12 posts tagged “social media optimization”

The Financial Times reports today that Central Office of Information (COI), the UK Government's "center of excellence for marketing and communications," has put a moratorium on advertising on social media sites like Facebook.   COI organizes marketing campaigns to promote issues of public importance (education, health, welfare, etc.) for various UK Government departments.  The organization announced that it is reviewing how it handles advertising on social networking sites fearing that its ads could appear on innapropriate user generated sites.  Alan Bishop, chief executive of the COI, explained the decision to the FT saying:

"We always have to keep a very close eye on the context. People are still getting to grips with this. We don't want to exclude the use of any of the new social media but we do have to have a very clear idea of what the context is going to be like."

COI's decision comes one week after New Media Age reported that Vodafone, The AA, First Direct, and others were pulling their ads on Facebook because they appeared on the Facebook page of the British National Party, a highly controversial political organization.  Last week, Vodafone released a statement saying:

"We advertise our products and services across a wide range of on and offline publications... In the case of online, bundles of space are purchased across a number of sites including the social networking sites. As a result we were not aware that a Vodafone ad would appear next to a British National Party group on Facebook.

Our Public Policy Principles state that we do not make political donations or support particular party political interests and therefore to avoid misunderstandings we immediately withdrew our adverting as soon as this was brought to our attention.

We are working with our media buyer OMD to ensure that more robust controls are in place before we agree to any potential re-investment," the statement added."

The concerns raised by organizations like COI and Vodafone are understandable and highlight the need advertisers to have greater control over when and where their paid ads appear.  As far as I'm aware, thus far, website optimization solutions and content delivery platforms are only helping advertisers and marketers understand visitor behavior, segment visitors into groups, and deliver targeted messages that are relevant to specific segments. I'm not aware of any optimization solutions or content delivery platforms that helping advertisers optimize ads and website content so that they're not only relevant to various segments of website visitors but that they're also blocked from appearing on pages that promote or discuss controversial topics.  I'm interested to see who will be the first to make this happen.

Marketers can already test and optimize ads and web content so that relevant messages are delivered to different audiences i.e. (Audience segment A "High value customers" sees Ad #1, Audience segment B "First time visitor" sees Ad #2, etc.).  Similarly, search technology makes it easy to identify controversial key words on web pages (i.e. "BNP," "Political Party," etc.). I can't imagine that it would be too difficult to combine these two technologies to create an ad optimization and delivery network that allows advertisers to deliver blank ads on social media pages that have potentially dubious content, or 'sublease' that ad space on controversial social media pages to less discerning advertisers. 

Instead of simply segmenting users, the ad publishing optimization solution I'd like to see would also segment content.  The ad delivery platform would scan social media pages at regular intervals for controversial words.  If dubious words or phrases that go against a given advertiser's rules of engagement appear, the ad slot could display nothing at all or an ad from another, less discriminating advertiser, who subleases the ad space in cases where the primary advertisers chooses to bow out.  Having a solution like this would allow social media platforms like Facebook to offer a two-tiered advertising platform that offers the ultimate control to Tier 1 advertisers who are willing to pay for it and exposure to Tier 2 advertisers with a smaller budget.

Could this work?  Post a comment with your opinion, and if you don't have a Vox account, email me with your comment, and I'll post it manually.

Italy-based social networking company, Dada S.p.A., is partnering with Google AdSense to pay users for allowing ads on their space.  Dada's new Friend$ is an opt-in revenue sharing program that rewards users for adding friends and updating the content of their Dada space.  According to Dada, Friend$ is, "the only program that rewards you both for keeping your personal space updated (blog, video, profile, etc.) and for spreading the word by inviting friends to do the same."  The idea is that users keep their Dada space updated and invite friends to participate in Friend$.  In exchange, Google posts ads on their site/friends site, and pays users and their friends a percentage of the money generated by click-through on those ads.

I wonder how advertisers feel about this? It seems like an easy system for Dada users and their friends to exploit for revenue purposes.  If I were an advertiser, I'm not sure how excited I'd be by having people click on my ad with the express purpose of extorting me for their own/ friends' financial well being. 

Similarly, I find this whole concept a little disconcerting in that it encourages social networkers to talk about specific topics for the express purpose of generating revenue.  I feel perfectly okay about the idea of hiring paid spokespeople to talk about companies, so long as the public knows that they're being paid.  However, I take issue with situations like this, where there are blurred lines of distinction between people talking about what they're genuinely interested in versus talking about things they're being paid to discuss.  It's not Dada and Google are talking about sponsoring corporate blogs...  In a way, they're steering kids (and adults) towards discussing specific topics their conversations, blogs, profiles, etc.  If a social networker wants to make money through Friend$, and they know which companies use Google AdSense, I suspect that it will be very easy for them to exploit the system.

