Best Buy may not always be thought of as trail-blazers but this video presented by their CMO shows how much they have embraced digital marketing and social media.
Posted 2 December 2009 in Internet marketing, Market Trends, Marketing, Social Networking, by
Mark
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Tags: Advertising, best buy, Communication, Marketing, Social Networking, Technology, Twitter, web design melbourne.
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Very interesting interview. Well worth taking the time to watch.
Posted 3 November 2009 in Features, Internet marketing, Marketing, by
Mark
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Tags: eric schmidt, Google, Internet, Marketing, Social Networking, Technology, web design melbourne, YouTube.
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Recently published in Anthill Online
MySpace is in trouble. Membership is dropping and people are leaving in droves. Some people assert that the mass exodus started when News Corp bought the social network and others say it is simply a sign of how fast fashion changes online.
The real truth is that the owners of MySpace failed to clearly understand what they had acquired. They are used to managing newspapers and TV networks and the social media space has started to look more like a threat.
So here is a simple concept, explained in more familiar terms, that could help save MySpace and help start the next big jump in social networks.
The problem with MySpace, and many other social networks for that matter, is that they are built on two assumptions: 1) that fame alone will be motivation enough for users to create content; and 2) that this is sufficient to create a successful business. The millions of MySpace pages, YouTube videos and Flickr photos have proven that while this is true, it is not enough to keep quality content streaming in that will underpin a successful business model. Think of it this way: if MySpace was a TV network, it would be a free-to-air network with bad advertising and programs created by people who will never get paid for them. Doesn’t sound like anything most of us would want to invest in.
If you want a good TV station, you need to have quality programming with a good adverting strategy and the revenues must be shared among owners, programmers and content providers. Currently, MySpace is being treated more like a community notice board than a content network. For this to change, the people generating the content need to be able to share in the advertising revenue. The more popular their MySpace page, the more they earn. A simple pay-per-click model could work.
This idea will meet resistance. Why would they give away a percentage of the advertising revenue when it is already on the decline? But if they had invested in a TV channel that was failing, they would be implementing a turnaround plan to lift the quality of content and attract more, high-value advertising.
Currently the people doing the best out of MySpace are musicians. It helps them connect with their fan base, they can sell songs and mechanise directly – thereby cutting out the record label – and it is a wonderful promotion tool. But to be successful they need to keep generating quality content on a regular basis. The way they monetise this content is through the sale of merchandise and tickets. They use it as a springboard to larger mainstream fame.
Obviously, not all people are in bands. But there is a huge pool of global talent, in every field imaginable, that is yet to be successfully tapped into. This is why I’m suggesting sharing adverting revenue with these content creators. Anybody passionate and motivated enough can develop a niche market. And they should be able to get paid for it. The big idea here is that, with a simple change in policy and little additional investment, MySpace would no longer be the place where people simply try and get famous enough to make it to TV or newspapers. It could become the destination. Just give the MySpace users a model to work with.
For all of MySpace’s faults, it is well positioned to do this. There are things it needs to improve, like restricting its customisability to improve and standardise the user experience. But it is a very simple platform. It already has access to a large online population and it can leverage the video and image networks to reduce its server requirements. Why pay for the cost of hosting video when someone is willing to do that for you? Let other social networks connect in. Stop treating your content providers as free labour and realise everyone wants to get paid for their work. Allow interest groups to connect in a better way. Market to these groups. Let them come up with ways to market to each other that you may never think of. Get smarter.
It’s time for social networks to grow up. There is a lot of money to be made if everybody learns to share. Big business needs to get behind them and stop running scared.
If you want to monetise social networks successfully, then give the people creating the content the ability and the framework to do the same.
Posted 21 August 2009 in Advertising, Economics, Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, Marketing, Social Networking, by
Mark
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Tags: Advertising, Communication, Marketing, myspace, Social Networking, Technology, YouTube.
