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Top Marketing and Sales Execs Jump Ship to Facebook and Twitter

posted on February 16, 2011

There is always plenty of talk about Twitter and Facebook and their money making potential. Well, actually Twitter’s is more about potential where Facebook is already a considerable success.

Now both are looking to ratchet up their efforts and they have each turned to interesting competitors to get new talent.

As reported by Kara Swisher at BoomTown, Facebook has taken the top Microsoft global advertising executive, Carolyn Everson, and made her VP of Global Sales. Awkward! She was just hired by MS last June after a long search and now has quickly jumped ship exposing some frustration with how Microsoft does business (are you surprised?). Facebook and Microsoft have a pretty serious relationship with Bing powered search results and Microsoft being an investor in Facebook from back in 2007. ‘The Book’ tried to make nice with this statement:

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Twitter for Customer Service? Fortune Puts it to the Test

posted on February 15, 2011

The answer to a customer service question should always be accurate, as simple as possible while still covering the problem completely and it should arrive in a timely manner.

For most companies, this means running customer service phone lines or responding to email, but some intrepid explorers are giving Twitter a whirl. It’s a logical step, seeing as how people love to use Twitter to complain about companies, so why not use the same method to turn the consumer around?

The folks at Fortune decided it was time to put this new option to the test, so they took their problems to eight companies known to have customer service agents manning Twitter. They dealt with banks, airlines, shopping sites and even got technical assistance for their cable TV. In each case, they delivered the question by Twitter, Phone and through the company website.

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Facebook Won’t Go Steady With Only One Phone

posted on February 15, 2011

The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona is really heating up. Today, it’s all about Mark Zuckerberg and his plans for mobile phone domination.

For a long time, it’s been rumored that Zuckerberg was backing a Facebook-branded cell phone, but the man says it’s not going to happen. Instead of going steady with only one manufacturer, Facebook is going to play the field, working to develop increased social networking capabilities in all the top brands.

Sticking with the software side of the business seems like a pretty smart move. Facebook may technically be a “tech” company, but electronics is a little out of their line. By spreading the love around, Facebook will further cement their social media domination and that’s gotta be a bigger money maker for them than a warehouse full of phones with a big blue F on the case.

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CMO Survey Results Reported

posted on February 15, 2011

The CMO Survey from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the American Marketing Association is a comprehensive look into the minds of C-suite marketers like few others. The press release for the survey describes the participants

The CMO Survey, is a nationwide poll of chief marketing officers (CMOs) conducted twice annually by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the American Marketing Association since 2008. The most recent CMO Survey queried 3,778 top marketing executives at Fortune 100, Forbes Top 200 and CMO Club companies from Jan. 11-28.

It looks like the C-suite marketing set is optimistic about social media which comes as no surprise because even if you weren’t you couldn’t say it because you would be laughed out of the business (doesn’t mean that you would be wrong but don’t’ dare swim upstream in social media waters!). Spending looks to increase over the next few years.

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Citysearch Enters Daily Deals Fray

posted on February 15, 2011

It’s getting pretty crowded in the daily deal space these days. Groupon and LivingSocial are big enough and backed by big bucks but the hundreds (maybe thousands) of variations on the theme are making it pretty messy in the deal of the day space.

Today add to the list Citysearch. They are taking a slightly different approach in that they will serve as a deal aggregator. MediaPost reports

Citysearch plans to unveil a daily deals offering and mobile platform Tuesday that automatically pushes coupons to consumers based on location.

As more businesses drive consumers from the Web into physical stores through local coupon campaigns, Citysearch will tap its CityGrid Media advertising network, which includes thousands of advertisers, to aggregate deals. It also signed with Groupon and The DealMap for the same purpose. The company plans to expand its network in the future.

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Vast Majority of UK Mobile Minutes Spent on Facebook

posted on February 15, 2011

Sometimes there are results or measurements that make you stop for a second and wonder exactly what it means. The chart below comes from comScore via Silicon Alley Insider and shows how those in the UK spend their time on mobile devices. Note from SAI site: ComScore’s UK data is unique because it has access to anonymized mobile web data through the country’s five mobile operators.

With Facebook being so far ahead of all other sites combined you do have to take a step back and wonder just what is next in the mobile space. Since advertisers go where the people are it looks like Facebook is in pretty good shape, huh?

Wonder what these numbers look like for other countries? What are your thoughts?

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Behavorial Advertising Takes Another Hit from Washington

posted on February 14, 2011

This morning, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) was named chairman of a new Judiciary subcommittee for Privacy, Technology and the Law. The list of activities that the committee will oversee is a long one and it includes the collection of information for behavioral advertising and privacy in social networks.

Says Franken:

“The boom of new technologies over the last several years has made it easier to keep in touch with family, organize a community and start a business. It has also put an unprecedented amount of personal information into the hands of large companies that are unknown and unaccountable to the American public. As chairman of this new subcommittee, I will try to make sure that we can reap the rewards of new technology while also protecting Americans’ right to privacy.”