NetGains Marketing

Will celebrities like Heidi Montag be able to move the sales needle when they make transparently commercial posts for a company on their Facebook pages? Evidently, Ad.ly has already convinced a handful of big brands that people such as Montag - with a large number of Facebook "likers" - will do just that.

The Beverley Hills, CA-based advertising platform announced Wednesday that it offers marketers the opportunity to pitch products through so-called influencers on the social site. The company began offering the same service on Twitter one year ago and on MySpace in June.

"Basically, the advertisers want more reach," said Sean Rad, president of Ad.ly. "No brand has done all three [social sites simultaneously] yet. But, we have some very, very large brands that are going to launch with all three very soon…We actually have signed deals. We cannot name them. Though, they are some of the very largest brands in the world."

One small retail brand, PetFlow, has leveraged Ad.ly's automated platform via Montag's Facebook page. The reality TV star's account posted the following message on Wednesday: "Just found Petflow.com, they deliver pet food right to my door for free! No more lugging heavy bags! And the same copy appeared on Montag's Twitter page. The "Ad" copy seen at the end of Montag's message is required by the Federal Trade Commission for the sake of transparency, said Krista Thomas, VP of marketing for Ad.ly.

Indeed, her company's platform lets celebrities, athletes, or other popular personalities place ads into their social activity streams. In addition to Montag, she said, participants include skateboarding legend Tony Hawk, reality TV star Kim Kardashian, NBA basketball player Paul Pierce, comedic talk show host Stephen Colbert, and TV personality Dr. Drew Pinsky, among others.

Thomas said celebrities get compensated for the commercial posts/tweets on a pay-per-message model. More specifically, she said that payments are based on an equation that includes: their number of followers/fans/friends on a social site; how often they tweet or post, and engagement achieved (number of replies, re-tweets, click-throughs, etc.). And the company's platform - called "Influencer Network" - charges brands on a CPM model, Thomas said.

She said some of those celebrities have recently authored promotional tweets on Twitter and posts on MySpace on behalf of brands like Toyota, CNN, Sony, NBC, Microsoft, and Universal. A Toyota "Swagger Wagon" campaign effort, she said, helped garner 2.7 million YouTube views.

Meanwhile, Rad said Facebook has signed off on the endorsement posts appearing on official brand pages. "It is within Facebook's guidelines," he said. "A fan page has the permission for a fee to promote a brand…but a user page does not."

Endorsements for major brands will begin appearing on Facebook within the next three or four weeks, Thomas said. "It's very similar to the [traditional] endorsement marketplace, but at a micro-level, obviously," she said. "So it's much more affordable to a far larger group of marketers. We have proven out that model in the past year on Twitter, and the company is growing quickly. We have a price point that marketers can afford, up and down the full range."


Original article by Christopher Heine  (Clickz)

"PR people understand this but can never execute it: if you don’t like what is being said, change the conversation.” —Don Draper

As creative director at Sterling Cooper, the fictitious advertising agency at the heart of Mad Men, Don Draper is fast becoming an industry icon, unleashing timeless maxims on the nature of the advertising business. The show is set in the early ’60s, and yet his insights seem to strike a chord for those still plying their trade in the ad game. But when Draper advised a client in crisis to “change the conversation,” the show’s writers unwittingly showed just how much has changed since 1963.

In Mad Men’s era, marketers of all stripes — but especially advertisers — operated from the singular principle of top-down communication. There were fewer channels of communication and fewer media outlets, and so it felt like there were fewer voices. Much more importantly, there was less of a voice for consumers in that mix. The thought was that people weren’t really talking about brands with any sort of impact. And that’s why Don takes a swipe at the PR industry, which has always been about generating word of mouth rather than dominating it.

Sure, people would chat about advertising at the metaphorical water cooler, but the belief was that conversation couldn’t possibly have the same impact as a million-dollar commercial or network airtime. Advertisers thought that they could quite literally change the conversation — shut down one side of it until their message was the only one being heard. Draper may have called it a conversation, but he meant to shout louder and better than everyone else, until the conversation became a monologue — his monologue.

That’s all changed, of course. Marketing, PR and word of mouth are now deeply intertwined. The marketing monologue is a relic: it’s all dialogue, all the time. It’s an Internet-driven phenomenon, as the development of a two-way media channel has transformed the thinking in the industry to the point where consumer engagement to spread a message is now a part of most marketing plans.

Taking advantage of this conversation means giving up control and engaging in the chatter on the street. One can’t join a conversation without first paying attention to what’s being said, and how, and by whom.

