Internet Marketing, Social Media, Business | StuckInTheFunnel

When It Comes to Their Money, Consumers Prefer Personal Communications Over Digital.

As the web has become more secure, companies are pushing digital/personal communications for all types of processes like tech support, billing and customer service. The web 2.0 bubble has changed how and where we communicate. Ticket Systems, Live Chat, Web Meetings  have become popular methods for interfacing with businesses and service providers.

However, when it comes to our piggy banks, many consumers still trust a face to face meeting or a phone call.

Research from a survey run by Mintel Comperemedia, found that 2 out of 3 (65%) adults would rather meet personally when communicating with their bank. Three in Seven like getting someone on the phone.

44% of respondents said they liked logging into a bank’s website and only 34% said they preferred email.

When it comes to my green, the web is my scene.

Personally, I prefer my bank’s website and email support for correspondence, bill pay and account management. This is not just because I am a tech geek from generation Y.

Overall, I find online banking communications more convenient because:

• I do not have to stand in line, set an appointment or wait for the next available operator.
• I can track and reference all of my email correspondence at a later time.
• It allows me to shop around for other accounts that may suit me better. In house bankers tend to be bias.
• I can manage and pay all my bills without picking up a pen.

I find it interesting that so many Internet users favor online communication with sites such as Linked In, Twitter and Facebook, but prefer a human voice when it comes to their bank account. Perhaps this is a testament to how much value we place on our financial assets.

Pardon the Blogging Lapse

You may have noticed that I have not had a blog post in 2 weeks. I wanted to let my readers know that I have not vanished from the blogosphere. The fact is, I have taken time to take care of few personal items on my to do list.

In the past 2 weeks I have:

• Bought a car
• Spent 2 days at Internet Summit 09
• Bought a chug!

For those of you wondering what a chug is, it is a mixture of a Chihuahua and a Pug. I named him Max.

Here is a video of him in action:

I am back into the regular swing and will post the details of Internet Summit 09 here and at  www.rtpdesigns.com later this week.

19% of Americans Tweet/Update Their Status Online

According to the latest survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, almost one in five (19%) of Americans uses Twitter or similar services to post updates about themselves and their businesses.

This data shows a substantial growth over previous surveys that reported Twitter use. In December 2008 and April 2009, Pew found that only 11% of Internet users made use of a status-update service. A study by Harris Interactive in March/April 09 found the number to be even lower, at a mere 5%.

Yum…Some Twitter Demographics:

In addition to the basic demographics of Twitter users, Pew also determined that the following 3 groups of Americans as those responsible for this new growth:

• Social Network Users (35%)
• Mobile Internet Users (25%)
• Young Internet Users between 18 and 24 (37%)

These figures continues to support the trend social media advocates have been trying to pitch to their upper management: Social Media is here and it’s not going away.

Enterprises Will Continue to Spend on Social Media Despite Spotty Success

A survey conducted by Deloittle, Beeline Labs and the Society for New Communications Research indicated that 94% of enterprises expending dollars for social media plan to maintain or increase their investment.

Despite the fact that investment in online communities and other social media campaigns by enterprises has been strong, many companies are having a tough time meeting business and marketing goals with these vehicles.

While some of the respondents agree that social media has helped them with word of mouth advertising, customer loyalty and brand awareness, many others report that the new phenomenon has had less that a substantial impact on their bottom line or customer acquisition costs.

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Internet Video Viewing Time Up 25%

Recent data from The Nielsen Company shows a 25% increase in total internet video streams and video time per viewer year-over-year in September 2009.

The Top Dog

It’s no surprise that YouTube is still the undisputed champion and brand in online video. The video giant accumulated 6.7 billion US Views in September and saw more than 106 million unique viewers.

The ever-growing Hulu streamed the second-highest number of online videos, 437 million, with 13.5 million unique visitors.

Yahoo, MSN and Fox Interactive Media were up in the top five brands as well:

Are there discrepencies?

Of course. The figures reported by Nielsen’s are more conservative than those recently reported by comScore, which acquires it’s statistics for their estimations of YouTube’s market share differently.

More so,  numbers released by YouTube itself, suggest that Nielsen and comScore are both, in fact, underestimating.  A recent blog post by YouTube founder Chad Hurley stated that YouTube routinely serves up more than 1 billion video views per day around the world.

Despite these descripencies, it’s no secret that online video is on the rise and here to stay.

Don’t Become a Social Media Burnout

In a world where you can let 1500 of your friends know what you are doing instantly, while tracking the status of your Dominos Pizza order online, there’s no secret as to why many of us may suffer from information overload.

I purposely spent some time the past couple weeks away from the computer during off hours to read and take a tour of North Carolina’s beautiful mountains.

Unlike most of my getaways, I only used my laptop and BlackBerry to access information that was pertinent to my trip itinerary which meant no work email. At first I thought I could not do it unless I tied my hands behind my back, but in the end, it was worth it.

The effectiveness of your Social Media marketing efforts are largely based on the amount of time and labor you put into them. That being said, it is important that use this time effectively so you get the most out of the time you sacrifice.

How to get the most out of Social Media without burning yourself out:

Set valuable and measurable goals

I stress the word “valuable”.   Telling yourself:  “I will spend 2hrs a day on Twitter”  is not a goal. Instead, commit to something like building 3 new relationships with potential prospects or professionals in your industry. This rule can be applied to any of the networks you participate in, whether it be Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, etc. Bottom line: get the most out of the time you spend.

Syndicate for success

With a little planning, you can syndicate your online content and reduce the time it takes you to spread your message across all of your social pipelines.

