Many brands plan how to deal with a crisis. This planning can be invaluable, as it allows them to quickly activate the organization to respond appropriately, and minimize damage. Toyota most likely had plans like this in place, but it’s what they’ve done more spontaneously with social media that is getting them attention from the marketing community. Most recently, The Washington Post blog reports that they have launched an innovative new site, Toyota Conversations.
The Toyota Conversations site is powered by Tweetmeme, and Toyota worked closely with Federated Media to launch the branded channel. The site allows Toyota to aggregate tweets that link to or mention news, images, video related to Toyota and the recall. While some of the tweets are negative, there’s a decidedly positive tone to the effort, as Toyota is prominently featuring their own tweets, videos, ads and links to other social media properties. They’re both embracing and controlling the conversation. So in addition to seeing a retweet where someone says they’ll “never buy a Toyota again”, we also see news stories being tweeted about that reference Toyota’s contribution to new safety rules, their March sales event announcement, and more. They’re also including what Tweetmeme refers to as “AdTweets“, which are essentially ads that include a “retweet” functionality.
This branded Tweetmeme channel is only one of many digital touchpoints Toyota is leveraging for the recall. The “hub” of the digital recall campaign, and the site you’re sent to from the homepage of Toyota is Toyota.com/recall. It’s a kind of recall “dashboard” (no pun intended), that includes important recall information for owners, news, announcements, videos and more.
Yet Toyota has also used a number of social media channels as well. Realizing the importance of news stories and social sharing, they have a partnership with Digg.com. In addition, they are using corporate social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. Toyota has certainly jumped feet first into a number of different social and digital touchpoints, but what are the lessons to be had for other marketers? Here are a few thoughts:
1.) Social Shapes Conversation AND Media
We know that social media has become more important to customers, but it’s also become standard for media as well. Toyota seems to have recognized that sharing news is a big part of the conversation online, and that social media has to become a core part of any public relations effort, rather than an add-on.
2.) If You Build It, They Might Come
One of Toyota’s biggest blunders in these digital campaigns is that they don’t consistently cross-promote these social channels. Take, for instance, the fact that on the digital “hub” for the campaign, Toyota.com/recall, there’s no link to the ToyotaConversations.com website. In fact, there’s not even a link for Facebook or Twitter, only a link to the YouTube channel. Even in social media, once you get to the Facebook Page, you can find a link to the ToyotaConversations.com website, but there’s not a link on Twitter.
3.) The World is Still Flat
One of the more interesting dilemmas is the global presence of Toyota, and how small decisions have the potential to complicate things. Take, for instance, that the URL for Toyota in the US is Toyota.com. The Worldwide URL is Toyota.co.jp. The recall clearly hasn’t just affected the US, and the coverage has certainly been worldwide, yet there doesn’t seem to be much consideration taken to make sure the approach is coordinated globally.
Perhaps the most important takeaway is one Toyota has taken to heart… That a willingness to adapt to the changing media environment may be the best crisis planning tool.
I love the Olympics. And I love the Olympics because it’s bigger than the sporting events – it’s seemingly superhuman ability, it’s a unified spirit, it’s dedication, national pride and history (even more so than American Idol!). The 2010 Vancouver Olympics are no different. But this year, dubbed the “social games,” spectators have been drawn into the experience more interactively than in years past. Here’s how an integrated digital experience has expanded our Olympic access and ultimately our level of involvement with the games.
Digital Matches Traditional Reach
Timo Lumme, the head of TV and marketing for the International Olympic Committee, stated that digital media has matched the efforts of traditional coverage, each contributing over 20,000 hours of coverage. Combined, the Vancouver Olympics expects to reach 3.5 billion viewers worldwide – that’s half of the world’s population. The NBCOlympics.com page views beat the total views of the Winter 2006 games in just 10 days and has seen over 35 million unique visitors. With widgets, interviews, stats, medal counters, playbacks and anytime access, the website has proved to be the hub of 2010 Olympic activity.
