Mad 4 Blog

Last week, we talked about how social media was playing a big role in this year’s Super Bowl. But who’s really the standout in social networking, now that it’s all said and done? Despite the analysis of popularity (Facebook fan page “likes”) and views (YouTube re-watches), Twitter was arguably a winner due to its sheer presence. The 140-character social media site was directly mentioned in half of all Super Bowl commercials (compare that to Facebook’s mere 8% mentions).

Surprisingly, it was also the first place that many companies turned when they wanted to immediately take advantage of the unexpected blackout in the third quarter. One great anecdote is Oreo’s quick five-minute response, which is how long it took to conceive of the tweet “you can still dunk in the dark” and get it into the Twittersphere. This brought even more attention to Oreo’s Super Bowl “Whisper Fight” ad, featuring a debate about cookies that takes place in the sanctuary of a library. Bloomberg also reported that Twitter saw bidding on the search term “power outage” almost immediately.

Also during the game, Budweiser asked fans to tweet using the hashtag #clydesdales to name its newest colt, which served the dual purpose of capitalizing on its long-term brand association with the grand horse while also hooking a new audience who might feel like they can be part of something from the ground up. It dealt an emotional card to viewers who may have otherwise been shell-shocked from sports jokes, slapstick, toilet humor and the ever-popular use of sexuality to sell ads during the Super Bowl.

Hyundai had perhaps the greatest sweep in responsiveness following the event, with 15,000 new Facebook fans and the hashtag #pickyourteam used more than 20,000 times on Twitter as fans responded to its call to action.

Then again, one of the social media tactics didn’t have much to do with Twitter. Audi created a commercial about a teen taking his dad’s S6 to the prom — ostensibly to impress his dates — where viewers could vote to choose the commercials ending on the company’s YouTube page, helping them feel like they had a real and visible connection to the brand’s image. (For the record, they went with stealing the principal’s parking spot and kissing the prom queen, showing that happy endings and emotional pull still do have as much of an impact as machismo and hot models — much like Budweiser’s commercial. Advertising agencies of all sizes, take note!)

And oh yes, in case anyone was wondering bout that little football game that took place: Baltimore Ravens 34, San Francisco 49ers 31.

Continuing a trend of using members’ profile information for such purposes as targeted advertising, Facebook is now taking those analytics and applying them to a user-friendly new tool: targeted searches. It’s known as Graph Search.

Yesterday, Facebook revealed that it’s now in beta testing for an internal search option that allows users to receive results according to the preferences of their friends and family members. For example, it will give you results based on what your “friends” have “liked” — and those results will then be ranked according to the opinions of your closest confidantes first, which is gauged by how much you’ve interacted with them. Results are also ranked according to how many of your top friends collectively have “liked” certain pages, places, photos and similar content.

The Wall Street Journal quotes these as sample search phrases:

• “Music that people who like Mitt Romney like.”
• “Movies my friends in San Francisco like.”
• “Photos my friends took in the 1990s.”
• “Friends of friends who are men and single in Palo Alto.”
• “Languages my friends from college speak.”

That not only means website results, but also photos and business pages. For marketers, this news is important because it would mean that if a business page has a high amount of “likes” within a certain community, then when anyone in that community searches for related content, the business page would be boosted to the top of the search results list on Facebook. Ultimately, it’s an algorithm that rewards popularity and loyalty, which is perfect for social media marketing.

The remaining results will come organically from Microsoft’s search engine, Bing! This could be a bold move for Bing! to come into closer competition with top-ranking search engine, Google. Google has similarly tried to incorporate search engine results with social media through its Google+ services.

You can sign up for the wait list to receive a Graph Search beta invite starting this week.

Every year, e-commerce sales continued to skyrocket during the big holiday shopping days following Thanksgiving. And this year was no different.

On Black Friday 2012, plenty of deals were available online that kept buyers from going out into the cold in the middle of the night and waiting on long lines. This year saw a 26 percent increase over last year’s online sales during the same promotion, according to ComScore. Black Friday’s Internet retail totaled more than $1 billion, up from $816 million last year. That included a 29 percent growth in sales of subscriptions to online content or digital products, like music. Amazon.com was this year’s top-seller, with WalMart.com coming in second.

