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What Facebook’s Open Graph Means to Marketers

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010

Facebook introduced Open Graph at the F8 Conference last week, which will extend Facebook’s platform to any third-party publisher online. So, what does this mean for marketers?

For the Publishing Marketer, this will allow you to tap into Facebook’s 500+ million users without having to have a Facebook branded Fan Page. By using the Facebook API, will allow publishers to enhance the user’s experience at their site with social functionality. How? Publisher’s will now be able to place the Facebook toolbar at the bottom of a site page, which will offer a social experience with the popular ’Like’ button, friend’s list info and chat.

Marketers that advertise their products/services or Fan Pages on Facebook will eventually have better ad targeting, since the Open Graph will allow for Facebook to gather new user data on preferences and behaviors, thus making better for targeted ads for marketers.

Tags: better ad targeting, Facebook, Facebook advertising, Facebook Open Graph, for online marketers, online advertising, online marketing, Open Graph
Posted in internet marketing, online marketing | No Comments »

Your Company’s Brand May Be Why Consumers Don’t Buy

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

The March 2010 Harris Poll showed that 35% of consumers chose not to buy from a company because they thought the company’s brand advertisements were distasteful. 28% of consumers decided not to buy because they disliked the spokesperson for the brand and 27% of consumers chose not to buy from the company because they didn’t like the program/event the company’s brand was sponsoring.

Overall, be careful when selecting the advertisements, programs, events and spokespeople that your company’s brand will be associated with, it can have detrimental consequences to the way your brand will be perceived and ultimately hurt your marketing ROI.

Tags: brand advertisements, brand marketing, consumer purchase behavior, consumers dislike brand, March 2010 Harris Poll
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Facebook Destroys Traditional Online Gaming Channels with Applications

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

Facebook has done it again! Traditional Online Gaming Publisher companies are seeing a major drop in their traditional traffic channels, as high as 50% to their sites in 2009, due to the change in online consumer behavior because of Facebook. Online gaming companies that have not already created Facebook gaming applications are already at a loss because of Facebook application companies, such as Zynga, which are highly dominant on the Facebook Games applications page. If you’re an Online Gaming Marketer, encourage your company to build Facebook applications and use Facebook as a channel. Check out Zynga and how they market their games.

Take a look at the homepage of Facebook Games Applications page and you will see at a minimum,6 Zynga games with the most users and popularity, which is everything to being promoted through Facebook.

Here’s why consumers are playing more at Facebook, rather than seeking out games through old traditional channels:

1. Consumers are already in their ‘downtime’ when they are at Facebook, so an option to play a game directly from this portal is much more likely, than seeking out another site

2. ‘Real Offline Friends’, not pseudo MySpace ‘Online Friends’ challenge each other in the games, so it’s more fun to compete with one another
3. The games are short and don’t take much effort
4. Other games are promoted, after a game is completed, so it encourages the player to continue to play at Facebook, rather than seek outside of Facebook alternative games

So, how do traditional online gaming publishers compete? Build a FB application and use it as a channel to drive traffic back to your site. Cross-promote the other games to the database of players, so that they will invite their friends to come and join. Do this now, before it’s not too late!

Tags: facebook gaming applications, online gaming, online marketing, Zynga
Posted in online marketing | No Comments »

New FTC rules for Marketers & Advertisers

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

Starting today, new FTC policies can effect your marketing strategy to use celebrity endorsements or social media, such as blogs, for promoting branded items. New policies require that marketers and advertisers can no longer use the provisional statement, ‘results are not typical’ in celebrity endorsements or social media, which used to allow marketers a blanket protection from consumers that tried to complain or sue for misleading advertisements from products. Advertisers must now state what consumers can ‘generally expect’ in product results.

Regarding social media, bloggers will be affected, since they must openly disclose in their postings for ‘any material connection’ they have to an advertiser they are blogging about, which pays them a fee for the blog or given a free item for endorsing the product.

There will be an $11,000 charge for each time an organization does not comply with the new FTC policy, whether it’s the advertiser, blog, or marketer.

To stay in FTC compliance, check out this link from BzzAgent http://about.bzzagent.com/word-of-mouth/socialcompliance

Tags: blog, bloggers, blogging, blogs, celebrity endorsement rules for online, consumer marketing, endorsement advertisement, ftc compliance, FTC rules, online advertising ftc rules, online marketing rules, results not typical, social media ftc rules
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eCommerce Sites Keep Online Customers and Gain New Ones with Offering Lower-Priced Product Goods

Monday, July 6th, 2009

Marketing is not easy, especially in this economy, so if you’re an eCommerce site that has specialized in carrying higher-priced luxury goods, what can you do to not lose your existing customers and attract new customers, since everyone is cutting back? Try, introducing lower-priced goods, as the airlines do with their customer seating in coach. If you’ve haven’t flown in the past 2 years, check out any of the airlines’ sites and see how they are offering more seating prices of different levels in coach, so that they can keep their margins and acquire new customers that they normally wouldn’t have attracted without diminishing their brand efforts.

By offering more goods options that have different price points, you’ll be able to keep your high-priced luxury item lines and introduce lower priced items without hurting the brand.

Tags: brand marketing, customers cutting back, ecommerce marketing, internet marketing, keeping customers, luxury goods, luxury priced ecommerce, offering new product lines, online marketing, online marketing tactics
Posted in online marketing | 4 Comments »

Choose SEO First When Starting Your Online Lead Strategy

Monday, June 1st, 2009

Develop an online marketing plan with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as your starting point, comparatively to other lead generation channels, such as Search Engine Marketing (SEM), affiliate marketing, email marketing or media buys.

SEO, for all the newbies out there, is the organic listings that appear on the left-side of Google’s search results. It is free to appear in Google’s organic listings, which is how 75% of online users will find content. Also, 85% of Google Search users tend to click on organic listings compared to paid advertising links that appear at either the top or right-side of Google’s results. Although free to appear, it is not easy to get your website listed on the first page of the organic search, which is primarily where you want to appear, since most people tend not to go past the 1st page of the listings. So, how do you begin to make your site SEO-friendly?

Start with the title of the web pages. Name the title tags with 3-4 keywords that are relevant to the information on the page. Next, make sure that your information on the web pages are specific to the keywords. Lastly, get as many external links that go to your website. The more links you have, the more it will help in the popularity of your site, which will drive your site up in the rankings of the organic search.

Tags: affiliate marketing, email marketing, Google Search, lead generation, media buys, online lead strategy, search engine optimization, SEM, SEO
Posted in online marketing, Search, SEO | 3 Comments »

Marketing on a Limited Budget for Small Businesses

Monday, May 11th, 2009

Small businesses traditionally don’t have a big marketing budget, so the best way to compete to acquire new customers for your business, is to tap into your current database. How?
1. Offer incentives to your current customers for making a new referral to your business through Refer-a-Colleague programs
2. Contact your partners or business associates to participate in a co-op advertising program. This allows you to advertise for half the cost and to get prime advertising space
3. Try Cause Marketing events with non-profits that can offer you free publicity and exposure to the community

Although, it may be hard to market with a small budget, there are many creative marketing programs that small businesses can utilize in their current business channels to increase customer acquisition.

Tags: alternative marketing programs, business incentives, cause marketing, co-op advertising, customer acquisition, marketing strategies for small businesses, offer incentives, Refer-a-Colleague, small business budgets, small marketing budgets, SMB marketing
Posted in online marketing | No Comments »

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