Mobile As Important Access Point
Mobile has accounted for a quarter of the digital coverage… a quarter!! The NY Times reported that NBCOlympics.com delivered over 62 million page views to mobile devices, surpassing total views from Bejing and tripling the number of video streams. And, with increased mobile capabilities and greater smart phone penetration, the market has expanded immensely – 7 out of 10 Vancouver games mobile viewers did not access the Bejing games via mobile. In addition, the Olympic iPhone app adds an interactive mobile experience that 60% of users rate as “very good.” The app moves beyond static schedules and stats by frequently updating with breaking news and videos, linking access to social media buzz and the creating a personalized experience with favorites.
Social Games Engage Spectators
Nielsen measured that 13% of viewers watching the opening ceremonies were simultaneously surfing the web and 41% of those surfers were on Facebook. Viewers are using the platform to connect with other spectators in conversation, but also in competition. Facebook’s Vancouver 2010 MiniGames app lets users get in on the action virtually with social games and a video game. Mimicking the Olympic model, users compete in the global Facebook community to win medals in selected winter events. Talk about increased brand engagement – now anyone has the opportunity to win a gold!
Real-time Interaction
Twitter allows users to interact both around and with the Olympics. The NBCOlympics.com page integrated not only a live Twitter feed, but an interactive Twitter tracker to help viewers quantify trending traffic around the games. Twitter itself has created an avenue for increased interaction with the games by creating a list of athletes. Followers can see updates from the athletes themselves to get a real-time, first person perspective that has previously not been possible.
With the close of the 2010 Olympics, the digital bar has been raised. Consumers now expect multi-screen, full content access and marketers must adapt. With personalization, multiple touch points and user engagement as digital trends, brands must look to emerging technologies and product enhancements to differentiate. Marketers are challenged to not only differentiate, but seamlessly integrate all efforts to create a full digital experience. By offering varied benefits on each platform and promoting the touch points throughout, Vancouver 2010 did a nice job of creating a truly integrated digital campaign. Thanks for the digital experience Vancouver! Now let’s see what London will offer in 2012.
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Almost a year ago, Brian Kress wrote about the importance of capturing conversations online and the options for measurement out there, from DIY solutions to robust buzz monitoring partners.
Since then, the demand for capturing conversations has only grown. Our agency has invited many of the best services in the industry to walk us through their capabilities in the space and how partnering with them would provide real value to our clients. And our clients themselves are increasingly curious about what’s being said about them in the marketplace by consumers.
Through all this activity, the one question that we’ve been hearing over and over is “so what do I do with this?” Sure, it’s great that we now have the capability to capture, in real-time, what people on Twitter, in the blogs and on forums are saying about our brand. But more than just the volume of conversation, whether it’s positive or negative and some links to actual conversations, what action can we take as marketers with this new source of data about our brand and consumers?
From a PR perspective, it’s fairly easy. The ability to track relevant conversations as they arise in real-time gives you the opportunity to address them, whether it be calming and addressing negative sentiment or encouraging and reinforcing positive sentiment. But from a research perspective, it gets tougher. How do you wade through the sometimes enormous amount of data (in the case of large brands that are frequently talked about) to find interesting insights of truth or give credence to the few mentions that appear (in the case of smaller, less talked about brands), hoping that it’s not just the vocal minority?
As a brand steward, buzz monitoring tools are incredibly useful to keep a real-time pulse on the brand, but it isn’t the research tool that will single-handedly make you rich with insights. It’s one tool in an arsenal of research tools and one particularly suited to partner with other forms of research. Here are a few ways you can use buzz monitoring with other research tools to make insights much more actionable:
1) Use secondary resources like Iconoculture or Mintel to support or dismiss insights we’re seeing in buzz monitoring. I’ll demonstrate this with a silly scenario to get the point across. Say you have a used clothing retailer brand who notices in their buzz monitoring tool that there’s an increase in volume of people using their product in games of “capture the flag.” Rather than dismiss this as simply a vocal minority, you could see if this trend was appearing in secondary research reports, where you might see that “capture the flag” is experiencing a resurgence in popularity or that flag making companies have been going out of business, leaving these consumers nowhere else to turn. In this case, secondary research could help put some weight (or dismiss) a discovery in the buzz monitoring tool.