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The world of medical services is changing fast. Traditional word-of-mouth marketing and life-long loyalty to one medical practice is being eroded by rapid developments in the online world. Your customers now use the internet to connect with other customers, find and evaluate services, products and conduct extensive research on topics that matter the most before making decisions.
This article gives you insights into the current trends and explains how you can make the most of them.
Not so long ago marketing a medical practice was simply a matter of putting a sign up and choosing a nice font. Now your customers expect more. Today a website is an essential tool for strengthening current relationships and assisting potential patients learn about what you stand for and even connect with your practice. However, simply having ‘a website’ is not enough. A poorly executed online presence can backfire, result in disappointed users and may even damage reputations. News spreads fast in the online world! On the other hand, a considered online marketing strategy and a well-designed website is your chance to appear inviting and professional.
Before you run off and build a new website make sure you have thought about the ‘image’ you are have chosen to convey. Of course ‘trust’ is a given but there are other important decisions you will need to make about your chosen persona. For instance, do you want to be seen as friendly, professional, modern or traditional? Good web agencies will help you understand your options in regards to colours, layout and language and how these link to your personality.
What is important is finding the thing that makes you ‘different’. Ask some of your patients. They may have some valuable insights that you have failed to spot.
As anyone who has searched for a ‘doctor’ on Google knows the web is a very big place. In fact Google has now indexed well over 1 trillion web pages. So having a website gives you no guarantee that anyone will see it. You need to think beyond ‘website’ if you are to get results and ensure you do not waste your budget on a solution that will become obsolete or too expensive to maintain or expand.
Fortunately, a good online marketing strategy does not need to cost the earth – in sharp contrast to traditional channels such as newspaper, radio or TV. It takes some careful planning and a little bit of time but it will be very beneficial. Much of it comes down to choosing the right partner to supply you with sound advice and solutions.
Part of any build phase of a new website should be ‘Search Engine Optimisation’ [SEO] which is the combination of a number of strategies employed to make your website easy to find. To some extent the ease with which potential customers can find you through search engines comes down to the way the site is built. So make sure your web agency has a good understanding of this. The words you opt to use on your site will also affect search ‘efficiency’.
Search engines rank sites on original content so avoid copying text from other sites. Make your text clear and easy to ‘skim read’ and ask your web development company to give you a list of commonly used ‘key’ words to include: The more you use the better your results from web search activity.
Creating well ‘optimised’ website text is not rocket science. Just be sure you get professional guidance before you start.
There are many types of online advertising available but the most common, and by far the most cost effective, is search engine advertising. You probably have seen this form of advertising when performing a Google search. They are called “sponsored links” which have been designed with smaller businesses in mind, and can be very effective. But don’t assume this is the right choice for you.
There are many ways to run a search engine marketing campaign and getting it right can save you a lot of money. Look to partner with a company that has experience in this field and work with them to set targets and budgets.
Online directories are a simple way of raising your profile. There are many online directories available in Australia including Sensis, Yellow Pages, AMA and other official medical directories.
Some directories are free but many charge for a listing. Before you take the plunge and pay for a listing make sure you know the profile of the directory’s viewers. If the operator of a directory can’t provide that type of information it may be a sign that it’s unlikely to work for you.
Utilising social networks:
Social Networking seems to be the buzz word of 2009. In fact, online social networking has existed for a very long time. What’s new are services such as Twitter and Facebook having recently taken off. Networking sites may come and go but what won’t go away is the desire of your customers to connect and share thoughts and information. Developing a Social Networking strategy will be worth the effort.
Depending on how you want to approach the market you may want to make this a big part of your overall plan or just a small addition. Either way it is worth remembering you can’t do everything. Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, article writing and participating in forums are all forms of social networking and it is easy to get caught up trying to influence all of them. A far better approach is to identify where the people you want to communicate are found and target a few areas that will help add to your reputation.
Doctors hold a special place in society so advertising can get tricky. The Medical Practices Act and State Medical boards will have information on rules and regulations around marketing your practice. Spending some time reading and understanding these documents will help you avoid any pitfalls.