Nowhere is this more evident, lately, than in the sad death of bike courier Darcy Sheppard and the subsequent arrest of former Ontario attorney general Michael Bryant. The battle for Bryant’s image is already being waged, in advance of his actual court case. A fight that until recently would have been fought almost exclusively through television appearances and press conferences is now a conversation being had online. Sheppard supporters have annotated surveillance camera footage and posted it on YouTube to argue Bryant’s guilt (with tens of thousands of views); Bryant’s team has started a blog and a Twitter feed (both called “Bryantfacts”) to reply to “demonstrable errors of fact” surrounding the event; a counter-Twitter (there’s a new term!) called “Bryanttruths” has been established too. The last thing his team wants to do is to engage on this immediate, uncontrolled series of ground skirmishes — but they’re smart enough to know that a modern marketer has to join the conversation.

So what does this mean, in practical terms? How do we really follow the rules of a conversation in marketing?

First of all, we listen. And in this case, that means paying attention to what people are saying about our brands and companies (and in Bryant’s case, our public figures). It starts with regular, constant searching online for any reference to your subject. So join every Facebook group that makes reference to your company; search for your brand on Twitter every day; and pay attention to what is being said.

Next, we have to respect the rules of the conversation. No shouting, no overpowering, and we wait our turn. If you’re starting a social media campaign, make sure that your branded work looks more like the site that it’s a part of. Great branded Facebook pages feel like great Facebook pages first. It also means accepting that some negative feedback is a part of the deal, just as it is with any conversation.

And lastly, we give to the conversation. Increasingly, this means getting your message out there in as entertaining a fashion as possible — even if it sometimes means losing a little bit of that brand sell. Whether it’s an unbelievably entertaining 30 seconds of video or a terrific game or something else entirely, we need to let people know that they are going to like talking to us, and then they’ll come back for more.

By Max Valiquette (originally appeared in Canadian Business Magazine, Oct 2009).
Don Draper would certainly approve of that.

By Tony Bradley at PC World ; Fri Aug 27, 2010 1:35pm EDT

Google added new functionality to its real-time search engine, and moved it from an obscure feature buried in the options on the left pane of the standard Google search, to its own Web site. The new Google Realtime can be a powerful tool for businesses that know how to use it.

Search rivals Google and Bing were engaged in a heated race last fall to forge deals with social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter in order to incorporate those real-time status updates into search results. With the changes delivered by Google, the real-time data is more customizable, and more accessible--making it much more valuable.

Customer Relevance

Companies can use information gleaned from Google Realtime to "read the minds" of consumers. Conducting searches related to current or planned products or services can help identify what customers want and what concerns they might have.

As the next-generation Kindle launches today, e-reader rivals like Barnes and Noble and Sony can use Google Realtime to monitor real-world comments and feedback about the device. The information will let them know what the target audience likes about the new Kindle, as well as what customers still feel it's lacking or wish it had--enabling them to apply that information to their next e-reader models and stay a step ahead of consumer demand.

Proactive Support

Most customer contact centers maintain a database of known issues and resolutions for more efficient customer support, but that information is typically gleaned as the calls come in. Google Realtime enables businesses to monitor customer issues and complaints--in real-time--to track any pervasive issues and begin to develop solutions before the phone starts ringing off the hook.

The filters provided by Google Realtime can also help isolate an issue. If HTC were to monitor Google Realtime and see a spike in Droid Incredible customers complaining that the device can't get a signal, it could filter the results by location to determine if it is a prevalent issue with the smartphone in general, or if it is limited to a specific geographic area--perhaps indicating that the problem is with a Verizon tower rather than the HTC device.

Reputation Management

This is perhaps the Holy Grail of real-time search. What company wouldn't like to know what customers really think of it? Commissioned telemarketing or Web surveys are helpful, but being able to see what people are actually saying to one another behind closed doors is truly valuable.

The significance of monitoring real-time Facebook status updates and Twitter tweets is that it is raw, unfiltered information. When a customer has a bad experience at a restaurant, he is not shy about sharing that information with the Twitterverse. When someone really loves the movie she just saw, odds are fair that the Facebook social network will hear about it.

The best part for businesses that want to put Google Realtime to use is that it doesn't require hiring a full-time employee dedicated to monitoring Google Realtime streams. As Google explains in the blog post announcing Google Realtime "we've also added updates content to Google Alerts, making it easy to stay informed about a topic of your choosing. Now you can create an alert specifically for "updates" to get an email the moment your topic appears on Twitter or other short-form services."

Google Realtime is a valuable business tool. Check it out. Experiment with different search terms to understand how it can be applied for your business. Set up some Google Alerts to keep an eye on it, and put the information to use.

Original story -here