2) Conduct primary research using insights discovered in buzz monitoring to see if those ideas have legs. If the tool leads to an insight that a brand has already considered or is much closer to their core business model, it may be worth conducting primary research or adding on to an existing piece of research to see how well that idea plays out in a group setting.
3) Deploy a quick quantitative online survey to get a sense of if a certain mindset scales across the demographic you’re targeting. One aspect of buzz monitoring that is often difficult to gauge is the demographics of the people talking about your brand. In this case, buzz monitoring would pair beautifully with a piece of quantitative research. Recruit respondents who fit your target market and then share the ideas that you’ve seen in buzz monitoring to see how well they do with your best customers (or potential customers).
The key is to use the tools we have at our disposal to come up with a more complete analysis, not looking at buzz monitoring in a vacuum.
At the end of the day, we have to remember that buzz monitoring is a much more passive form of research than traditional qualitative or quantitative, where we have much more control. Unless our clients have a robust social media response team, we typically can’t probe when consumers bring up an interesting insights on a blog. We can’t write the discussion guide and require our Facebook fans to fill out all the questions. And we don’t even know if MrBigMan83 is even a man. We’re here to listen. And by listening, we might get a nugget of insight that we could use as we look at our client’s business using all the tools we have at our disposal – buzz monitoring being just one of them.
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Mock as you will Apple’s new “magical” device, but the iPad – and soon-to-be derivative products – presents several new opportunities for brands as the mobile tablet space takes shape.
Even though it may not be the perfect device some critics expected, the iPad takes a new perspective on the tablet. Yes, it looks and feels like a hormone-injected iPod Touch, after all it has those exact same application icons, but this is a major change for the tablet space for several reasons:
- It’s not a laptop, it’s a tablet – Rather than cutting the keyboard from a regular OS, as most tablets are wont to do, the iPad instead uses the iPod Touch functionality proven to work for touch-screen users’ big, ugly fingers.
- A real display, and real speed to match – Most tablets have big, ugly, slow processors to match low resolution screens. With a full HD display, an efficient processor and a touch screen that feels organic, the iPad has the hardware advantage.
- A pre-loaded App Store – As with most Apple products, the magic of the iPad is in the software. It will leverage the 130,000-app App Store built for iPhone and iPod Touch users, and made it simple for app developers to upgrade their apps to the tablet space.
The iPad’s main benefit, particularly for marketers, is that it has laid ground for a new world of mobile applications, ads and websites that can display large, intricate brand experiences.
As we’ve seen happen with iPhone and other slate smartphones, on-the-go will become the primary surfing space for iPad users. These users will need much deeper, more functional websites than those we tend to think about for on-the-go users; they’ll be built for extended web usage, while still needing to live in the touch-screen world.
All this isn’t to say that iPad users should be treated exactly like normal desktop users. With the lack of file storage, Flash, and propensity to be on the go, we still need to consider use cases specific to users of the iPad and other tablets that are surely to emerge upon Apple’s success.
A few rules on how brands might ease into this space:
Be location aware
With devices connected to cell towers, we have the ability to target any mobile users’ location within a reasonably tight range. Marketers should build location-specific messaging into their content to improve the iPad users’ experience.
Include long-form content
Without the limitations of the small screen, iPad users will be more likely to engage and stay engaged with an experience on the web.
Remember, it’s touch screen
Lists of small links, long text fields on websites that work with a mouse and normal keyboard won’t work here. Consider new and innovative ways to cater your features and functionality to touch-screen users.
While it’s still in its early stages, most of the influence of the iPad is still yet to be seen. What else do you think the iPad means for mobile?
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As seen from the recent Google-China controversy, operating a multi-national business presents many challenges. Google understands more and more what these challenges mean and is learning about the decisions a company must make to operate on a global scale. Here we’ll take a look at the current crisis in China and discuss some takeaways from Google’s response.
Google.cn
In 2006, Google made an agreement with the Chinese government to offer a censored version of their site, feeling this would help Google better compete with leading Chinese search engine Baidu. A Google spokesperson argued at the time that, “while removing search results is inconsistent with Google’s mission, providing no information (or a heavily degraded user experience that amounts to no information) is more inconsistent with our mission.” After a December 2009 security breach targeting the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists, Google re-evaluated its position and in January 2010, Google began running a full, uncensored version of the search engine.