What do you think?  If you're unable to post a comment, email me, and I'll post it for you.

Today, on Webpronews, Steven Bradley addresses some interesting questions raised in a couple of other blogs - namely:

• Is there an optimal post length?
• Will shorter posts help to retain readers and even lead to more links?
• What makes you unsubscribe from a blog’s RSS feed?

Bradley’s ultimate conclusion is that the best blogs have a mix of long, medium, and short posts.  He’d “prefer to focus on quality and let the length of the post be what it is… to find [his] blogging voice than consciously attempt to stifle it.”

I struggle with the same questions when writing my own blog.  Plenty of my readers tell me that they appreciate my more in-depth (translation: really long) posts.  But, I seem to get just as many comments (if not more) on short posts as I do on long posts.  Bradley’s blog made me realize that we still have a lot to learn about social media and web 2.0 optimization:

• What are the best ways for companies to engage customers through social media?
• How should individual bloggers and social media mavens (i.e. those who set up social networks/ groups on sites like Ning, Vox, Gather, etc.) structure their content to best engage with their peers around areas of mutual interest?

There are certainly a lot of assumptions to test.  So far, it seems that marketers and bloggers are throwing ideas against the wall and seeing what sticks. In time, there will more scientific ways to answer these questions.  Marketers are only beginning to understand the "science" behind web 2.0, social media, and targeted delivery of information to customers.  As web 2.0 and social media evolve, there is a growing buzz about:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO),
• Social Media Optimization (SMO), and
• Website Analytics/ Testing/ Website Optimization, which includes things like A/B Split Testing and Multivariate Promotion Testing, Targeted Content Delivery based on the profile of a specific visitor, Landing Page Optimization, and Predictive Delivery / Cross Selling, etc.  

These three topics are closely intertwined...  When a company spends money on SEO to ensure that their websites and/or corporate blogs/ social media properties are well placed in search results pages, their efforts won't result in customer conversion if the person who lands on their site can’t immediately find relevant information they’re looking for.  Similarly, if corporations are writing blogs that are too long or too short for their desired audience, they’ll lose that audience.  With that in mind, I think that concept testing, website optimization and analytics are the key to answering the key questions about the value of social media.  These topics will be of growing importance in the coming years as marketers strive to better understand and target customers to capture greater returns on web-based investments.

There are a some interesting players in the testing and optimization spaces (Offermatica - which, in the interests of full blogging disclosure, is a company that I recently interviewed with; Optimost; Touch Clarity, which was recently purchased by Omniture; Kefta; to some extent Google; and others).  If you are a marketer with experience working the products/services of any of these (and similar) companies, I'd love to hear your thoughts on their usefulness.  In my opinion, web marketers are only just starting to realize the value of testing and web optimization.  It will be very interesting to watch this space as web 2.0 and social media continue to grow. 

If you're interested in web optimization and testing, the following are links to blogs that you might like: Optimize & Prophesize, This Site Is Dead, Out of My Gord, Thinking Aloud. 

Here's some great food for thought- especially the last minute of the video:

Web 2.0 is linking people...

...People sharing, trading, and collaborating...

We'll need to re-think a few things...

copyright

authorship

identity

ethics

aesthetics

rhetorics

governance

privacy

commerce

love

family

ourselves

ComScore and Federated Media (FM), which represents social media sites including Digg, PROTRADE, BoingBoing, and Dooce recently announced that they would be working together on a "research and development initiative designed to provide comprehensive measurement of conversational media such as blogs and community-driven sites."

I'm looking forward to seeing the outcome of this research, especially as the current ways of measuring traffic on blogs and community-driven sites are lacking. Technorati, for example, while useful in showing who links to who doesn't account for traffic volumes in their ranking of blogs. Similarly, Alexa shows how many hits certain blogging sites get, but in the case of Vox, it doesn't show which blogs get the most hits (beyond the mention of a few blogs on the site).  By way of example, Alexa doesn't allow me to track the traffic my blog gets. 

As blogging as a hobby and profession increases, bloggers want to know how many hits their blog gets AND how many people are linking to it. In addition, it would also be useful to see how many times a blogger's name is mentioned in the context of a topic but a blog link is not provided.