After doing your research, optimising your site and fine-tuning your online marketing strategy, you’ll want to know how successful it is. The obvious way is to look at your bottom line. But building a brand name takes time so getting some higher level data is necessary to check if you’re on the right track.
Make sure your website has an analytics device attached so you can see who visits your site and how long they spend there. This knowledge is essential in achieving success with your online efforts. Luckily Google offers site analytics for free. The information gathered will give you a greater understanding and assist in the allocation of your marketing budget to further strengthen your online marketing efforts.
A wide range of new technologies are changing the way everyone is using the web. The global financial crisis has just added momentum to that trend as individuals and firms switch to more cost-effective and valuable ways of communicating and marketing. There is no better time to take advantage of this shift and build yourself a great online presence and strengthen your reputation.
Posted 18 August 2009 in Advertising, Clients, Features, Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, Marketing, Social Networking, by
Mark
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Tags: Advertising, Communication, Marketing, medical, Recession, Social Networking, Technology, Twitter.
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UK Prime Minister delivers this inspiring talk at TED. He discusses how we can use today’s interconnectedness to develop our shared global ethic.
Posted 11 August 2009 in Internet, Market Trends, Social Networking, by
Mark
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Tags: Gordon Brown, Internet, Social Networking, Technology, TED, TED Conference, Twitter, web design melbourne.
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we recently had this article published on the Anthill website:
Unless you are Osama bin Laden’s roommate, you’ll know that 2009 is the year Twitter took off. It has grown by over 1,000 percent and the phrase “tweet it” has become part of the popular lexicon. While many people still “don’t get it“, it has become incredibly powerful. How did this happen?
The development of modern civilisation is marked by big changes arising from new communication technologies. The creation of the mail system, the telegraph, the telephone, radio, television, the internet and mobile phones have all been incredibly powerful influencers. They have made the world a smaller place and every step has allowed information to be passed along at a progressively faster rate.
The impact of these technologies has been all about their rate of uptake and penetration into societies. The more people were using the technologies, the more people could be influenced. Once a critical mass is created you begin to get powerful ‘network’ effects and then ubiquity.
Today we couldn’t imagine life without a mobile phone. It has achieved ‘ubiquity’. Yet it is worth remembering that the first five years or so of mobile phone technology was met with a lot of resistance from the general public. The technology was confusing for many and the price to many was prohibitive. Less than 15 years ago, penetration rates among retail consumers was relatively low.
The rise and penetration of social media has been meteoric compared to the adoption of the ‘new’ communication technologies that preceded it. Assuming you have the hardware to connect, the cost is practically free and the collective minds of all the users work to create ever-easier ways to use it. Facebook’s massive population of nearly 250 million is a great example of how this can happen if all of the elements are right. Social media is seeing the development of “The New Socialism“, as Wired magazine put it.
Twitter was created by Jack Dorsey in 2006. It was designed as a micro-blogging service that could be updated by computer or mobile phone. As more and more people began using Twitter, new ways of using it were discovered, and the service started to take off.
Today it is estimated that there are about eight million Twitter users worldwide. High profile users like Oprah and Ashton Kutcher give its popularity added momentum. Many people now turn to Twitter’s real-time search engine first to find out what is happening in the world.
There are new applications changing almost every day that allow account holders to use Twitter in new ways. You can connect to Twitter via any technology that can access the internet, which means you can connect your network too. The momentum it is experiencing suggests that it has reached the ‘tipping point’.
It wasn’t until June this year that it became apparent how powerful Twitter had become. The owners of Twitter had scheduled a standard maintenance outage. It was set for the middle of the night in the USA, Twitter’s biggest market. Then Twitter was approached by the US State Department. The Iranian election and subsequent protests were getting a huge amount of international coverage. The State Department determined that Twitter was the most important communication tool for the protesters to communicate and organise. As a result, Twitter was persuaded to delay the outage to fit with Iranian usage. As events unfolded in Iran, Twitter was buzzing with protests, including an attempt to shut down the Iranian state websites.
