Marketing Pilgrim

Google does several things, well, make that a lot of things really well. There is no mistaking the fact that they are a very strong company and perhaps even too strong for many people.

One thing they do really well is to get end users to do work for them. Here’s where the asterisk in the title comes into play:

*The headline says you can WORK for Google but it really is semantics since you actually DO work FOR Google and it’s, of course, for free.

Google’s cachet allows it to get people to do a lot of their work for them. People do for a variety of reasons that you can figure out. The latest effort is to make Google maps better. How can YOU do that FOR Google? Use the new Map Maker of course.

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Google+’s multi-person, webchat tool, Hangout, just got pushed to the front of the line, with a variety of new features that make it more prominent and useful.

The biggest boost for marketers is the upgrade to the Hangout On Air system. On Air allows a person or brand to livestream a performance, chat or presentation to a large number of people. Right now, the service is only available to a select group of celebs like The Muppets and the Dalai Lama but it’s slowly rolling out to others with a large following.

With the new upgrade, broadcasting On Air will be completely self-service and it will have a record option thanks to YouTube. Press the record button when the livestream is underway and a recording will automatically be uploaded to your account.

When you offer a coupon for a product, you know you’re helping consumers save money. But did you know you’re also giving them a thrill?

A new survey by CouponCabin.com shows that 49% of US Adults felt a thrill or a rush when using a coupon. The survey doesn’t elaborate on why but from personal experience I can say that watching the numbers drop on the cash register is akin to seeing coins drop out of a slot machine. Kaching, kaching — that’s found money.

Retail Therapy

Shopping isn’t just a necessary evil, it’s also a source of fun, a reward, and a form of therapy. 53% of adults surveyed said they have “celebrated good news by buying something or going shopping for themselves.”

If you pay attention to how we categorize content here at Marketing Pilgrim you can get a good idea of where we feel a story fits in the Internet space. Most stories can be categorized in several different ways but there is usually one specific area that truly defines the story. In the case of the Louis CK experiment it’s all about a pretty successful job of content marketing.

For those of you who don’t know who Louis CK is, he is a comedian. He is funny. Very funny. He is also very crude at times so you have been warned. We have noted his great bit about how spoiled we are (see the end of this post if you haven’t enjoyed it already). He now is also a content marketing pioneer as explained here at The Next Web

Over the past year, companies have:

• caused homes to be trashed
• trashed their competition
• allowed customer information to be hacked
• threatened non-profits
• run distasteful Super Bowl ads

All of these warranted an apology of EPIC proportions, yet Johnson & Johnson may end up with the best public apology of the year for simply deciding to no longer produce its popular o.b. tampons line.

As the LA Times explains…

Shelves were emptied and the tampons were reportedly selling on eBay for more than $100 (a recent search found a 40-count box of Ultras on a Buy It Now for $79. Ouch). As for the reason for the disappearance, that still remains unclear; the company said it had a supply interruption but some wondered whether there might be quality control or manufacturing issues.

Dear Google Places Team,

Google Places has the potential to truly help businesses of all sizes since virtually every business be they large or small, has a place page for its location as well as its satellites. That’s very cool. We as regular folks using the Internet like the potential.

I use the word potential only because while there can be great benefit to a business with regard to Place Pages and now with the added Google+ brand pages (why aren’t these two integrated in some way anyway but that’s for another letter, I guess?) yet you still don’t seem to understand some simple concepts.