ANA Marketing Maestros

Have You Heard?

By Guest Blogger Lisa Neary

The digital landscape is changing. That was no clearer than after hearing Geoff Ramsey, CEO, Co-Founder eMarketer present at the ANA Digital and Social Media Conference last week. The downturned economy has decreased traditional media spend almost 20%. Marketers are being asked to do more with less and that has meant shifting discretionary dollars to digital initiatives.

With more than 57% of the US population participating in social media, many companies are attempting to leverage this space, but there is still confusion as marketers wonder if it is overrated. That is shocking considering that Geoff did note that only 10% of companies are effectively measuring the success of their social media programs.

While it still may be premature to tell, that fact is this: with a 60/40 split in terms of companies using social media to those not, you are behind the curve if you are at least exploring how to create an authentic dialogue with your audience and more importantly, you are at a severe competitive disadvantage if you are not listening to the buzz about your company, products or services across social media platforms.

With an ever-growing number of tools out there for "listening" to what your customers have to say, there's no excuse to not be taking advantage of this resource.  This valuable information is readily available and more importantly: free. Whether it's listening to what words they use to describe your product or brand or gaining a better understanding about their interests, intentions, real or perceived problems, the insights gained from harvesting this information can have a drastic effect on your messaging, product development and marketing strategy.

If you are still wondering if social media is a fad, watch this video, and make sure you listen.

Videos: The Trend of the Moment or Here to Stay?

By Cara Brooke Schultz

Viral videos seem to be the “trend” of the moment in the social media world, but will it last? Most websites from CNN.com to HomeDepot.com are using videos for numerous reasons like broadcasting information, tutorials, or pure entertainment. And then you have YouTube—a video community where anyone can become an Internet star by simply uploading a homegrown video.

Recently, I stumbled upon craigslist TV on YouTube.  At first I wasn’t sure if these videos were real, they look professionally produced, and the personalities of the people in the videos seems so outlandish I thought they had to be actors.

 

According to the craigslist channel on YouTube, “craigslist tv is a new documentary series that follows real craigslist users, in real time, as they use craigslist to make things happen. The project remains active today. Interested craigslist users click an opt-in button if they think their posting deserves to be seen. The episodes in this series are the results of the project to date.”

Do you find yourself watching more videos online? If so, what do you watch online—news, entertainment, educational tutorials? 

Is Facebook Making You Frown? Social Media Marketing Is a Ton of Work!

By Cara Brooke Schultz

Social media burst onto the scene, but like any new medium, it has brought with it a slew of questions. Marketers are asking, “How do I deal with…

• Privacy issues in social networking?”
• Data safety—visitors can get hit by identify theft and frauds?”
• Negative or undesirable posts?” 

At last week’s Advertising Law & Public Policy Conference presented by Microsoft several of the speakers weighed in with their opinions. During the presentation by Douglas J. Wood, senior partner, Reed Smith LLP; Christopher Sloan, assistant vice president and senior corporate counsel, Liberty Mutual Group; Divya Narendra, chief executive officer and co-founder, Sumzero.com we learned that in order for a company to actively participate in social media the company must enable conversations, monitor conversations, influence conversations, react to conversations, and monetize conversations—which translates into saying, “no you cannot just set up a Facebook fan page and walk away.” 

Seems like a lot of work huh? Well it is, and it doesn’t just stop there—with your new social media sites your company needs to adopt a social media policy for internal and external communications. A key point to keep in mind as you dive into social media, “don’t ban what you can’t stop.” Social media is not ending anytime soon, in fact recent statistics state the sites are still growing at a rapid rate, “Two yeas ago, 20 percent of survey respondents were using social networks and social media, now that figure is 66 percent,” (Research Report: Harnessing the Power of Never Media Platforms for More Effective Marketing, 2nd Edition. ANA 2009). 

For more information about the conference, visit our Web site. 