The future of specific platforms like Twitter is far from certain. What is a safe bet is that people will demand the real-time information flow these platforms enable. Social media will grow and spread until it reaches complete ubiquity and we will all wonder how we ever lived without it. It will affect how people from different cultures communicate, how governments are chosen and constrained, and how brands reach markets.
The sooner you and your company get on board, the better you will be placed to take advantage of the wealth of information being made available by this transformation.
Posted 10 August 2009 in Direct Branding, Direct Marketing, Features, Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, Social Networking, Viral, Working Three, by
Mark
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Tags: Communication, Social Networking, Social Networking Melbourne, Technology, Twitter, web design melbourne.
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Great Video. I’ll let it speak for itself…
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Posted 31 July 2009 in Internet, Internet marketing, Marketing, Social Networking, by
Mark
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Tags: Advertising, Communication, Creative Advertising, Marketing, Social Networking, Technology, Twitter, YouTube.
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I while back I wrote an article about the what the stream of innovation coming out of the Google offices could mean for marketers. Last week Google announced that will be launching a new operating system so time for an update.
In my last article I suggested that Google is actually trying to create new markets for itself by utilising cloud computing. Dramatically reducing the barriers of entry for those people who do not currently have access to the internet will change the face of online information flow and marketing.
Google’s new operating system gives this concept even more credibility. Google has said that the operating system will be free and aimed at low cost computers like net-books. With this move it is easy to see a future not too far off where a few dollars will get anyone the technology to get onto the internet, create documents, share information, and participate in the world wide web.
The world is getting even more connected at an even greater rate thanks to Google. The next 20 years of web evolution (the world wide web is 20 this year) is going to be a very exciting time for us all, with huge culture shifts across the globe.
In short – “get moving”. The face of marketing is changing fast and the markets you can communicate with. Firms who move first will engage new potential customers, get early information on their preferences, and be able to tailor their offering to grab market share quickest. So get your web presence working for you, make social networking part of your plan and prepare to take on new markets like never before.
A recent Harvard Business Review article titled “The New Frontiers” referenced case studies from around the world where companies are using social networks and other web technologies to adjust their position in the value chain.
Many firms are already engaging new markets and customers. Don’t get left behind
Posted 16 July 2009 in Features, Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, Marketing, Social Networking, by
Mark
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Tags: Communication, Google, Marketing, Social Networking, Social Networking Melbourne, Technology, web design melbourne.
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The 28th of May this year may end up being one of the most influential 24 hours periods in web history. It was on this day that Google launched a new communications platform called Google Wave, and if Wave lives up to it’s promise it may change digital communication forever. But while the web elite are all a-buzz about the impact of this new platform on the way we communicate Google has quietly been releasing a steady stream of new products and further improvements to their core product, the Google search engine and it’s related advertising tools. Google is not going to give us a road-map for what this all means but it is possible to look at the patterns and take a long view.
There has been a lot of talk about the new kids on the search block, Wolfram Alpha, Twitter search and Microsoft’s latest entry, Bing (which is an acronym for “But It’s Not Google”). Some commentators have been speculating that many of the additions to Google search pages, such as the new “options” area where there is real time search among other features, are Google’s answer to real time search on Twitter search, and the decision engine promised by Bing. And while competition has undoubtedly accelerated Google’s release of features it is a pretty safe bet to assume that Google is not simply being reactive.
The fact is the Google owns over 70% of the search market world wide. Wolfram Alpha is designed as a computational engine which, in plain English, means it is an attempt to create a type of artificial intelligence and tease data out of the internet in a different way. Not really a direct threat to Google – in fact it can be seen as a complementary feature. Twitter Search is a real time search engine based on the collective conversations of every Twitter user. Interesting but also not a huge threat to Google search. Bing, combined with Yahoo, is really the only direct threat to Google. And, while Microsoft and Yahoo are spending a lot of money on marketing, they have a long way to go.