Here are a few tools that can help you do this:

• Tweet Deck (update Twitter and Facebook simultaneously).
• Word Press Twitter Plugin (Display your Tweets on a Word Press Blog)
• Twitter Feed (Automatically feed your blog posts to Twitter)
• Hoot Suite (for scheduled Tweets and other workflow)

While these programs may take some manual labor off of your hands, it is important not to abuse them. Don’t use them to blast your audience with never ending streams of content. Use them ethically and remember to build your audience organically.

Track and Refine

The only way to determine if the time you have invested has been well spent is to measure the goals you have set. If your goals are to build relationships and network, maintain a directory of the new contacts you have obtained and where they came from. If your goals are to increase sales and revenue, use a tool such as Pea Shoot to log your conversions and ROI.

Be Patient

Don’t expect to achieve all of your goals overnight. Just like any other campaign, get ready to struggle, test and refine. Do it smartly and you will achieve success while making time for the other important things in your life.

Twitter Users are Twice as Likely to View Your Ads

According to a study from research firm  Interpret, LLC, Twitter users are twice as likely to click internet ads than those who stick to traditional social networks such as Myspace, LinkedIn and Facebook.

The study was conducted on 9200 Internet users in August 09 and concluded that 24% of Twitter users had rated or reviewed products online compared to 12% of those who used other social networks, but not Twitter.

It was also found that the users of Twitter are twice as likely to view online company profiles than non-Twitter users (20% vs. 9%).

Why is this the case?

Given the hyper/ADD nature of Twitter and the fact that it is not a destination site is the primary culprit behind these numbers in my opinion.

Twitter’s rapid stream of information is more conducive to link clicks than social sites which provide content that requires more concentration and engagement.

What does this mean for your business?

Get on Twitter and start building those relationships. Put a strategy in place that leverages Twitters’ click happy audience and get your brand noticed.

Thoughts on Adobe’s Acquisition of Omniture

On Tuesday of this week, Adobe acquired the web analytics company Omniture (Nasdaq:OMTR) in a transaction valued at approximately $1.8 billion.

Adobe’s acquisition of Omniture furthers its mission to revolutionize the way the world engages with ideas and information. By combining Adobe’s content creation tools and ubiquitous clients with Omniture’s Web analytics, measurement and optimization technologies, Adobe will be well positioned to deliver solutions that can transform the future of engaging experiences and e-commerce across all digital content, platforms and devices.

This is one of the most exciting acquisitions I have witnessed in my career. My initial start in web development began with Macromedia Flash 6. It seems like just yesterday that Adobe picked up Macromedia back in April of 05.

When Adobe acquired Macromedia, they obtained a set of tools that were ideal for publishing and controlling content on the web. Since that acquisition, the world of web publishing has changed. A business’s web presence is no longer a credibility statement; it is a central hub for their marketing objectives, both on and offline. Combining the publishing power of Adobe’s current program suite with Omniture’s ability to measure online conversion and ROI will improve the workflow and integration between the design, technical and marketing levels of an organization.

What I would like to see Adobe offer now that they Omniture’s tools in their pocket:

1. Improved Web Analytics for Flash – Flash has always been the black box in the browser when it comes to analytics. It would be great to see some integrated components or Actionscript libraries that allowed Internet Marketers to analyze user engagement for Flash interactions and content segments.
2. SEO Assistance Within Dreamweaver – Many SEOs write their XHTML code in a tool like Dreamweaver and use outside programs such as Web CEO or SEO MOZ to score its SEO friendliness. Imagine if the scoring system was integrated and flagged your code with suggestions as you were writing it? Talk about workflow efficiency…
3. Weighted Analytics – Generally analytics code is pasted at the bottom of your XHTML document. After a visitor hits the page, you are given a broad view of how they interacted with it (time on page, what they clicked, etc.)  It would be beneficial to give certain page elements a weighted score for reporting purposes. For example, if a user spent 5 minutes viewing a product video, that could be flagged with more weight than clicking a generic link on the page.

This is truly a huge development in the realm of web content publishing, internet marketing and web analytics. It will be interesting to see how things develop and how industry competitors respond. Will Microsoft’s Expression Studio start to include similar features? We will have to wait and see.

What Do Ads on Twitter Mean for Internet Marketing and You?

Last week (Sept 10th) Twitter amended it’s terms of service to include the right to display advertisements. However where, when and how the ads will be pushed is “open for exploration”:

The Services may include advertisements, which may be targeted to the Content or information on the Services, queries made through the Services, or other information. The types and extent of advertising by Twitter on the Services are subject to change. In consideration for Twitter granting you access to and use of the Services, you agree that Twitter and its third party providers and partners may place such advertising on the Services or in connection with the display of Content or information from the Services whether submitted by you or others.

It was only a matter of time before this occured. It takes a lot of resources to dispatch the amount of SMS messages that Twitter does each day.

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Consumer Resistance to Mobile Advertising Will Not Stop Its Growth

According to Gartner, mobile advertising will increase 74% ($913.5 million) this year and is expected to exceed $13 billion by 2013, despite initial consumer resistance.

I’m guessing the the ability to implement location based ad targeting is luring marketers to adopt mobile based advertising. If you have a GPS like me, you may have already seen ads display for nearby stores/restaurants within close proximity to your current location. Increases in GPS technology will continue to make this trend stick, especially with the younger demographic.

A study from Parks Associates released in July said that mobile advertising revenues in the US and Canada will grow from $208 million in 2009 to $1.5 billion by 2013, despite possible early consumer resistance to mobile ads.

The Parks Associates report said that the adoption of smartphones, 3G network data plans (or newer wireless services), and downloadable applications will spur this growth in ad revenues, with significant increases beginning in 2010.

As an Interactive Marketer, I am excited to explore this trend. However, as a consumer, I am a bit apprehensive about receiving targeted ads on my smart phone. It will be interesting to see how things develop.