Some analysts began to speculate that such a surge in online shopping on Black Friday could hurt traffic on Cyber Monday, which is typically reserved for big online discounts. However, this date also saw a 30.3 percent increase from 2011. Amazon.com saw a majority of online bargain-hunters, especially those seeking the latest Kindle.

If your business has products or services available for sale online, you should consider taking part in the overwhelmingly popular practice of offering discounts on Cyber Monday – and possible Black Friday as well. If you aren’t an e-commerce website, you can still take advantage of increased Web traffic on those dates by purchasing ads on websites that commonly see a boost in visitors. If you’re a small business without the buying power to create a Web presence on those big sales days, you can also consider putting your budget toward Small Business Saturday,  which is overlooked by major competitors.

Furthermore, with people gravitating toward search websites like Google to find the best deals, it’s a good time of year to remember to check on your AdWords accounts and SEO efforts so that, should someone pause in their gift shopping to look up something else they’ve been meaning to purchase – whether it’s legal services or a local car repair shop – they can quickly locate your page.

Consider Thanksgiving week a time to check on how easy it is to locate your business online, how readable your pages are and how user-friendly the website itself is. See if your sales go up — and if not, what can you do next year to monetize your website and take advantage of the Web traffic increase on Black Friday and Cyber Monday?

Everyone’s favorite social media can-do giant Facebook hit 1 billion users last week. Despite shaky ratings in recent months – and its notoriously troublesome debut on the stock market last May (as of August, it fell to half its public offering price) – the landmark prompted CEO Mark Zuckerberg to announce it as his own Facebook status on Oct. 4.

And by the way, that’s active users, not just those dummy accounts used to exploit friends and earn extra tools in Farmville. That’s one of every seven people on the planet.

What does this mean, exactly, for social marketers?

For some, it might indicate a crowded marketplace where everyone already is and has been. These people might choose to put their energies into developing social media where they can catch the wave of newness and hook an untapped crop of customers and investors – a new audience, a fresh set of eyes. Maybe Google+? (Just kidding.)

Others might see that number as 1 billion existing opportunities to advertise, network and connect. This might be the time to sit down and look at existing Facebook strategies to see if you’re up-to-date and doing all that you can to communicate with your friends and followers through this powerful (and still preeminent) forum.

But it doesn’t only matter where Facebook has been or even where it is now. Marketers may want to consider where Facebook is going from here. Zuckerberg has promised that Facebook is now focusing intently on developing for mobile – which may be that new forefront that advertisers seeking the ‘next best thing’ are actually seeking. Sometimes you have to look backward to look forward.

Are you already taking advantage of Facebook’s many tools and techniques to connect with those who might be interested in your brand? Have you looked into emerging strategies and updated your toolbox? Or are you still just sending out a message to existing friends now and then to remind them that you’re still there? Are you ready to give up on Facebook and move to somewhere shiny and new?

With Facebook hitting its 1 billionth user, it’s a great reminder for you to take stock of your social media game to find out where your time, attention and budget should be allocated. Let us know if you need any help checking to see if there’s any room for improvement in your long-term social media outreach plan – and please share with us about what you’re doing to stay relevant in these fast-changing times for online and mobile marketing!

Last week we talked about why and how Google Alerts is an important tool when it comes to brand marketing and management. So now are you ready to try it out?

Here’s how to do it:

1. Visit Google.com/alerts

2. There are five forms to fill out:

• Search query (the word or phrase as you’d want it searched – with correct spelling and punctuation; Google search tools apply, so use “ “ around your phrase for an identical match)
• Result type (such as videos, blogs, news, etc.)
• How often (you can choose daily, weekly or as it happens and get periodic round-ups from an automated scope of the Web)
• How many (you can choose from only the best results (best matches, newest, most relevant) or all results)
• Deliver to (this is your e-mail address; if you choose “as it happens” and expect a lot of results, you may want to create a label, filter or unique e-mail address to receive your alerts to keep from cluttering your inbox)

3. Next you hit “Create Alert” and you’re brought to a page saying that you’ll receive the e-mail for confirmation before the alerts begin.