This business decision has started a wave of controversy delving into culture clashes, politics, human rights and appropriate business practices – China has denied allegations about involvement with the cyber attack, Hilary Clinton has spoken out about foreign policy concerning internet rights and Bill Gates has voiced opinions against Google’s decision. The world has many opinions they’re willing to share, as seen by the buzz surrounding Google China in the last month.
Lessons from Google
This breach of security created an interesting situation between two world powers. We are now witnessing a standoff between economics and ethics, between political ideologies, between government and enterprise. Here are a few things businesses can learn from Google’s reaction to this crisis.
1. Respond Quickly – By responding to this breach within a matter of weeks, Google addressed the severity of this situation and added a level of transparency necessary in managing public opinion.
2. Own Your Mistakes – Google showed integrity by admitting their inconsistent practices and rescinding the previous arrangement to revert to their standard operating procedure. It’s not often you hear a company voluntarily say “uncle.”
3. Take A Stand – Google acted boldly by taking an offensive position to this issue. Rather than pulling service, renegotiating or maintaining service, Google did what it thought was right. Although this could result in losing the business, it’s admirable the company is advocating for human rights on a global level.
The current situation has China on the defense and in a holding position. For the past two weeks, Google has operated their unrestricted search engine in the nation. It will be fascinating to watch how this plays out – whether we see a governmental shift or a company kicked out, it’s obvious Google has made waves. Stay tuned.
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In its simplest terms, building commercial websites is about marrying something the customers want with something the owning companies want to sell them.
It isn’t as easy as that, though. Often companies must speak to widely divergent audiences who have widely divergent reasons for coming to their site. It doesn’t help that everyone within the owning organization has a different idea about how the customer thinks and what is most important.
Mutually exclusive ideas can all be wrong, but they can’t all be right. So how can we know that our solutions are addressing the right problems?
1. Ask your customers what they think
There always seem to be good, tempting reasons to capture the preferences of your customers…. There never seems to be enough time or enough money… Which is why it takes focus and discipline to resist the temptations.
We will almost always know more about our own products and business goals than our customers, which is precisely why our judgment is so unreliable.
The Curse of Knowledge
In Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath assert (and go on to demonstrate) that once we know something, it’s difficult to remember what it was like not knowing it.
For nontechnical people, this is why talking to IT can sometimes be like pulling teeth.
And before we’re too hard on IT, keep in mind that we all have interests that are boring and unintelligible to someone.
Similarly, our customers don’t care what we want, either, except when our demands unnecessarily encumber their ability to get what they want.
Knowing what we want and what we do makes it difficult for us to see things from our customers’ perspectives. The proper research can help us get out of that rut.
Doing without research means making sacrifices
With the right experts on staff, a “dead-reckoning” approach to website design can vastly improve the look of an inferior website.
However, the right experts will also know that proper research can do more than inform the design choices – it can be the difference between creating something that people can interact with something and something they actually want to.
Consequently, it can also be the difference between successfully meeting the right business goals and getting hammered in the marketplace by people whose actual (not perceived) wants and needs necessitate a redesign in a few years.
Examples of Preference Research
- Surveys
- Preference interviews
- Focus groups
2. Watch what your customers do
Irrespective of what they say they like, people behave in peculiar ways.
It is not uncommon in usability lab studies for participants who could not accomplish many goals set forth in the study to rate the overall experience highly in the post-test questionnaire.
This doesn’t make surveys or questionnaires unreliable; they are good for their intended purpose. It just demonstrates that data that indicates preference is not sufficient as an evaluative study – and certainly not a generative one.
Usability lab studies are but one method to observe customers. There are many other methods that provide insight into how customers behave both online and in the “real world,” such as log analyses and ethnography.
Examples of Evaluative Research
- Search and log analytics
- Card sorting
- Usability lab and field studies
3. See what you see
French philosopher Emilé Chartier once said:
“Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it’s the only one you have.” (Hat tip to Roger von Oech)
I once spent a lot of time putting together a solution for a very complicated problem. The solution came in the form of a plan and interface architecture for a Web application. After making some adjustments based on feedback from some colleagues, I was very proud of it.