Getting the Most Out of Your Social Media Campaigns

By Irina Skaya

A recent ANA/BtoB Magazine/Mktg survey reported that 66 percent of marketers utilized social media in 2009 compared to 20 percent in 2007.  In order to fund their new media efforts, 55 percent of marketers have already shifted funds from their traditional media budgets. In 2009 Web site ownership, search engine marketing and display advertising are among the new media platforms that received the most funding. And in 2010, blogs, mobile and video are supposed to be at the top of the list.

According to the survey, The top concerns for marketers when considering newer media platforms are the inability to prove ROI (45 percent) and having metrics to properly allocate the mix of traditional and digital media (43 percent).  Social media analytics is young and most marketers do not know where to start.  First thing is first: know what your objective is, what you are trying to measure. Do you want to know what people are saying about your brands? Do you want to see how people are interacting with your brands on specific social networks? Or do you just simply want to know upcoming social media trends or maybe what your competitors are doing in the social media space?

As the social media guru of the ANA, I always look for new measuring and monitoring social media tools. I came up with a social media metrics superlist-my favorite online tools that will help marketers get started with social media analytics.

PS. They are all free!

• Twitalyzer: measures brands' and individuals' impact and success on Twitter by reporting on relative influence, signal-to-noise ratio, generosity, velocity, clout.
• Keotag: monitors mentions of your brands across dozens of Web sites, including Technorati, Blog Pulse, Google Blog, del.icio.us, Blinklist, Twitter, Bluedot, Newsvine, Digg, Blog Lines, YouTube, and more.
• Trackur: a 14-day free trial allows you to monitor your brands' online reputation and your competitors', and track your campaign's effectiveness.
• Social Networking Media ROI Calculator
• Blog Metrics

The ANA Marketing Insights Center has a great number of resources for marketers who would like to utilize social media to learn more about their customers and engage them directly and involve them in their brands.  In the ANA Today newsletter, "How Social Media Transforms Marketing," and "Skittles: Follow the Rainbow on Twitter" are the top-read articles. The above articles are available for ANA members only. If you are not an ANA member, browse through our 101 library where we have an abundant amount of social media resources, including "Marketing with Twitter."

If you use other social media tracking tools, please feel free to share them with us. We'd love to hear from you! Leave a comment or email me at [email protected].

Social Networks

View more presentations from ANAPresents.

Maximizing B2B Marketing

By Barbara Bacci Mirque

Eduardo Conrado, Chief Marketing Officer, Broadband Mobility Solutions, Motorola, regaled the crowd at ANA’s 2009 B2B conference with a marketing case study that was a primer about how to conduct B2B marketing and have a seat at the table as a growth driver.  I watched as his colleagues furiously scribbled notes and nodded their heads in agreement as he spoke.  Some key takeaways include:

• Work with the product groups at the start of ideation
• Evolve the marketing mix to go where the customers are
• Embed resources in all key areas early in the development cycle
• Have a single, comprehensive go to market strategy
• Start with the customer mindset
• Define solutions that address each segment’s needs

Tactically Eduardo addressed how Motorola activated social media to create an immersive digital experience.  A final thought he left us with: B2B marketers should not think of themselves just as transaction drivers but as relationship drivers.  

I know that I am going to use many of his learnings as I construct the ANA’s marketing plan.  If you are an ANA member you can access the summary of his presentation at the ANA’s Marketing Insights Center.  If you are a client side marketer who is not a member, shouldn’t you be?  To find out how to join, click here.

Is Online Video Advertising More Effective Than TV Advertising?

By Susan Burke

At a recent ANA Brand Management committee meeting, a presenter from Nielsen IAG shared the following information:

• A piece of creative running on a site such as Hulu.com (or ABC.com, NBC.com, CBS.com, etc.) delivers more effective advertising in terms of brand and message recall, than the same piece of creative running on TV. (Click here to see the snapshot and presentation.)