4. When you receive the confirmation e-mail (which should happen pretty immediately), you just have to click a link that says “Verify” and you’re all set. Just be sure you don’t click the link under it, which is to cancel your alert!

5. Now you should start receiving any relevant notices as soon as they happen. You can visit the same website and click “Manage Alerts” anytime to change your settings. Accuracy and effectiveness may take some tinkering but are worth the more specific matches to satisfy your searches.

Setting up and monitoring Google Alerts is just one of the services that comes along with our website development, social media management, search engine optimization and interactive marketing. Let us know if you have any other questions about how to amplify and administrate your presence online!

Whether it’s from a vendor, customer or your competition, you want to know about the word-of-mouth buzz going on about you. And honest feedback isn’t always easy to receive. People are not always going to head to the source by calling you, visiting your website or putting a message on your Facebook business page wall. Just because you create public forums for colleagues, customers and clients to discuss your brand doesn’t mean the conversation isn’t continuing elsewhere.

With today’s fast-paced social media growth, and countless spaces to monitor online, it’s hard for you to stay on top of every instance where your name is coming up in the world – even if you do a periodic search for your name or your business’s. The most effective way to keep up with what’s being said about you on the Internet is to create a Google Alert.

You simply set up an account through Google and type in the key words or phrases pertinent, specifically, to your company. (This is also useful to do for your own name and perhaps some of your competitors as well.) Whenever these certain codes come up anywhere on the Internet, Google sends you an e-mail “alert” telling you about it. Then you can check out what’s being said immediately.

This can help you be more active in any conversations about your business. You can network with people who are interested in your brand or seeking more information. You can also more actively engage with any and all claims and commiserations about your products and services. This can help you stay on the ball and take part in your overall brand marketing and management. Plus, showing that you’re interested in hearing what people have to say and improving or engaging based on those details always garners a great response from the public.

Ready to get started? Check back next week and we’ll walk you through how to do it!

Starting this month and continuing over the next few weeks, Google AdWords is introducing some changes that are meant to make it even easier to use the popular website-promoting and ad-placement tool. As ever, the latest slew of updates targets two critical factors: becoming more accurate and becoming more user-friendly.

The primary adjustment is to its secretive algorithm, which determines how to rank and analyze certain keywords in order to match and rank content.

For starters, AdWords will now allow advertisers to place ads based on more specific keywords. Instead of trying to match content using less descriptive means, marketers can choose the narrowest and most niche keywords so that their creative appears only next to extremely specific phrases and articles. And, of course, they’ll be able to track how certain keywords fare as compared to others in order to determine what those designations should be. Google is calling this option “next-gen keyword contextual targeting.”

And it’s important to note that this upgrade is coming along with a new and easy to use display grid that makes it simple to manage and monitor these campaigns.

In terms of targeting and tweaking campaigns, Google will be releasing a visualization aid that shows marketers how their campaign is faring on a grid that will help them quickly locate and assess the information they’ve collected. This graphic map plugs into analytics data and can be reorganized according to specific features that are an individual advertiser’s top priorities, such as keyword, location or topic. The Google AdWords visualization aid provides a bird’s eye view of trends, clusters and other historical data.

What do you think of these updates? And what other changes do you think AdWords still needs to stay at the top of its game in an increasingly competitive Web marketing world?

As the new year kicks off, we’re looking at some exciting growth and new developments around the office at Mad 4 Marketing. One thing we started at the end of 2011 was staffing up the company, which included introducing new team member Damon. Damon has been professionally involved with the Internet since the early 1990s and has worked on major sites like the WSJ and TigerDirect, to name a few. Now he’s leading our interactive marketing division, which helps you attract and retain clients via the power of the Web.

