About Sarah Voges

Sarah Voges

Sarah grew up in a small town in the Texas hill country that gave her plenty of opportunities to get involved in community activities. She learned, through these activities, the importance of social connections and how much fun it is to be a part of a team. She took this idea of community with her to The University of Texas at Austin and majored in psychology to indulge her curiosity about people’s behavior and motivations. After a few years of working, she decided to study the inner working of the business world and earned her MBA at The University of Texas at Dallas. Now, at Click Here, she uses her knowledge about building community, understanding people, and managing businesses to develop strategy for clients in the digital world and help foster meaningful relationships between clients and customers. Her focus is often on the community aspects of the web and how social networking affects a brand.

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Posts by Sarah Voges

August 30th, 2010
Posted by Sarah Voges

In May 2010, at the height of season finales, Hulu ranked second only to YouTube in number of videos viewed. In August, Hulu expressed interest in a public offering, and eMarketer examined the pros and cons for advertisers, including the better content greater resources could secure versus the risk involved with turning content providers into competitors rather than owners. Also noted in the article is that advertisers view online television shows as a less risky place to participate in video ads online. This got me thinking…

How does online differ from television for advertising within a television show?

Let’s start with some basic statistics:

Although the number of people who watch television online is increasing, the in-home set is still our favorite way to watch our shows. People turn to the Internet for television shows because it allows them to watch television whenever and wherever they want. According to eMarketer, cross-platform viewers – who watch shows online and on the set – most frequently go online to watch an episode they missed or catch up on previous seasons and many missed episodes.

Younger audiences, especially 18- to 24-year-olds, participate in time shifting much more, taking advantage of the Internet’s convenience. Although it varies depending on the show, online viewers of television shows tend to be younger, more likely to be male and more comfortable with technology.

Comparing Ad Performance
The act of seeking out content online plays a big part in viewers’ engagement. The sense of empowerment makes viewers more receptive to ads, and the notion that advertising is the reason for free availability of the content is still around – unlike in television, where ads are viewed as an interruption. The environment also enables engagement because the user is required to click during the viewing process and is exposed to less clutter. In general, attitudes toward advertising are more favorable among online video viewers:

Hulu reports that 90% of its users think the ads they watch on the site are less annoying than those on television. Nielsen did a study that compared video ads run during online TV shows with their corresponding television ad. The online ads outperformed their traditional counterparts in all measurements.

Nielsen’s study only measures recall, not clickthrough rates or interaction, important metrics in the online environment. When the set of ads in an episode creates a story or a building experience, the ads perform better. Even if it’s not as interactive as a branded game, at least providing a link out to a website or more information is important, since 43% of cross-platform users stop a show to explore an advertiser’s website.

Overall, advertising in a television show online provides a unique opportunity to target a highly engaged audience that’s younger and technologically savvier than your usual show viewer. While this audience is smaller now, it is likely to grow significantly and begin mainstreaming as more people utilize Internet services. Most importantly, combining an engaged user with an engaging medium like the Internet provides a chance to create branded experiences and associations that can positively affect consumers’ attitudes about your brand.

Here are a few things to consider when getting involved in online television advertising:

1. Try repurposing a television ad. Some studies show that this type of ad performs well online and maintains a similar experience for both your traditional television and Internet viewers.

2. Consider your target. The demographics are a bit different online, so if you’re looking to hone in on your younger, hipper segment, this may be a great channel. You may want to consider how to create a more interactive experience for this tech-savvy group.

3. Measure the results. Online television provides the sensory benefits of television with the measurability of the Internet, so adding a brand study to your online television will give you a better picture of what specific metrics online television can effect for your brand.

4. Review your options. Television is available from multiple services online, with the most popular being Hulu and network or show websites. Some allow full-episode sponsorship or companion ads for your video placements. Hulu even allows viewers to choose whether they want to watch one longer commercial before their show begins or about five shorter commercials through the show.

June 28th, 2010
Posted by Sarah Voges

The rise of Foursquare and Gowalla have brought geotargeting into the forefront of emerging technology for advertising. But there are many other ways to connect to customers using their locations, from other location-based services to using social media outlets in new ways. ClickZ recently highlighted some case studies involving other services (some with more users than Foursquare) in the geosocial marketing space. We’ll take a look at the trends we see developing in this new field.

Checking in to Win

Online gaming has become a bit of an online darling with widespread adoption across multiple audiences. This social gaming trend has spilled over into mobile through location-based services.

