Marketing Pilgrim

Like all social networking sites, Facebook is banned (others say it is blocked which I guess is the PC way to talk about censorship) in China. No surprise there. What is a surprise, however, is that a visit in December of last year by Mark Zuckerberg to the Chinese search giant Baidu may have turned into a bit of a coup for Facebook.

According to SAI

Facebook has struck a deal with Baidu, the biggest Chinese search engine, to open a jointly-owned social network in China, according to reports in the Chinese press, citing inside sources.

If you have spent any good amount of time online you have probably heard the now infamous saying, “Haters gonna hate”. No one is really sure where it came from, but it’s clear to see that it struck a nerve with internet users in a big way.

[...] a popular catchphrase used to indicate one’s complete disregard for an individual or a group’s hostile remarks addressed towards the speaker. [via]

Haters are all over the internet. They are in our comments, in our twitter feeds, and sometimes even in our email. If you are an online entrepreneur then you can multiply your hater count by 100! Because the truth is that haters are attracted to successful people. And at the same time, they hate successful people because they realize that success is hard work, and they aren’t cut out for it.

Google is changing before our very eyes about as quickly as any big company can. Apparently Larry Page has had enough of Google’s multiple swings and misses (a tech nod to the start of the baseball season) and is cleaning house with people and product changes galore.

One thing he thankfully has done is already killed the pathetically named Hotpot which was supposed to be Google’s answer to local business review sites like Yelp. The product still exists but the name is gone. Thanks, Larry.

From the Google blog

Forrester Research just released a new report called “Will Facebook Ever Drive eCommerce?” and the folks at the Wall Street Journal have given us a sneak peek.

The report basically states that right now Facebook is not at all effective for driving eCommerce sales.

The study found that the average Facebook metrics are a 1% click-through rate and a 2% conversion rate. E-mail marketing, by comparison, has an 11% click-through rate and a 4% average conversion rate.

The reason for this is obvious. People don’t go to Facebook to shop. They primarily go to catch up with friends or play games. Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru acknowledges that people will go to a Facebook brand page and “like” it in order to get a coupon, but that’s a fleeting interest that may have no impact on future sales (except, I suppose the sale connected to the one-time coupon use.)

“The days of controlling the message are absolutely over. At best you’ll be invited in and you’ll get to co-create and participate with consumers.”

Wendy Clark, senior VP-integrated marketing communications and capabilities at the Coca-Cola Co., gave a presentation at the AdAge Digital Conference where she talked about how social media has completely changed the game for marketers. Though she was using her own multi-billion dollar company as a reference point, much of what she said applies to marketers at every level, from individuals promoting their own talents to small businesses and on up.

She talked about how over the years we’ve gone from delivering one message to the world, to delivering targeted variations, to the current climate where we create conversations that work two ways. She calls this new landscape, “liquid and linked.” Liquid because every piece of marketing has to spread out to the very furthest communication point and linked because it all has to relate back to the core message.

We hear it all the time especially in the era of the social web. Strong content planning and delivery help win the day in the Internet space. Of course, there is grandfather of all content phrases “Content is king!” and in many ways it’s a cliché for a reason. Content is critical for online marketing success and people know it but they also know how hard it is to do well.

eMarketer reports on a survey done in March by HiveFire called the Content Curation Adoption Survey 2011 (I have never been a fan of the term content curation. Are we working in an online museum?) and it shows that marketers know the value of strong content creation and distribution.