Archive for the ‘Business’ Category

Integrating Radio With Your Digital Ad Campaign

Posted by in Business, Digital Advertising, Findings, Software on April 5th, 2012

They say print is dead, and the movie theaters are losing out to online streaming and home video, but one of the oldest forms of mass media is not only going strong, it’s having a resurgence and is becoming a great place to put your advertising dollars. Radio, both online and not, has become a great way to expand regionally and in some cases even nationally. Podcast hosting sites get some of the biggest traffic outside of Facebook, Twitter and Google and even traditional radio is still a great way to reach a new audience. The difficult part is still…

Read More

Our Take on Two Emerging Marketing Trends

Posted by ted in Business, Digital Advertising, Findings, Marketing on March 5th, 2012

I was sitting under a fig tree the other day and it occurred to me that while convergence and relevance are often discussed, there is still plenty of work to be done to clarify what each term means and how we as marketing professionals can harness the opportunities each presents. So here’s our take on convergence and relevance.

Read More

How The Tablet Wars Benefit Small Business

Posted by in Business, Digital Advertising, Findings, Marketing on February 29th, 2012

When Myspace hit it big toward the beginning of the new millennium they immediately opened themselves up to business with the biggest consumer corporations in the world. Pepsi and Warner Brothers in particular flooded things with ads and used it as a way to push their new music and movie labels. While Myspace made a lot of money in that time they didn’t have any kind of structure to support advertising and that let a lot of spam bots and not-so-legitimate advertising squeak through and take over. Facebook and Twitter learned a huge lesson from this and made sure to have an infrastructure that serviced advertising but didn’t turn off small businesses. Apple and the other tablet makers took that model and ran with it but with a difference. Facebook had no competition when it really tried to rack up the advertising (Myspace was on its way down and Twitter hadn’t really started yet) The competition amongst the tablets to be the last one standing will ultimately benefit the small business wanting to advertise.

Read More

Kickstarter Kicks Into The Next Level With Some Huge Money Projects

Posted by in Business, Findings, Marketing, Search Engine Marketing on February 17th, 2012

Some time ago I wrote about Kickstarter at length and how it’s definitely something you should keep your eye on. Maybe you listened to me (there’s got to be at least one who has) but if you didn’t you wouldn’t know that just recently a Kickstarter page hit $1 million in less than 24 hours. This just highlights the reality of Kickstarter and actually puts it miles ahead of Twitter and Facebook as a small business tool. Kickstarter has already demonstrated the amount of money going through it. Even now people are still questioning just how to monetize their Facebook and Twitter pages, but Kickstarter has genuine proof that there is big money coming through. It’s clearly waiting for the taking.

Read More

Twitter Offering Regional Targeted Ads and Becoming The Place For Social Media Marketing in 2012

Posted by in Business, Digital Advertising, Findings, Marketing on January 20th, 2012

Twitter has always been a hard thing for me to get a handle on. For one, it always seems to skew a little young and it didn’t have a great infrastructure for targeted ads until very recently. In the last year Twitter has made huge strides in being friendly to advertisers and they’ve also done a great job of doing it without alienating their fanbase. Clearly they learned a huge lesson from the failures of Myspace. They didn’t dilute their core product and alienate their fanbase. They managed to integrate more advertising pretty seamlessly. By doing things like putting a promoted topic in with the trending ones and not changing the user experience, twitter has become a great place for advertisers without sacrificing the simplicity that made them unique and interesting in the first place.

Read More

Social Media Aspects That Failed in 2011 But Could Explode In 2012

Posted by in Business, Digital Advertising, Findings, Marketing on January 3rd, 2012

2011 was a big year as far as social media marketing, big sites came and went and Facebook continued to change despite certain fan objections. Sites like Netflix blew up huge and pushed digital streaming sites to the forefront of controversial subjects like digital piracy. There were some big false starts and some crashing and burning. The truth is that some of those things just weren’t ready and some of them are going to make huge comebacks and get off the ground in a big way in the coming year.

Read More

Take A Lesson From The Muppets: Kermit The Frog and Social Media

Posted by in Business, Findings, Marketing, Uncategorized on November 22nd, 2011

When Facebook and Twitter can do something even the juggernaut that is the Disney Corporation couldn’t you know they have something really special. The Muppets have scratched and clawed their way back into the spotlight and they owe a lot to social media. A while ago I wrote about how some brands have rejuvenated themselves using social media. Like those brands, the Muppets had a loyal following and Disney, at least partially, used that following to re-invigorate the brand in a big way – and they did it without spending loads of cash.

Read More

In a Borderless World, How Can Indie Bookstores Use Social Media To Their Advantage?

Posted by in Business, Findings, Marketing on November 1st, 2011

As we’ve seen in the past with some pretty big regional and national brands (i.e Hot Topic, Five Guys, Threadless, etc.) have blown up because of their shrewd use of social media. Just like how smaller video game retailers have started hitting it big in the wake of blockbuster scaling back their stores. There is now a lot of room for independent and smaller bookstores to make a real impact if they use social media sites right. Social media is, after all, nothing if not a great equalizer among retailers. Mom and Pop’s books gets roughly the same amount of Twitter and Facebook space as Barnes and Noble. Independent book retailers on a budget can do big things with social media.

Read More

Don’t Call It A Comeback: 5 Brands That Found a Second Life Using Social Media

Posted by charles in Business, Digital Advertising, Findings, Marketing on October 21st, 2011

Advertising is full of great comeback stories from brands that were on their way out but came back with a vengeance. Radio Shack has clawed its way back from near extinction in recent years. Some brands have done it using social media to rebuild their audience. If you can find something that catches on virally via the web, it doesn’t matter what your past reputation was as a brand and here are a few brands that will show you how to do it.

Read More

Behind The Curve On Streaming Video: Netflix and The Streaming Video Debacle

Posted by in Business, Digital Advertising, Findings, Marketing on October 14th, 2011

Remember TiVo? When it first came out in 1999 TiVo was the biggest thing going. TiVo was going to be the next Microsoft or Apple. Judging from those first few years TiVo has got to be in every home in the country right? Well a funny thing happened, when TiVo got popular companies took their business model and applied to a much larger infrastructure and improved upon the technology. In the end TiVo was left with nothing but a mostly forgotten brand name. Because, as social media has shown, being the first one in on new media means the moment you’re successful everyone is going to take your model and run with it in directions you can’t control.

Read More
« Older Entries
Shiny Things