Marketing Pilgrim

Amazon began beta testing a new application this week that claims to be a simple gift suggestion engine for your family and friends. It all begins on the Amazon recommendation page. From there, you give Amazon permission to talk to Facebook and from there you get a page full of people matched with products.

At the top of the page is a list of everyone on your friends list who has a birthday coming up. Good thing I decided to try this because I totally forgot that my sister has a birthday in 4 days. It even tells me “4 days” because simply saying August 1 isn’t urgent sounding enough.

People ask a lot of questions. It’s natural and it makes sense. It’s the only way we can acquire information that we don’t currently have. The biggest problem with any question is finding the best source to ask. We have friends and family but they can only go so far in many cases. We have search engines but sometimes you need something else, right?

Enter Facebook Questions which was announced yesterday in the Facebook blog and is being slow rolled out to the Facebook community at large.

Today we’re introducing Facebook Questions, a beta product that lets you pose questions like these to the Facebook community. With this new application, you can get a broader set of answers and learn valuable information from people knowledgeable on a range of topics.

Sometimes an ad for a product is so clever that you remember the ad but not the product. Not so with Old Spice’s new “Smell Like a Man, Man,” campaign which went viral earlier this year. According to a Nielsen report which was noted in Brandweek, sales of Old Spice Body Wash have jumped 55% in the past three months and 107% this past month.

“Gary Stibel, CEO and founder of The New England Consulting Group, said his data also shows a lift for Old Spice. “We think that Old Spice is up. We don’t think it’s up in the double digits, but it’s up meaningfully, and we think it’s driven 100 percent by marketing.”

I have good news and bad news.

First the bad news: Search Engine Strategies San Jose is no more.

Sucka!

That’s cos the good news is that the event has been renamed SES and the location changed to San Francisco! I so got you with that one, didn’t I?

Well, there’s more. SES is now part of the broader Connected Marketing Week which runs from August 16-20 at the Moscone Center in San Fran. Connected Marketing Week features five full days of themed subjects on search marketing, micro-blogging, social media, international online marketing, ad networks and exchanges, and much more. Each day will include panels, events, and networking opportunities for all involved.

A new survey by Cone says that four-out-of-five consumers will go online for a recommendation when they’re interested in buying something–even after it’s been recommended to them by a friend or family member. Looks like blood isn’t thicker than water these days. Not when it comes to parting with hard earned cash. And it doesn’t have to be a lot of cash, either.

The survey found that cost wasn’t a big factor in the decision to verify product claims. 82% said they would do research online before buying a car, but 72% said they’d check the reviews on movies and restaurants before heading out. Once they find what they’re looking for online, 80% of those polled said that a positive recommendation would reinforce their intent to buy. It’s interesting to note that only 68% said a negative review would stop them from buying a product or service. That may be the result of our tendency to want validation for our own ideas. Dad likes it, the guy online likes it and so do you, equals, you’re a smart decision maker.

Whenever research is brought forward that merits one of those “Is that right?!” responses it’s worth looking into. I guess it’s the Internet’s equivalent of riding by a car wreck, you know you shouldn’t look but you do anyway.

Well, a study by USC’s Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism shows that despite the immense popularity of Twitter there are 0% of people surveyed who would pay to use the service. Yup, zero percent. It’s certainly the kind of statistic that turns head but can it be true?

The study was brought to my attention by a post on the HubSpot blog so I decided to look a little deeper. Since I am a sports fan, my first reaction was the hope that USC’s journalism school is more reputable than its athletic department but I got past that pretty quickly .