Booyah’s MyTown is a GPS game that allows its 2.3 million users to check in to real-world places and earn rewards. Players can buy their favorite places, and other users pay rent when checking in during the day. More check-ins open new levels of the game. Olay recently used the gaming platform to target female users who check in at stores and pharmacies that sell their skin care products. The player can complete a quiz to get a personalized recommendation for Olay skin care products. An accompanying survey showed that purchase intent was higher for the suggested product when suggested through the game.

Social Networking Goes Local

Checking in is meant to connect you to new places and potentially a new community of nearby people. This means it’s the perfect tool for enhancing how we communicate with our real-life friends or make new contacts.

Available across multiple phone platforms, Brightkite lets users check in using an app, a mobile web browser or simple text message to connect with people in the area through Brightkite’s community. The “social discovery tool” tells you who and what places are around you and what happened at a place, in addition to the ability to share geotagged photos and notes with others nearby. Starbucks has found Brightkite useful in four ways: giving away a Frappuccino badge for the most check-ins, sending special offers to customers checking in with a competitor such as Dunkin’ Donuts, timed offers to morning customers for afternoon snacks and promoting its Via instant coffee line when customers check in at supermarkets.

The giants of social media have taken notice and are quickly incorporating geotagging into their current services. The microblogging site Twitter recently announced the addition of Twitter Places, which allows users to include a place with their tweet using automatic location detection or manual entry. The places are all searchable to help users find out what else is going on where they are.

Sapient Nitro is using location-enabling to support their Marco Polo game for participants of the Cannes International Advertising Festival. Players communicate their location in a tweet with the hashtag #marco and then receive nearby place suggestion with the #polo hashtag. The game also encourages players to find an elusive Marco while at the festival, tweeting hints to people who pass near him and awarding prizes to those who find him. The company specifically chose to use Twitter instead of a location-based service because it has already gained wide acceptance and is easy to use.

Facebook has also confirmed that they are developing a location-based application to be released soon, but it is not yet clear how it will be integrated into the social network’s tools. Considering the massive number of users already on the network, Facebook could become the most popular tool for advertisers looking to target consumers at a specific coordinate. Similar to why Sapient Nitro chose Twitter, Facebook has the advantage of a huge member base and user-friendly interface.

Telling an Object’s Story

At the most basic level, location-based apps and games are a means of connecting our virtual experiences with our real-life ones. They can be used to enhance our time at a location through suggestions and interesting trivia, such as Philadelphia’s tourist game with Foursquare, or share our experiences with our online network in a new way. With the use of bar codes and QR codes, some companies are connecting our online experience with the objects with which we interact rather than just the places.

We’ve mentioned Stickybits in The Buzz before as a means of connecting virtual stories to physical goods. The application allows users to turn their iPhone camera into a bar code scanner to upload comments, photos, videos or audio to an individual product. The next person to scan the bar code then sees the added information and contributes his own. In doing so, the product gains a history, and new users can see where other people use the brand and what they like about it. Pepsi has used the bar code function to extend their social media initiative by displaying messages related to their Refresh project.

Why So Popular?

The motivations for massive adoption of location-based services can be seen in some of the broader trends of 2010, particularly the idea of experiences as status (check out Trendwatching’s Status Stories). With luxury goods and status symbols losing importance in a recession and in a new generation’s set of values, the experiences people have are becoming more important. Location-based services provide an authentication of sorts for the adventures we choose to share as well as facilitate shared experiences in places we commonly frequent. Most importantly, it creates visibility for experiences on which we place value.

There is also an increasing interest among consumers to connect to and support their local communities. Whether motivated by green initiatives, a distrust for major national and global companies or simply the desire to reconnect with neighbors, the need for personalized and relevant information is strong. One of the best ways to deliver such tailored communication is to reach consumers where they are, as location-based services do. As many marketers have demonstrated already, there are several creative ways to bring your brand into this space and create a stronger connection with your customer.

May 3rd, 2010
Posted by Sarah Voges

When a user connects to a friend on Facebook or clicks “Like” on a page in Facebook, the web of connections created is called the social graph. Facebook has a huge social graph with more than 400 million users, and at the f8 developer conference, they announced that they would open this graph to other websites. The idea is that giving social context to time spent on the internet creates value, because I would rather see recommendations on news from my friends and would give more credence to a product recommendation from someone I know.