The problem was, when we put it in front of our audience in a lab study, no one could understand by its appearance how and why they should interact with it.
I tried a few times to “tweak” it, but to no avail. Even though – after we explained what the utility of it – our audience loved the idea and could “learn” it, they couldn’t give us any useful feedback other than to let us know they didn’t understand how it could be tweaked to make its function apparent.
After just a few users, we were reasonably sure that it couldn’t be salvaged by simply tweaking the interface.
So we simply blew it up.
We started over. Only by doing this did we find a solution that actually worked. But for the first few iterations, I was holding out hope for some derivative of my first attempt.
We are all susceptible to falling in love with our own ideas, but there can’t be any sacred cows when it comes to usability studies or any other kind of research. When we discover that people prefer one thing over our better sensibilities say they should, or if they simply cannot understand how to use something we spent a long time creating, we ought not let that get us down.
After all, by ruling out a possible solution through this research, we’ve gotten one step closer to finding the right solution.
What’s more, we can be comfortably certain about that our investments are safe, because we tested our assumptions and were prepared to deal with the ramifications of all of our research.
Related Links
How Do You Spell Succes? (A “Made to Stick” review)
Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior
Card Sorting: Designing Usable Categories
Rocket Surgery Made Easy
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Virtual goods – items with no intrinsic value in the real world – are a booming economy. 12% of Americans have bought virtual goods in the past year from an industry that analysts estimate to reach $1 billion in the U.S. for 2009 alone.
Payments for virtual goods are typically made through microtransactions, which allows users to spend just a few dollars to give a gift or get them ahead online. For instance, Facebook Gifts typically go for $1 each.
Until now, most social games have used fake brands for their virtual goods, but the opportunity for brands in the real world to make a virtual world impact has demonstrated its power. Similar to how we have seen brands impact more traditional video games, the presence of real world brands in the social gaming space will lend an extra bit of realism to the overall experience. As a result, branded virtual goods on Facebook are clicked on 10 times more often than their non-branded counterparts. At the same time, the brands themselves benefit from extra recognition, exposure, and consumer interest from simply participating inside the emerging media format.
We see brands as currently having three opportunities in the space:
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1. Sponsorships
– The brand presence in the space could be as simple as sponsoring a piece of the overall virtual good experience. Like other sponsorships, virtual good sponsorship does best at establishing leadership.
Purina brand pet food announced late last year that they act as the exclusive virtual kibble supplier in FooPets, a place where users can care for their virtual pet. As a result, every time you feed your little virtual Fluffy, a big bag of Purina is what pours kibble into the bowl, nourishing your companion.
2. Unlocking exclusive content
- A brand could act as a hero, giving social gamers deals on special or limited-run goods. The brand could be the provider of access, thereby building some affinity.
For example, Facebook recently expanded their virtual gift offering to include music, sports gifts, charity gifts and e-cards. While we haven’t seen it happen yet, a brand could be the provider of, say, free helmets for the teams in the bowl game that they sponsor, or a selection of holiday songs leading up to Christmas.
3. Selling branded virtual goods
- Branded virtual goods have the potential to provide an extra benefit for ownership. Not only would the user get a recognizable brand name on their stuff, but it could also unlock special advantages, creating a bit of realism and building brand equity. For instance, if Nike sneakers make your avatar run faster and jump higher in your social game, they might also in the real world.
Virtual goods are an emerging marketplace, creating many micro-economies from 1’s and 0’s that tap on our natural human need to give to one another and nurture what we have. As this marketplace grows, we expect that brands will be more and more prevalent in the space.
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These days, I’ve been spending an awful lot of time helping get my mom on the Internet. I’ve been putting it off for awhile. But now is the time. Her first grandchild lives with me and grandma wants to see some pictures and videos.
(In case you were wondering, this is not my mom)
And what I found out was, she’s not alone.
According to a report from the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing, while fewer Seniors are online than other generation groups, the ones that are online are extremely active.
In fact, Seniors (65+) lead all other generation groups when it comes to shopping online – 77% of them do so regularly. They also regularly use email (94%), look to the Web for health and medical information (71%) and manage their finances and banking (59%).