Today, I read an interesting article on Pocket-Lint, which summarizes a recent Harris Poll, which questioned 2,309 people back in December 2006:

Of all frequent YouTube users, two-thirds (66%) claim they are sacrificing other activities when on YouTube. Although their visits to the site are most likely to have been at the expense of visiting other websites (36%), time spent watching TV is next most likely to have taken a hit (32%). YouTube also cuts into email and other online social networking (20%), work/homework (19%), playing video games (15%), watching DVD(s) (12%) and even spending time with friends and family in person (12%).

According to the article, 3/4 of respondents would be less likely to visit YouTube.com if ads were placed in front of videos.  Interestingly though, that same group of respondents, was okay about TV network websites airing commercials during on-line showing of television shows.  Almost as many adults (41%) have watched a video on a TV network website as they have on YouTube (42%).

Pocket-Lint takes a unnecessarily negative view of what these survey results mean for Google's monetization of YouTube, saying: "It seems like TV networks can get away with advertising more easily." I don't think this is necessarily true, and I take a much more positive view of the survey results than Pocket-Lint.  While additional research would be required to confirm my thoughts, I suspect that people are more willing to see ads on material that cost money for networks/studios to produce because there is a high likelihood that this content will be entertaining vs. seeing ads on material that had little production cost and may or may not actually be entertaining. 

The thing with home videos on YouTube is that users have to sift through material to find the really funny/ interesting/ good stuff.  That's part of the excitement and charm of the site, but it may also make users reluctant to accept watching ads, if they feel those ads "waste their time."  This isn't to say that users won't accept ads on YouTube, but if YouTube goes, choses to implement ads, to be successful, ads will need to be both relevant to the user and offered in formats that don't annoy users.  Another issue, which I think impacts users willingness to see commercials, is the quality of the picture.  When copyrighted content is illegally posted on YouTube, it is often not very high resolution footage, which impacts the viewing experience.  When a user watches copyrighted content on a network's website, the footage is usually very clear and higher resolution.  I think it goes without saying that if YouTube were able to legally secure content from the content owner (e.g. movie studios/networks), resolution wouldn't be an issue.  But, why would a Studio or Network want to "give" YouTube their content?  I've got a few ideas...

If YouTube users are, as the Harris Poll suggests, really sacrificing time elsewhere in order to spend time on YouTube, there should be plenty of revenue generating opportunities for Google.  First, there are the conventional options worth exploring:

• Conventional Ads -  Additional studies would likely be required to determine what type of ads could be run without causing YouTube user attrition.
  
• It might not be a good idea to put ads ahead of every user-generated video on YouTube, but video ads or splash print ads may be tolerated by users in front of or behind highly ranked home movies or videos that networks and studios post (if YouTube is successful as signing licensing agreements with content owners). 
  
• Targeted banner ads on Youtube.com, or short video or splash ads put in front of YouTube videos that are fed through to other websites (say VOX blogs, etc.) may be more tolerated.
• Subscription services - Perhaps users who aren't willing to see ads would be willing to pay a subscription fee to watch videos.  While those who are happy to watch ads, could do so, in lieu of paying a subscription fee.

• Free to stream X number of times - Pay to watch more than X times or to download the video to your PC, Phone, iPod, etc..

If, however, Google wants to make serious money with YouTube (without being "evil" in the process), there is plenty of room to innovate...  As I mentioned in an earlier post, YouTube recently announced that it would soon incorporate an audio engine that recognizes songs laid on top of home videos that appear on YouTube. At the end of videos, YouTube will give viewers a chance to legally purchase those songs.  This technology could be used to allow users to buy/download videos from studios/ networks as well.  However, I see  enormous possibilities to innovate and create revenue generating opportunities, which would allow Google to extend the advertising empire it started with AdWords into a whole new generation of interactive advertising.

Google could power a next generation advertising platform on YouTube that works like this for consumers:

• Watch a video on YouTube
• If you've liked anything you've seen/heard about in this video, buy it now or get a discount to buy it.
• YouTube could suggest products to purchase that appear in the video that users have just watched.  Advertisers already pay to get rappers to mention products (cars, booze, etc.) in songs, and they pay for subtle (or not so subtle) product placement in films and TV shows... I imagine these same advertisers would LOVE the opportunity to immediately capture customers by either enabling them to buy (or providing them coupons to buy) products featured in YouTube videos.
• If you like what you've just watched, check out these other programs X,Y,Z (this already exists on YouTube, but it could be enhanced/expanded to more closely mirror the system on NetFlix, which recognizes a users' interests and behaviors in combination with the behavior of users with similar profiles).