Mark Zuckerberg explains the concept of the Open Graph API in this video clip from the conference:

For the full keynote video, go to www.facebook.com/f8

Many studies, including a recent article listed in The Buzz, have found that people trust their friends, so messages about products or service that contain social context have better recall, recognition, and even purchase intent. Basically, Facebook is offering the use of their social graph information to help any website make its pages more social. They are doing this through the use of plug-ins. It is not a completely altruistic offering. In order for the plug-ins to work, sites have to use branded Facebook features and for the most engaging tools, use Facebook as a login. This advances Facebook toward becoming the common center for a user’s online identity, and Facebook maintains control of the valuable information about a user’s likes and behaviors on the web.

Using Facebook features, though, is beneficial. It is a platform many people are comfortable with, and the tools make it easy for visitors to share information from anywhere on the web with their social network. Facebook logins drive traffic better than other universal logins, and each plug-in has a different way of allowing a brand, product, service, or company to interact with its potential customers. Over 50,000 websites have decided to implement the plug-ins in the first week.

What It Means for Your Business’ Online Presence
Let’s take a look at some of the new features you can implement on your website to create a more engaging experience for visitors:

1. The “Like” Button

This feature allows visitors to “Like” anything on the web. By clicking on this button, the user is creating a permanent, public link on her profile and publishing that connection to her news feed where friends will see it. This permanent connection provides the same features available with a Facebook page and includes the content as a page in Facebook searches. The publisher of the content can get demographic information about who is sharing this content by using the updated Insights analytics provided by Facebook. Because this creates a permanent link, a publisher can send updated stories to a connected user through the news feed.

2. Activity Feed

This plug-in allows a publisher to show a visitor what her friends are doing on your website. If I log in to nytimes.com using Facebook, I will see what activities my friends participated in on the site, such as “John Keehler liked this story.” If I do not log in using Facebook, I’ll see a more general list of activities, such as “118 people liked this story.” This does not publish content back to a user’s Facebook page, and Facebook hosts all of the information. The website is providing a portal to display Facebook data rather than actually gaining access to it. This allows for news and content to have social context and guide a visitor to more relevant content as she navigates your site.

3. Recommendations

This plug-in creates a similar portal to the Activity Feed but provides personal recommendations to each visitor using all the information Facebook has about activity on that website. It will show a new visitor the most popular pages for that day. If I log in using Facebook, the feature gives preference to those actions taken by my friends.

You can see a complete list of plug-ins at developers.facebook.com. The Open Graph API also means that we can expect developers to create new and more robust applications that use any public information on the graph to create customized experiences for Facebook users around the web.

Advantages:
These tools create a more personalized experience for customers that visit your sites. They can share information with friends without navigating away from your page or stick around to read suggested articles their friends have read. You can also receive data about how information is shared that can be used to improve content or better understand your audience. Because users are already comfortable with Facebook and the tool is easy to use, feedback through the “Like” button is more probable than a new user signing in to comment.

Advertising works best when it’s relevant. Information helps make advertising relevant, and the “Like” button will create more robust interests information by allowing users to easily create more connections. While no new information will be available to advertisers on Facebook, advertisers can still target groups of people based on their public interests. More information in that section will ideally allow advertisers to serve more relevant ads to users.

Caveats:
Some of these features encourage users to use their Facebook identity online rather than logging in separately at each website. This provides a great deal of convenience for the users, but may discourage them from joining the site directly. So there’s a bit of a trade off between increasing the traffic and engagement with your website and building your own database with data given directly by joining members.

What The Facebook Users Think
The Open Graph does not share any information not already set to be viewed by “Everyone” in a user’s privacy settings. Unfortunately, how information is being shared is not clearly understood by all members of the Facebook community. Just as before, Facebook provides granular control over what information can be shared with each connection. Many people, including four senators, believe that Facebook has erred though by making privacy the responsibility of the user, creating defaults in the least private settings, and making the process of controlling member privacy too confusing.

With the new tools came a new privacy setting called Instant Personalization. This particular feature has to do with information sharing to Facebook’s three partners, Microsoft Docs, Yelp, and Pandora, who can access information directly, unlike those sites using plug-ins. Users can opt-out in Privacy Settings, but are miffed that they weren’t asked to opt-in instead. The privacy story is getting more interesting as Facebook begins requiring users to link to community pages and interest pages in order to populate their profiles. For further reading on this topic, check out Forrester’s perspective.

If you are concerned about what information you share as a user, take the time to review your privacy settings. If you want some help navigating, check out Mashable’s article.