Currently Google has something in the vicinity of 200 applications and services available (for a full list go here), most of which are free. New ones seem to be coming out on a weekly basis at the moment. A few weeks back we saw the release of Google Squared, a very interesting research tool with loads of potential. A visual search tool for news, Flipper, is expected shortly.
It is fairly common knowledge that any technology Google develops is directed at increasing the usage of the web as a whole, thereby increasing the value of it’s main revenue stream, AdWords, the advertising medium based on relevance and consumer intent.
Forget E-Bay, AdWords is the world’s biggest auction. Every single search that is performed on Google is automatically analysed so that the most relevant “sponsored link” is displayed on the page and, of course, paid for by the advertiser. When you look at the cost of an individual click the numbers are small. But when you analyse the volume of searches that are performed it really starts to get impressive. Enough to net Google $21 Billion USD in 2008.
The temptation is to draw the line there… “Google is trying to get us all to use the browser even more, so we can do more searches, so they can make more money”. This is true – but there’s more to it.
The big difference between using Google AdWords and say print advertising – apart from the huge difference in volume of data you can extract; is that it levels the playing field. You can be a multi-national corporation with tens of millions to spend but if the copy of your ad is less relevant to searcher’s intent than an ad by a one man shop you won’t get the top spot. It is this fact that has seen online advertising for the SME market skyrocket. Naturally, Google is well aware of this.
The world wide web has become almost as essential as electricity and water in most of the technologically advanced areas of the world. In these societies the middle class are the highest users. But Google has spotted that poorer, less advanced countries present a huge growth opportunity. The current barrier to entry for this demographic is the window into the net: the computer.
Much of the cost of a computer is tied up in the processor power and the disk space. What Google is doing by creating free ’software as a service’ applications (or ‘cloud computing’ as it is otherwise known) is removing much of the technology requirement and cost. If all the processing is done at Google’s end the client’s machine need not be the latest and greatest computer on the market. The dramatic uptake of the NetBook is a great example of this. And the sale on eBay of the first generation of NetBooks for a few bucks presages the opening up of entirely new markets.
This is all about taking everybody towards a ‘thin client model‘. In this case the ‘client’ is the web end point – your window in the web – be it a NetBook, a TV, a phone, or just a screen plugged into the wall. The ‘thin’ part is the technology. Keep it simple and keep it cheap. The idea of the thin client model has been around for a while but Google is doing the most to advance it for the general population.
When the technology gets cheap enough the new target market for search related products will be most of the world . Google knows this and is already investing a lot of time into removing another barrier – language. One of the plug ins showcased when they launched Google Wave was a language translator that works as you type. This enables you to have real time conversations with anyone in the world. Together these innovations will bring information, education, and wealth to the masses in entirely new geographies.
As marketers we shouldn’t underestimate the size of this opportunity. Sure, we will have to learn new technologies and customs but we will also be able to market to entirely new groups of people with a new range of needs and wants – a part of the world that will grow in power and influence.
If you thought the first 20 years of the world wide web brought a lot of change to the way we do things, you haven’t seen anything yet.
Posted 1 July 2009 in Features, Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, Marketing, by
Mark
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Tags: Advertising, Communication, future, Google, Internet, Marketing, Social Networking, Technology, Twitter.
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A recent Time magazine article:
“Microblogging platform Twitter has 32 million users, an increase from about 2 million a year ago, according to research mentioned in the Wall Street Journal. Some Internet measurement services show that figure increasing 50% to 100% month over month. While it is not clear that Twitter will become as large as social networks MySpace and Facebook or video-sharing site YouTube, the company could certainly have 50 million visitors by the end of the year.”
Posted 30 May 2009 in Advertising, Direct Branding, Direct Marketing, Economics, Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, Marketing, Social Networking, by
Mark
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Tags: Advertising, Communication, Marketing, Social Networking, Technology, Twitter.
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