that matter – is providing your audience with something of value to them. Online, that’s largely about content, and just as businesses should have a solid content strategy, so should you as an individual.

Developing a Personal Brand Content Strategy

Step 1: What’s your goal?
A content strategy is simply a plan for effectively using content to reach your goals. Are you looking for a job? Trying to position yourself as a leader in your industry? Launching a new business? A student looking at potential opportunities down the road?

Step 2: Who can help you reach that goal?
Once you are clear about your objective, your content plan begins with understanding the audience you are trying to reach. If you’re a job-seeker, that may be others in your industry, recruiters, or industry veterans. If you’re a business owner, your target audience might be potential customers, vendors, other businesses in related industries, or even competitors. Give some serious thought to this step, but don’t get too hung up on it; building your base of connections will be an ongoing process.

Step 3: Get out – and stay out – of the Step 2 mindset.
Now, stop thinking about what’s in it for you, and start thinking about what you can provide that’s of value to your audience. The saying that it’s better to give than to receive is nowhere more true than in developing your personal brand.

Types of Content

There are several different ways you can share content online:

• Original content is anything you create yourself. Always be sure that it reflects well on the brand you want to be; everything you put online is part of the cultivation of your personal brand, from comments on a blog to a full-scale article. Make sure it’s written well and is informative. And please remember to proofread, edit and spell-check, no matter how small the exchange.

• Shared content is anything that you are willing to promote that was created by someone else. This can take many forms, from retweets to social media shares, likes and plus ones. Remember that everything you share, even if you didn’t create it, also reflects on you. Be judicious, and always consider the value to your audience.

• Curated content can include both original and shared content. It allows the ‘curator’ to pull together information in a way that may be valuable to the audience. It’s a big web out there, and sometimes having someone gather the best of the best for you is a big help in parsing all that information. Curation can be useful because, as Brian Solis said, the “…thoughts, words and ideas of others can be helpful to establish yourself as a value added resource and as a place or destination for information.” With curation, though, be careful not to just rehash things your audience has likely already seen. (For example, if you’re a marketer, don’t just share every single thing Seth Godin says; it may be smart, but your audience probably already sees it directly.)

Marketing Pilgrim’s Social Channel is proudly sponsored by Full Sail University, where you can earn your Masters of Science Degree in Internet Marketing in less than 2 years. Visit FullSail.edu for more information.

Which type of content works best? The answer depends on your goals, your positioning, and your skills. If you’re a student or breaking into a new industry, for example, 100% original content may not be the best choice, since you’re not (yet) able to speak from a place of experience. However, perhaps some content curation that exemplifies your interests and goals would also be of value to members of your audience.

Notwithstanding the comment above, you should consider creating at least some original content for a few reasons:

• It’s good practice, especially writing.

• Just sharing and curating content may not be enough to establish your credibility.

• Your audience could most likely get all the content you share from the original source.

It’s Not Just About Text Any Longer

Many people think of content as just textual, but that’s no longer the case. Here are just a few types of content you could create that might allow you to engage your audience effectively:

• Text – Text does remain the most widely distributed form of content online, from Tweets to full-scale multi-page articles in online journals. Other forms of text-based content include blog posts, social media entries, comments on blogs/forums, and even shares, likes, plus ones and retweets.

• Photos – A picture can be worth a thousand words, if done well. The important thing is that it provides value to your audience and moves you closer to your goal.

• Videos – For some, online videos are a quick and relatively painless way of creating content. They can showcase your personality even more than most other mediums because viewers get the experience of ‘almost being there.’
• Audio – Podcasts and other forms of audio can be used to share information in a medium that works well for some.

Anything you do to communicate with others online is content, and content should always be considered in the context of your goals. Developing a strategy allows you to be conscious in your choices and puts you in a better position to succeed.

About the author

Rob Croll is Department Chair for the Internet Marketing Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programs at Full Sail University, and the Course Director for Search Engine Optimization there. He also owns Marlannah Digital Marketing, a consulting firm that works with small- to medium-sized businesses and non-profits. Rob was named one of the Top 100 Marketing Professors on Twitter and has had numerous articles published both online and in print on a variety of Internet marketing topics. You can follow Rob on Twitter @rcroll.

The views and opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of Marketing Pilgrim.

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