TV Networks and movie studios may be more likely to allow YouTube to use their content, if significant revenue sharing opportunities are involved.  A great way to generate tons of ad revenue (without bothering the consumer) is to work with advertisers who pay for product placement within movies and TV shows, allowing them the opportunity to capture new customers who are exposed to their product placement via watching movies/shows on YouTube.  YouTube could either allow users to click-to-buy (or express interest in) products within videos (a possibility if the videos are uploaded directly by the studios/networks) OR offer viewers the opportunity to purchase any of the featured products at the end of the video. 

For those of you who are wondering why networks/studios would want allow YouTube to reap the rewards of this idea, versus just implementing it themselves on their own websites, that's a great question.  In order to make this model work, Google/YouTube would have to make a multifaceted and compelling case, which could include the following points:

• YouTube has the ability to bring new viewers to network's/studio's content... When a user goes to YouTube, they often go to explore/discover new content.  Whereas, users that go directly to a network's or studio's website go with the intent of discovering content they already know about.
• YouTube could easily maintain multiple years of content, bringing back to life ad opportunities that studios and networks thought long gone (see Reese's Pieces example a few paragraphs below).
• Google is an advertising machine and has the ability to share revenue with studios and networks. (YouTube/Google would need to make this case strong enough by offering enough of a revenue share to discourage networks from thinking it is worthwhile to expand their own IT staff and infrastructure to implement the idea themselves.)
  

In addition to enticing networks and studios, YouTube could easily entice individual contributors (home video producers) to upload quality video content.  One way to do this is by maintaining a list of products and songs that have the potential to generate extra revenue sharing opportunities for uploaders.  For example, I mentioned earlier that advertisers are willing to pay rappers to mention products in their songs.  Why wouldn't those same advertisers be willing to pay YouTubers for playing those songs on top of their home movies IF they could prove that doing so increased customers?  If viewers had the immediate opportunity to purchase the product they just heard about on YouTube after watching a video, YouTube would have the case to get ad (and commissions) revenue off of the advertiser.   To prevent gross over commercialization and "pimping" of products, YouTube could require videos to get a certain number of page views and high rankings from viewrs before agreeing to share the revenue.

Taking this a step further, if, someone were to upload a video with a rap song overlaid on the top that mentioned say "Sprite" and PepsiCo didn't want to pay to have viewers "click-to-buy" (or print off a coupon) at the end of the video, Google could offer that opportunity up to a Sprite competitor, like "7-Up".

A few use cases to illustrate my point...

• Watch the movie, ET, and at the end of the movie, have the option to buy Reese's Pieces or get a manufacturer's coupon for 10% off. 
  

  E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial (Full Screen Collector's Edition)
• Watch Grey's Anatomy, and at the end of the show, download songs from the soundtrack from the record labels or a Gray's Anatomy t-shirt from ABC.
  
  

  Grey's Anatomy - Season One
• Watch someone's home movie with Snoop Dogg's "Gin & Juice" laid over the top, and at the end of the movie, buy the song and/or download a coupon that allows you to get a 10% discount on your next Segram's Gin purchase at BevMo. (When viewers use these coupons, there is even an opportunity for revenue sharing with YouTube, The Record label, and the person who posted the video and chose the song.

In summary, ad revenue and user enthusiasm potential is far from lost for Google and YouTube.  In fact, the world is very much Google's oyster.  There are infinite revenue generating possibilities for Google, content owners, and advertisers, which, if executed properly, benefit the consumer.  The trick is thinking creatively and getting buy-in from both advertisers and content owners. If anyone can do it (without being "evil"), Google can.

The World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos Switzerland took place between January 25-29th.  Today, I discovered some great footage from that meeting on YouTube, which dovetails nicely into my blog from Friday, in which I made several predictions for mobile in 2008. In the video, Chad Hurley, Co-Founder of YouTube, talks about some of the exciting things that lay ahead for YouTube:

According to a new survey, published by The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, “the hype” around social media “is real.”  In November and December or 2006, U Mass Dartmouth’s Center for Marketing Research, under the direction of blogging researchers Eric Mattson and Nora Ganim Barnes, completed a telephone survey of “Inc. 500” list to find out if and how they’re using social media.  The “Inc. 500,” published every September by Inc. Magazine, is a list of the fastest-growing private companies in the United States.  According to the executive summary, existing research shows that 8% of Fortune 500 companies have a public blog, and the U Mass team set out to find out whether the use of social media was the same in companies that were “selected by growth rate rather than revenue.”  What they found was encouraging.  Fast growing companies are utilizing social media at much higher rates than earlier research indicates for Fortune 500 companies.  In the executive summary, the researchers write:

“As one of, if not the, first studies of social media adoption with statistical significance, this research proves conclusively that social media is coming to the business world and sooner than many anticipated.”