With the addition of Damon, we’re able to continue buying ad space online, helping you market your website and build relationships via social networking. The best part about expanding our work on these services is that we’re able to provide you with extremely measurable results on pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. This means we can also better predict how certain tactics will improve your existing and developing online advertising strategies. We’ve got the numbers on hand and we’re excited to show our clients how our efforts can help you gain a following, drive traffic to your site, track information and even complete sales online.

Last week we introduced you to “quick response” codes and how they can be used to help you engage audiences and measure the effectiveness of your ads. In today’s follow-up, we answer three more in-depth questions about the benefits of QR codes.

1. How popular are QR codes in today’s crowded marketing world?

Although QR codes are growing in popularity, they’re not a very prominent means of advertising – yet. This can actually be a good thing for your company, since using this technology can help you stand out from your competition. Although not everyone knows how the codes work or will have the correct phones to sync up with your quick response marketing, they may still associate your brand with cutting-edge developments. One way to make the most of using QR codes is to couple them with traditional creative so that everyone can make the most of the information and art that’s associated with your campaign.

2. How do I generate a unique code?

There are several routes for purchasing a new, independent code. You can program your information once you determine what type works for your needs (locational info, company background, promotional offers, sweepstakes entry). Mad4Marketing connects you with a trusted developer who can generate your unique QR code.

3. How does someone’s cell phone read the code?

First an individual needs to already be familiar with QR codes, so that they understand that the purpose is to scan them for more information. Then they need to download an app for their smartphone – there are many options from which to choose in any operating system’s application marketplace, regardless of whether someone has an iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, etc. These apps are usually free or very low-cost and take less than a minute to download and install. No special hardware is necessary; all it takes is the common phone camera. However, some special devices with laser scanning ability can also read the 2-D design.

4. Are there any added benefits to embracing QR code advertising?

Once your audience begins getting used to seeing QR codes in your advertising and have the right software on their phone, you can really push forward with ways to utilize this technology. You can build an entire relationship dynamic between you and current or potential clients/customers that involves increasing interaction with QR codes. This element becomes a richer, more complex dimension in your interactions and expands the dialogue between you and everyone you want to reach out to on a continued basis.

Ready to add QR codes to your campaign? Contact us and we’ll help you get started.

Bar codes used to affect you only while you stood in checkout lines at apparel retailers or grocery stores. But now you’ve seen funny new versions them on advertising from flyers in your mailbox to billboards on your drive home. So what’s the purpose of adding bar codes to print advertisements? The following questions and answers provide an overview.

1. What Are QR Codes?

Those funny square-shaped bar codes you’re seeing everywhere are actually Quick Response codes (you may have noticed an absence of actual bars, unlike the ones you scan at Whole Foods). They’re named this because a smartphone can quickly scan the square and access a wealth of information about the product. This means that no matter how big your ad is or how much text you provide, one fast scan provides your prospective buyer with nearly unlimited data about your company, offer or product.

2. How Are They Used?

There are many ways you can take advantage of this new marketing tactic. In fact, creative uses for QR codes are being imagined every day. For example, someone can scan your unique code and come up with a coupon for purchasing your goods. Or they can access a video describing your services. Or the code can automatically pull up directions from where the user is standing to your nearest location. Your options are almost limitless; the real challenge is determining what tactic’s best to represent your brand and what will intrigue your audience enough to get them to whip out their mobile phone to learn more.

3. How Can They Improve My Marketing?

On top of just looking like a cutting-edge, in-the-know company, there are tangible benefits to using QR codes in your marketing campaign. The primary selling point is that when users scan your ad, you can also collect information. You can learn which ad placements are engaging viewers the most. Is it the code you placed in the newspaper or the one at the bus stop by your office? Are people then using the code, data or offer that’s extended via your QR code link? You can record this data and apply it toward further marketing endeavors with even stronger success rates each time. This measurability is paramount to long-term success with your marketing strategy. With QR codes, you get the same highly analytical data about your placement and performance that you’ve come to value from online advertising.

Looking for ways to build QR codes into your marketing campaign for improved measurability and a stronger relationship with your clients/consumers? Contact us to go over your options, including strategy and pricing. And check back next week for Part 2 of our Q&A for QR Codes.