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Archive for December 2009

2010 technology and social media predictions meta list.

December 23, 2009 | Author Roland Hachmann

Every year around this time one can find many predictions about the new year in terms of tech & social media trends. So in order to get an overview myself, I have started this post with a collection and summary of the various predictions I could find:

Jackie Huba predicts that Social Media will get boring and offers an amusing “in” and “out” list. Background fact: Social Media will become a regular part of daily business (and hence boring).
Pete Blackshaw wrote in an Ad Age column that social media marketers will need to embrace three critical words in 2010: Serve, Shrink and Simplify. Since you need to log on to Ad Age, you can read some excerpts on Pete’s blog. The main idea: service is the new marketing, our screens are shrinking, make things easer/reduce complexity for your customers.
The groundswell team lists 6 predictions, but you get an excerpt. Nevertheless, you can read the topline predictions on the groundswell blog. Overarching theme is, according to the blog, that social technology will be a mainstram part of what marketers do.
eMarketer lists 12 predictions for 2010. The insights include “future monetization models, the effect of transparency on advertising, social and search, mobile, social commerce, public relations, social advertising, Twitter, video and mom/pop internet usage”.
TrendsSpotting Blog has compiled a list of trends from several social media experts who send their input in 140 characts, hat tipping to twitter.
TrendsSpotting’s 2010 Social Media Influencers – Trend Predictions in 140 Characters
View more documents from Taly Weiss.
Read/WriteWeb has two different kinds of lists: General predictions and social media predictions. The general predictions consists of the views of 9 contributors from rww and cover a wide variety of topics concerning social media, mobile, cloud computing, Google/Twitter/Facebook/bing, etc. The social media predictions list 10 ways social media will change in 2010, i.e. how it will become part of everyday life, being increasingly used on mobile devices, ROI will become more important (and will be measured), etc.
Mitch Joel predicts, that 2010 will be the year that we shift from the advertising age to the marketing age. Strictly speaking, he writes, it’s not a prediction, it is something that is happening right now.
The NY Times “bits” blog writes about 2010 being the year of the tablet PC. Quite a few companies seem to be on the verge of presenting their versions, but everyone is, of course eager for Apple to release theirs!
Mashable has a post about 2010 being the year of the data. Data that should and will be used by every profession – journalism, marketing, SEO, Advertising, PR, etc. User data (static and behavioural data, I suppose) is becoming ever more important. Somehow I don’t think this is a trend just for 2010. It has been going on in 2009 already and will stay with us forever…
Pete Cashmore of Mashable wrote a special for CNN Tech about the 10 web trends to watch in 2010. the keywords are: Realtime, location, augmented reality, content curation, cloud computing, internet TV and Movies, convergence conundrum, social gaming, mobile payments, fame abundance and privacy scarcity.

As I find more predictions, I will add them (let me know if you know of any).

Posted in Digital Culture, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Social Media, Trends, User Generated Content, Web 2.0 | Tags: Cloud Computing, Facebook, Marketing, Mobile, Predictions, Social Media, Technology, Trends, Twitter | No Comments »

Jill and Kevin’s viral wedding video: just a marketing trick?

December 13, 2009 | Author Roland Hachmann

I suppose you all remember Jill and Kevin’s wedding video, in which the couple and a few of their friends were dancing to “forever” by Chris Brown?

For those living outside Germany, here it is (YouTube is blocking music videos in Germany):

I really liked that video and copied it into my German Blogs. I enjoyed the story of how this idea came about (here is some background info about the wedding). I liked the idea of the couple wanting to celebrat their most important day in a special way. And I am sure quite a few of the many million who have watched this video thought alike.

However, just a few days ago, I found an article in the Swiss Newspaper “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” that states that Jill and Kevin’s video hasn’t only gone viral, instead it was part of a viral markting campaign! Even the website they put up is a landing page for the campaign.

Hard to believe, I have to admit. Highly disappointing if it’s true.

So what was it marketing for? In that article it says that it was a campaign for the music of Chris Brown, who had popularity challenges and low record sales after having hit his girlfriend Rihanna.

Which is apparently the reason why you could not only purchase the song “Forever” via Jill and Kevin’s website, but also donate for the Sheila-Wellstone-Institut, which is a foundation against domestic violence.

I am not sure whether this story is true, since I haven’t heard anywhere else about it. But if it is, then I am heavily disappointed:

People (including myself of course) believed this story to be true – only to find out the they have been tricked by a marketing campaign. Working in advertising myself, I know about the current challenges to get the attention of the target audience. But lying and cheating should never be an option for any marketer.

So I wonder: is it true, was it really just a marketing campaign? Does anyone know?

Posted in Digital Culture, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Social Media, Videos, Viral Marketing | Tags: Hoax, Viral Marketing, viral video, wedding video | 1 Comment »

The valuable relationship between SEO and SMM

December 6, 2009 | Author Roland Hachmann

Something which I am currently thinking about is the relationship between Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing. There surely is a direct relationship, and this short post about SEO and Social Media Marketing mentions it, too:

When it comes to social media, millions of links are shared every day on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and blogs. As more people share a link to a website, the ranking of the webpage will increase. So the more your links are shared via social media, the more search engines pick up on this and increase your website’s overall rank.

But it doesn’t only work in one direction – it also works the other way around:

It’s also important to note SEO’s impact on social media. Primarily, if a link is easier to find on a search engine, then people are more likely to share it.

So far, SMM and SEO experts don’t seem to be working together much. Social Media Marketers might think about a presence on Youtube, or conducting a “blogger outreach” programm, some crowdsouring, etc.

But when selecting platforms or target audiences, Social Media Marketers tend to only think about “social value” of the respective platform or person. This Social Value is determined by the potential influence of that platform or person on the opinion or actions of other users.

The SEO tends to only think in “Link Value” of a platform. When doing offsite optimization, SEOs try to place links on other sites that have a high link value in the “eyes” of Google, so that it helps to improve the ranking of the SEOs site.

So SEOs don’t necessarily care about the Social Value of a site, and SMMs don’t care about the Link Value of a site.

Quite often this might correlate, since the Google Algorithm is based on social dynamics (sofar, most links are still published by human beings), but not always. And as far as I know, SEOs and SMMs don’t yet plan their activities together, trying to increase the intersection between the two online marketing approaches. It could prove to be interesting to unite these two approaches the next time activities are planned!

Posted in Digital Marketing, Search Engine Stuff, Social Media, Web 2.0 | Tags: Influencer Marketing, Search Engine optimization, Search Marketing, SEO, SMM, Social Media Marketing | 1 Comment »