And Seniors are certainly not far behind in technology adoption. While Gen Y enjoys a 96% adoption rate of cell phones, Seniors aren’t far behind at 80%. And the gap is even closer with things like a digital camera (Gen Y: 85%, Seniors: 77%).
The one area where seniors have been slow to adopt are…you guessed it, social networking. According to SeniorJournal.com, only 7% of Seniors have a profile on a social networking site – well below the average of 35% of all adult Internet users and
My own experience with my mom wasn’t too far from what’s happening in the marketplace. When I asked her what she wanted to do online. Here’s what I got:
1) See pictures and video of baby
2) Email said pictures and video of baby to relatives, mostly back in Korea
3) Watch Korean TV dramas on websites like www.naver.com
Zero interest in social networking (unless it was links to see pictures, which may not be that different from the rest of us), but email was high on the list. I can’t see her managing finances and banking online anytime soon, so maybe she’s part of the 40% who won’t for now.
So knowing these facts about our audience, coupled with our own experiences, keep these things in mind as you consider your digital strategy to connect with Seniors:
How should websites be designed differently for this audience? Particularly if your brand attracts an older audience, consider usability testing to help your developer understand how the site needs to be architected and designed to appeal and be user-friendly to an older audience. My own experience trying to navigate my mom around busy, cluttered sites was extremely difficult – and simple ones like Leica’s site were instrumental in helping her understand how to navigate around sites.
Does the fact that boomers are getting older mean this is a more important issue? While social networking has really only caught on in the last few years, as Boomers get older, they’re going to have much more experience and comfort with social features. They’re also going to be the most online-savvy audience we’ve seen yet (and obviously a trend that will continue on with subsequent generations). Think about ways to learn more about the first wave of Boomers that transition to Senior life and how the online world affects their lives.
What do seniors want online? If you’re really bold, you might look to see when your local community college or recreation center puts on Internet 101 classes for Seniors and see if you can attend one. Observe – see what they gravitate towards and what turns them off. And consider that accordingly to a 2009 study from AARP, 1/3 of people 75 and older live alone. While social networking use is low now, according to comScore, “among older people who went online last year, the number visiting social networks grew almost twice as fast as the overall rate of Internet use among that group.” And according to Antonina Bambina, a sociologist at the University of Southern Indiana, trends point to current Seniors and the next wave of Boomers growing up to see online networks to be a place where they can make new connections, feel empowered and talk to others in similar situations without having to ask friends and family for yet more help.
The future for my mom
So what does the future hold for my mom and the Internet? Well, baby steps. It’s been a bit stressful getting to this point. But I can see her getting into some online shopping, at least to browse different products. It will certainly be difficult with all the complicated navigation structures out there but over time, I’m sure she’ll get the hang of it. And using things like Google Maps/Streetview probably isn’t far off either. As she explores the Web, I’m expecting to be intrigued by having her share what she finds online with me. The Internet, as seen through the eyes of a senior – what will she find compelling? I’m looking forward to finding out.
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Twitter has finally completely rolled out their new “Twitter List” feature. This might leave many of our readers wondering: What exactly is a Twitter List… and how could I be using it for my clients or my brand? We’ve included below an introduction that will get you pointed in the right direction.
What are Twitter Lists?
Quite simply, they’re a way for anyone to “group” feeds together.
How are Twitter Lists Used?
There are several ways that Twitter Lists are being used. We’ll look at two very important differences in how people can utilize Twitter Lists, private and public.
Private Twitter Lists
Private Twitter Lists are used to organize the people you’re already following. For many people, this may be as simple as dividing up co-workers and personal contacts. However, lists can be as granular as you’d like them to be. Perhaps you’d like to split your followers into west-coast and east-coast co-workers, or family, friends, co-workers and celebrities. Quite simply, lists allow you to organize these folks in any way you wish. Once you’ve organized them, you will see tweets from all the folks in the list on one page.
