Deciding which social networks to focus on
Posted on 15. Aug, 2010 by Dean Whitney in Inbound Marketing, Social Media and has 0 Comments
Focus is important in social media. Without focus it can be like boiling the ocean. So when marketers new to social media begin they wonder which social networks they should focus on. Twitter? LinkedIn? Do they need a Facebook Fan Page? How about MySpace? A YouTube Channel? Flickr? The list goes on.
Wikipedia maintains a list of social networking websites with a column for registered users. It’s shocking how many social networks there are with over 10 million registered users that I haven’t heard of before. Habbo, a social network for teens has over 160 million registered users, over 8 million unique visitors per month, and 75,000+ new registrations per day!
Marketers should look at two things – Audience reach and search engine optimization (SEO). Many times the two are exclusive. For some clients work on getting lots of content on YouTube and a high volume of impressions when it’s not the best site for their audience. The fact is, the YouTube pages get highly ranked in search engines.
An April 2010 study, Social Media Marketing Industry Report by Michael Stelzner of 1900 marketing professionals showed that by far Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs were the top four social media tools used by marketers.
My advice is to target the top 4-5 sites and be sure to include social bookmarking sites separate. You should plan to bookmark new content on a few social bookmarking sites like digg, Stumble Upon, Yahoo! Buzz. Do your research; you may find 1 or 2 sites you haven’t heard of that service your audience. If your audience is teen then discovering Habbo could be a big opportunity.
The CMO’s Guide To The Social Media Landscape from CMO.com, prepared by 97th Floor, an SEO and social media firm, is an interesting take on the top 10 choices.
Positive Social Proof
Posted on 01. Jul, 2010 by Dean Whitney in Marketing, Social Media, psychology and has 0 Comments
Social proof, also known as informational social influence, occurs in social situations when people are not sure how to behave. They make the assumption that surrounding people possess more knowledge about the situation and assume the behavior of others will yield the best outcome.
“Positive Social Proof” is similar to the “Bandwagon” or “Cromo Effect” in that people tend to join a way of thinking, a movement or in an activity. When introduced to the environment they see clear indications that its very popular with people either similar to people they are attracted too (celebs, wealthy, sexy). (more…)
Sex and Social Media
Posted on 15. Jun, 2010 by Dean Whitney in Marketing, Social Media, research and has 0 Comments
Just as social interaction has evolved over the years so has marketing. The pick-up lines that worked for hipsters would fall flat today just as marketing tactics of the the 80’s wouldn’t earn customers in the Facebook age. It seems a lot less successful pick-up artists are spouting Austin Powers pick-up lines while marketers seem quite content in going for the quick hit in their attempts at customer acquisition.
Today’s playing field has changed and requires a different approach. Sex & Social Media examines the effective pick-up artist and how it applies to new marketing in the age of social media. (more…)
Hubspot internet marketing software
Posted on 01. Jun, 2010 by Dean Whitney in Inbound Marketing, Social Media, Start-ups and has 0 Comments
HubSpot offers an Internet marketing application that helps businesses with their social marketing and SEO strategy and lead generation and conversion efforts. The company is behind tools like Website Grader, which essentially audits websites for their search engine friendliness, and boasts similar tools specifically for Twitter and Facebook. (more…)
Social media account management tools
Posted on 15. May, 2010 by Dean Whitney in Marketing, Social Media, tools and has 0 Comments
Managing a Twitter account can be a challenge but managing multiple Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts with a team can be outright mind boggling. Fortunately there are a number of great tools out there to do the trick. Which one is the best? For now the award goes to Hootsuite. (more…)
Nielson study – social media is the norm
Posted on 19. Apr, 2010 by Dean Whitney in Marketing, Social Media, research and has 0 Comments
A new Nielsen study, commissioned by BlogHer and iVillage found that 73 percent of the online population engage in social media activity at least once per week. Engagement was defined as reading a blog, visiting a social network or reading (and/or commenting on) a message board. The research pegs the total U.S. social media audience at 127 million. (more…)
Zero to Social – taking the social media marketing leap
Posted on 15. Apr, 2010 by Dean Whitney in Inbound Marketing, Marketing, Social Media and has 0 Comments
Everyone sees that the role social media plays in marketing is growing quickly if not exponentially. There were 4 Billion Tweets on Twitter in 2009 – analysts predict 40 Billion in 2010. Marketers hear about the millions of dollars in revenue Dell has generated. Reports of major brands increasing social marketing budgets, moving spending from print and TV. It’s a gold rush. (more…)
The Future of Search: Google’s Perspective
Posted on 05. Feb, 2010 by Dean Whitney in Advertising, Search, Social Media and has 0 Comments
Attended a SEMPO Boston event at Google. Lisa Green, a Senior Agency Relations Manager at Google talked about the future of search touching on key data/insights, social, and mobile search. We learned a bit about a few of the hundreds of new features and enhancements Google has been working on to improve their search and universal access to information. (more…)
101 Start-ups Disrupting the Entertainment Industry
Posted on 01. Feb, 2010 by Dean Whitney in Marketing, Social Media and has 0 Comments
Disruptive technology is forcing big changes in Hollywood: new contracts, new genres, new stars. Here are 101 of the hottest tech start-ups changing the game for the entertainment industry. (more…)
Semantic Web and Marketing
Posted on 15. Nov, 2009 by Dean Whitney in Marketing, Semantic Web, Social Media and has 0 Comments
I had the opportunity to speak to the Cambridge Semantic Web Group at MIT on Tuesday, November 10th. There are numerous applications for semantic web technologies in the marketing and advertising space. Brand managers, ad agencies and strategists need to understand the value if they are going to start leveraging it. (more…)
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