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Procter & Gamble Doesn’t Understand Social Media

posted on December 15, 2008

The New York Times recently ran an article by Randall Stross about Procter & Gamble‘s attempt at marketing on Facebook. While I will give Procter & Gamble credit for at least trying to engage social media, it’s pretty obvious that they are drastically failing.

Stross points out several examples of Procter & Gamble’s botched attempts such as the “Crest Whitestrips” fan page. In this example Procter & Gamble successfully lures around 14,000 Facebook members to become “fans”. However, under closer inspection it appears that the lure was in the way of free movie tickets and Def Jam concerts! They could have easily gotten just as many fans for any of their brands with a promotion like that.

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Google Testing More New Features: Enhanced Listings, Pagelinks, and Spelling Corrections

posted on December 13, 2008

Man, I feel like my favorite search engine is going through puberty! So many awkward changes! Yep that’s right, it appears that Google is once again planning on changing the way it displays search results. Danny Sullivan reports on three changes that are currently being tested live. This news comes in just a few weeks after other major changes have been implemented.

Enhanced Listings

These are listings that contain price ranges and ratings of different products and services from businesses that include this type of information on their site. So far only Yelp, Citysearch, CNET, TripAdvisor and Download.com are a part of the testing phase. One would assume that when this feature launches to the public it will be available to any site that has reviews and price ranges with in content. Danny says that this feature is similar to Yahoo’s Search Monkey.

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Report: 40 Million In The US Contribute to Social Networking.

posted on December 12, 2008

Netpop Research has released a report that says that around 40 million Americans contribute to social networking sites. 76% of all US broadband users actively contribute to social media sites, and 29% regularly contribute to social networks. (via)

Who are these social networkers?

Netpop tells us that the typical social networker is female (57% vs. 43%), between 18 and 29 years old, employed (55%) or a student (23%), and single (48%). Broadband users who don’t contribute to social networks are usually older, married (57%) men (57%).

People that contribute to social networks will spend on average of about $101 online, while the folks that aren’t a part of social networks spend around $80.

MySpace Vs. Facebook

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MySpace Exec: Embrace Fan Networks

posted on December 10, 2008

Captain CrunchJay Stevens, MySpace‘s vice president of international online marketing, recently said that corporations should embrace fan sites on networks like MySpace and Facebook versus seek legal action against them. His comments come during a panel at MediaPost’s Email Insider Summit.

Sitting with Stevens on the panel was Karla Venell, the manager of database and email marketing at General Mills. Vernal says, “most of the (fan sites are) probably good for us.”

When speaking about the folks that create brand centric fan pages Stevens says, “The best thing to do is empower those individuals as much as possible and engage with them.” He then goes further to say, “They like the attention and notoriety that comes with being a brand ambassador.”

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Obama’s Staff Need a Lesson in Reputation Management

posted on December 10, 2008

Jon Favreau Gropes ClintonBarack Obama’s chief speech writer Jon Favreau is in hot water after racy photos of him fondling a cardboard cut out of Hillary Clinton were found on the popular networking site Facebook. Reports indicated that the photos only stayed on the site for a few hours. However, this was just enough time for them to be picked up and circulated across the net.

Members of the Obama transition team have stated that Favreau has already reached out to Clinton to apologize. However, that might not be enough to quiet the surge from the feminist blogoshpere.

The crazy thing about all this is that it appears that there were steps taken to prevent this catastrophe. Several questions should have caught this dead in its tracks.

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Another One Bites The Dust: Tribune Files for Bankruptcy

posted on December 9, 2008

The Tribune Company filed for Chapter 11 in Delaware on Monday. This media powerhouse owns 23 TV stations, 12 newspapers that include The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune, and the Chicago Cubs baseball team. Tribune owner and billionaire real estate investor, Samuel Zell, states in court documents that his company is nearly $13 Billion in debt with $7.6 billion in assets.

This comes at a time when bad news for the newspaper industry is the norm versus the exception. As advertising continues to drop and circulation continues to decline, newspapers are finding it harder to stay in business.

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The Future Of Internet Marketing: Hippies

posted on December 8, 2008

By Joe Hall

It’s time to break out the Patchouli and embrace flower power, because the future of internet marketing is with hippies! Think I am crazy? Here’s a bit of back story to explain:

About a month ago I was talking to a potential client over the phone about my SEO services. This client kept asking about targeted links, so much so that it became apparent that his whole perception of SEO was just one aspect of the overall concept. Trying to present a more rounded picture of SEO I said, “I try to take more of a holistic approach to SEO”. I immediately thought, did I just say holistic? I sound like a freaking hippie. I quickly changed the topic to something more concrete such as ROI.