Public Twitter Lists
Public Twitter Lists are more about shaping how others follow groups on Twitter. We’ve only just scratched the surface of how these public Twitter Lists can be used, but here are several key uses we’ve seen so far:
1. Experts
Want to follow only the most influential in tech? You don’t need to spend countless hours digging for them, just look to Robert Scoble’s Twitter List of the most influential in tech: @scobleizer/most-influential-in-tech, or follow Danny Sullivan’s list of influential search engine marketers: @dannysullivan/searchmarketing, or Maria Popova’s list of TEDsters: @brainpicker/TEDsters.
2. Brand Consolidation
Many companies now have multiple Twitter accounts. Wired, for example, has 12 blogs currently, and each has a Twitter account. They’ve consolidated the ability to follow all 12 with a single Twitter List: @wired/wiredblogs. Our Home Depot client is another great example, as they have created one location where multiple International Twitter accounts, such as Canada and Mexico can be found, along with deals and customer service: @homedepot/homedepot.
3. Employee Lists
For those few brands who have really embraced social media and are willing to let their employees speak on their behalf, Twitter Lists are a great way to aggregate the true footprint of a brand in Twitter by linking to employee accounts. The New York Times is a great example, having used one of the 18 lists they’ve created to be a “staff” list: @nytimes/staff. Zappos, who have been encouraging employees to be active in social media, have also created an employees list: @zappos/employees.
While it’s a very simple idea, there are quite a few interesting possibilities that haven’t been explored yet. I’ve heard great suggestions about using Twitter Lists to aggregate people attending events, or Twitter Lists to create a more local experience on Twitter. The folks at Mashable have a great “How To” guide if you’re interested in learning more about using Twitter Lists.
If you’d like to explore some of the best Twitter Lists currently out, there’s already a website aggregating Twitter Lists, which you can find at Listorious.com.
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From text to apps to mobile sites, mobile marketing presents a wide range of opportunities. Today, I’m going to explore one of the most promising platforms, mobile search advertising.
As of March 2009, there are a little short of 20 million mobile subscribers using search engines, a number that is expected to climb to 60 million by 2013. In this search environment, Google is the far and away leader, capturing even more market share than it does in desktop search with more than 90% of the U.S. mobile search market.
How is mobile search different?
Today, the mobile search market, particularly in Google’s case, is conveniently integrated with the general search campaign. This meaning that search engines will typically serve the same ads within a mobile search as a desktop search. Over time, though, websites will feature more mobile-specific content. In the future, we expect that search engines will grant this content a higher ranking than its standard, desktop counterpart when competing for the same keywords from a mobile device.
That isn’t to say that marketers shouldn’t build a separate mobile campaign. People searching on their mobile phones aren’t as keen on typing in specific searches as they might be on the desktop, so our mobile search campaigns likely need to be a little different. Mobile search campaigns often require a different set of keywords – usually shorter and more general, and need to be monitored and optimized on their own. In addition, mobile search ads often have the option to include a phone number and a click-to-call link inside the ad itself.
Cost and performance
As with desktop search, the price of mobile search campaigns varies depending on the keywords you choose and how much you bid. For these campaigns, marketers set a daily budget and are charged only when a user clicks on their ads. Placement depends on whether or not they out-bid other companies competing for the same search keyword.
There have been conflicting reports on performance of mobile search ads. Some have enjoyed significantly better results than their desktop counterparts – often reaching 15% click through rates – while others have had difficulty even reaching their desktop search numbers with 0.5%. Brand metrics tell a different story. We’ve seen consistent increases of brand metrics, particularly unaided brand awareness, when a marketer has top position on mobile search results.
Considerations
Along with an up and running mobile campaign, it’s important to live with a couple things in mind:
Think post-click
Because many mobile campaigns currently experience high click through rates, it is important to build interesting and appropriate mobile websites. More often than advertising, these sites have the opportunity to include rich brand experiences like video and, for some phones, interactive elements.
Think integration
Mobile advertising works best as part of an integrated campaign. It’s a channel that has the flexibility to compliment both traditional and digital media over a wide range of objectives. Often, mobile can act as the brand bridge between the traditional and digital worlds, blending the sometimes-disparate experiences together. The best practice here is to keep pointing your audience to the next brand experience. From print, point to mobile, from mobile, point to online, from online, point to an event.
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