This nugget of information spurred a great deal of discussion in the meeting. Some attendees agreed with this finding, while others argued against it. To me, it makes sense that an ad running on an online video site has more of an impact than one on TV for a few reasons:

1. Conditioning: If I happen to be watching live TV, I will generally take the garbage out, channel surf, or leave the room during a commercial break. Most of us know how long the average commercial break is, so we are usually able to time our return to the couch perfectly.
2. DVRs: As I said in my first point, “If I happen to be watching live TV”—this activity happens rarely. Commercials are generally skipped, thanks to my DVR. However, you can’t fast forward through an online video ad.
3. Appreciation: When an ad is shown during an online video, I often find myself feeling grateful to the advertiser. Their sponsorship of the program means that I can watch it at my leisure, so I don’t mind viewing a 30 second spot in return.
4. Captive Audience: When commercial breaks occur during an online video, they are much shorter than a television commercial break. Therefore, I’m more likely to watch the ad, as opposed to doing something else during it. I can pause or mute the ad, of course, but I’ll still have to play it at some point if I want to finish the show.
5. Recall: My recall of an ad played during an online episode of a TV show is generally stronger than my recall of an ad played during the televised episode. This is because there are generally fewer total commercials during an online video.

While I think there is still a purpose to television advertising, I also believe that online video advertising is an avenue that many advertisers should explore more thoroughly. Online video isn’t going anywhere, so it’s time to embrace it.

Golden Opportunities on Twitter

By Irina Skaya

Not a day goes by without someone asking me, “Why do you use Twitter? It’s so useless. Why do I care what you are up to every second of the day?” Wake up people! You are missing out on engaging with and learning more about your customers.  As Cynthia Ashworth, Vice President of Customer Engagement @Dunkin’ Donuts said, “We don’t have to justify Twitter. It’s free customer-service.” Indeed it is, Cynthia. It’s a free focus group and a cheap option for collaboration.

As I try to keep up with the cutting edge marketing trends, I enrolled in a two-hour course on Twitter Love where I learned how marketers can utilize the microblogging Web site to promote their products and services, research consumer insights, improve customer service, converse with and engage their customers, and group collaboration.  For instance, @JetBlue is using Twitter to help improve customer services and teamwork across business units.  As a customer service tool, Twitter’s benefit is that everything people say about your product/service is public on Twitter and is easy to find via using their built-in search tool. This makes Twitter an instant focus group with over 10 million participants, many of whom are your customers.  Collecting customer feedback via Twitter is easy and effortless, especially when you compare it to the number of responses you get back through email surveys.  Zappos is using Twitter to make personal connections among employees, and between the company and its customers.  For those marketers who want to improve their corporate culture and customer service, Twitter is a great tool.

So just like there was Facebook and then came LinkedIn, a professional social networking Web site, Yammer is like Twitter for business. Yammer offers groups for discussions on a subject between people in the same workgroup. It can connect employees from different departments, so if you work in a 500+ company, you won’t feel like just a number anymore.  Although some may argue that Twitter and Yammer may be distracting and may affect employees’ productivity, it can, if used moderately improve corporate culture by connecting employees to one another and letting them know what the organization is up to, its achievements and pretty much anything.

So for the Twitter rebels, get on it, add ANAmarketers to your list of the following, and most importantly, start talking and listening to your customers.  And here are some Twitter tools to get you started:

TweetLater.com – helps you in following everyone who follows you; includes auto DMs and a tweet scheduler.

Twitter Karma - keeps a follow-to-follower ratio in order for you unfollow those who are not following me, with a few exceptions.

TwitterCounter - see my followers in graph form. It also predicts how many followers you will have in 30, 90 or 365 days.

TweetDeck – as an Adobe Air app, TweetDeck allows you to see your @replies, direct messages, timeline, and a lis of folks you follow whose Tweets you want to make sure you read. You can also use it to update your Twitter and Facebook accounts simultaneously. I use and love this tool!

PS.  Download our most-read 101 on Marketing with Twitter. 

Who Are You? Mac or PC?

