Marketing Pilgrim

Its not news that B2B and B2C marketing techniques and preferences differ. As with most things, however, it’s when you see numbers tied to the assumptions that you can say “Hmmm, I didn’t know it was quite that different” or “Well, of course! I knew that already because I am a social media and marketing guru!”.

A report done by Webmarketing123 shows some of these stark differences particularly in the use of social media marketing. Here we see just how different the use of social media tools can be between the two disciplines.

What is more surprising about this is the B2C dependence on Facebook. Good news for Zuck and the boys, huh?

In an event that can only be classified as “Did this really happen? Really?!” Google has rolled out their Gmail app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. If you were do something this big end users would expect that it would be in good working order when the announcement was made, right? Not in this case. In fact, Google may have helped to coin a new phrase with this this one as we will no longer refer to messes like this as a train wreck but rather an app wreck.

In a nutshell, the app was not ready for prime time. To their credit the Gmail team did the right thing.

Continue Reading…

You have a mobile phone, right? How many apps are on it? How many did you use today? How many did you pay for?

If you’re typical, each answer should be a smaller number than the one before it.

Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project says that we’ve crossed the halfway point for mobile phone app usage. A full 50% of all adult cell phone owners have apps. That’s double where we were only two years ago.

But even with the rise in usage, the demographic remains the same. App users are younger, more educated, upwardly mobile urban or suburbanite. Adding tablets into the mix hasn’t changed that at all. The only real difference is that women have nearly caught up to men in regard to app downloads.

The internet may be the great global equalizer, but big brands are going local in order to make shopping more personal. Earlier this month, Walmart set up Facebook pages dedicated to each of their stores and Sears is offering local ads online.

A new report from CMO Council says this is just a small sample of what we’ll be seeing in the future. 86% of the marketers they surveyed said they’re actively looking for a better way to localize their efforts. 49% said that localization was essential to business growth.

In the past, local advertising meant the Yellow Pages, but not so much anymore. Local deal networks such as Groupon also came in at the bottom of the list.

US Social Media Network ad revenues are expected to surpass $3.90 billion in 2012 and a large portion of that money is going straight to Facebook.

New numbers from eMarketer show that Facebook will likely earn 72% of social media specific ad spending next year.  That’s equal to 7.9% of total online ad spending.

Sounds good to me, but the Wall Street Journal says Facebook is still struggling. They point to a recent Ford Focus campaign that pulled in 43,000 “likes.” Ford spent more than $95 million to advertise their new car, but very little of it went to Facebook.

To add insult to injury, Ford turned down a suggested sponsored stories buy on Facebook, then paid Yahoo and Microsoft to send traffic to the Facebook page. According to WSJ, Ford did eventually spring for an ad but stopped it long before it stopped those on competing sites.

Google continues to test new and interesting ways to provide information when searching for places of interest. While many have complained about how information was in a sense taken away from Place Page results, we now see some of the information resurfacing in the SERP’s. Take a look at the example below of a local restaurant in Raleigh, NC. Normally there would be a simple map in the right column but Google now providing pictures, information about the restaurant and a pegman street view option to click on as well. All in all, it’s a nice result page.

The Inside Search blog gives some more information about this move.