The full results of the study will be published throughout 2007 in a variety of journals.  Keep your eyes peeled for an article in The Journal of New Communications Research coming this March. The researchers from U Mass have promised to send me a link the the article soon as it is available. When they do, I'll post it in this blog. In the meantime, the executive summary is well worth a read.

Included in the summary are several interesting graphs. The highlights include:

• When asked how important social media was to a company's business/ marketing strategy, most respondents felt that it was important:
  
• 26%= Very important
• 40%= Somewhat important
• When asked what type of social media companies used, responses were as follows:
  
• 33%= Message/Bulletin Boards
• 27%= Social Networking
• 24%= Online Video
• 19%= Blogging
• 17%= Wikis
• 11%= Podcasting
  

I can’t help but wonder: Did social media help propel the responding companies into the Inc. 500, or is it just coincidence?  Then again, I’m still wondering, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"
 
 

Thanks to technology and the Internet, the world is becoming increasingly transparent and accessible.  Social media is playing an important role in this transformation.  So far, most people seem to be responding to the power of social media favorably, and they’re using the power of social media for good.  However, there is a risk that the pendulum could shift in the other direction over time.  Below are the "5 Deadly Sins" of social media - pitfalls that proponents of social media should watch out for and proactively advocate against:

• Market saturation: There is a proliferation of social networking sites available – lots of sites are competing for users time.  Marketers are creating new social networking sites in record numbers to promote their products, and the number of traditional social networking sites (MySpace, YouTube, Bebo, Gather, WAYN, CyWorld, etc.) are also growing.  Users often use different for the same purpose but to meet different people.  If the market becomes overly fragmented, it may become less useful and more burdensome to user.  I hope that a natural market consolidation will happen eventually, but in the meantime, the industry runs the risk of users “burning out” from having to juggle too many different websites, on-line “friends”, different profile inputting tools, and passwords.
• Exploitation of social media at the expense of others: Social media makes it easier than ever to share information on-line.  While, the power of information sharing is good, it can also be dangerous in the wrong hands, enabling: fraud, misrepresentation of identity, identity theft, sexual exploitation, and unethical sharing of corporate or government secrets.  I just read an interesting article on the security risk that social media presents to corporations.  The same is true for governments and individuals.  The “Star Wars Kid”  and Paris Hilton were two of the first people to learn a thing or two about that.
• Eradication of privacy: This one is closely linked to the bullet point above on exploitation, but I felt it deserved its own section because it goes beyond exploitation because what is considered private to one person, isn’t necessarily considered private to another.  The Washingtonienne case is a good example of this.  Another example is that anyone can get an aerial photograph of your house at Google Maps or go to Zillow to find out what your house is worth.  Add location based social media services and mobile phones into the mix, and tracking people's location becomes easy via services like Helio's Buddy Beacon and Dodgeball.  While these are great services and they offer opt-in privacy, it's scary to think what could happen if either service were hacked.  Alternatively, imagine the damage that would result if someone's location information got into the wrong hands or was commandeered by a "friend" turned stalker. 
  
• Opportunistic litigation: Lawsuits like those filed earlier this week against News Corp. pose a strong threat to the health of social media.  If cases like these succeed, the rulings will send a dangerous message to the public: “You’re not responsible for your own safety or the safety of your children.  Someone else is.”  Unjustified lawsuits also stifle technical innovation and have the potential to strangle social media with excessive amounts of red tape.
• Opaque Marketing: Marketers are becoming more sophisticated about the ways that they use social media to their advantage.  It is already difficult to avoid pop-ups and other advertisements on-line.  And, with some social media sites, it difficult to tell what is advertising versus what is genuine, unbiased opinion.  Take, for example, bloggers who get paid by companies to evangelize products (I don’t, but a lot do).  Advertising on social media sites isn’t nearly as transparent as it should be, and social media runs the risk of being tarnished by overzealous marketers.

1/22/07 UPDATE: Thanks everyone for your insightful comments.  I just read a great article by Mark Zielinski, a UK-based security engineer.  The article talks about the threat that social media poses to corporate security.  In the article, Mark talks about how employees use their work computers to check their social networking pages and that this poses a threat to corporate networks.  Unsurprisingly, employees checking social media sites rather than doing work probably, has an impact on productivity - even more so than personal email. With these two points in mind, I'd like to add "Bringing Down the Corporation" as the 6th deadly sin of Social Media.

I've just launched a new VOX group called Social Media.  If you're interested in joining, click here!  I've linked all my blogs to this group, and I hope that others who are interested in Social Media, Social Networking, Marketing, Web 2.0, Mobile 2.0 and other colliding topics will add their relevant blogs too!