By Irina Skaya

                                                                 There has always been a constant debate between McDonalds vs. Burger King, Porsche vs. BMW, and now Mac vs. PC. I use both—I have a Macbook at home and I work on a Windows Vista machine at work.  Although I use them for different purposes (Mac when I am feeling creative), I like both for different reasons.  However, I really love Apple ads for their creative!  A recent online video ad produced by TBWA/Media Arts is especially intriguing—it takes a unique approach by telling users NOT to click on the ad.  It’s sort of like reverse psychology that a parent uses to get their teenage child to listen to him/her.

This recent article reported in AdAge this week shows an ad that tells the user if he/she clicks on it, they will receive an electric shock.  AdAge says that this may be the only way in the world to get more than 2.5% of viewers to click on an ad.  Will this work? It will definitely arouse some curiosity, but chances are if the user is a loyal PC customer, he/she would not click on it regardless.  It’s definitely creative, but I am not sure if it will help generate market share for Apple, but cheaper products might.  

The Twitter Revolution

By Irina Skaya

You know Twitter is powerful when the tiniest and the poorest country in Europe, Moldova, where I was born is tweeting to draw thousands of people to antigovernment demonstration in its capital, Chisinau following preliminary election results that show that the ruling Communist Party has won the majority in weekend parliamentary elections. Not only are the Moldovans are using Twitter to announce information about the organized protests, but are blogging and tweeting to spread the word to the West. In my opinion, that is their exact intent—if you did not know that Moldova was a country, now you certainly do.  If that wasn’t the case, they could have easily used Friendster and LiveJournal, which is still the number one choice of social networking sites for Eastern Europeans.  So how powerful is Twitter?

To illustrate just how powerful blogging is, one of the leaders of ThinkMoldova youth movement has posted a blog to spread the word about the demonstrations, and within hours, she was able to recruit 10,000 people to join the rally. That’s a staggering number period, but for someone who comes from a town of a population of 10,000, that is ‘ginormous’. 

This is not the first time the Internet has been used to gain support in political rallies, but this is the first Twitter revolution to date.  Why was Twitter so effective in organizing the demonstrations? One microblogger said, “When you follow somebody, you usually know this person, so you trust this person — it is coming from a real person, not an institution.”

In tough times, most companies do create new brands—they still to the well-known existing brands to avoid risk. My theory is as long as we create good products, consumers will use them and spread word about them via the Internet. But the Twitter revolution that took place in Moldova shows that social media and blogging is so powerful and is truly changing the way we communicate, marketing online, and do business. 

Let's Get Digital

By Barbara Bacci Mirque

I recently attended Shelly Palmer’s Get Digital seminar (http://tinyurl.com/crfhsr.)  (I am now so digital I figured out how to create a tiny url instead of having to rely on Irina Skaya to create hot links for me!) I have known Shelly for a few years since our work together on interactive television so I was intrigued by his fast track class to becoming a digitally savvy marketer.   

As many of you know from ANA’s MME 2010 study fielded in collaboration with the AAAA, IAB and Booz & Co., most marketers know they need to be digitally savvy. They also realize that they are not.  So classes such as this one which are about building personal skillsets, or the ANA’s own digital marketing class which teaches you how to market digitally, are sure fire ways to jump on the digital bandwagon.  Or as one of my classmates so succinctly stated, after attending the class at least he now knows what he doesn’t know! 

So here is a crash course on how to build your own digital skillsets: Join Facebook and post photos to it and write on your friends’ walls, join LinkedIn, write a blog, create a personal website, start using Twitter, study Google apps, buy a really good PC or Mac, use a PDA, purchase a URL of your own name, and learn how to back up your files.  If you aren’t engaging in these activities yourself, how can you determine the best way to market to your consumers – many of whom are?  You can also read some great case studies from digitally aware marketers in the ANA’s Marketing Insights Center. I know I have forgotten half of what I learned so if you are a digital novice then be sure you have some young marketers on your staff to reverse mentor you.  Now I have to sign off and go find Irina to explain how to create those hot links again!