Outrider Search Marketing Blog

Facebook User Data Serves as Goldmine for Microsoft

Facebook has grown exponentially since it opened up to the general populace. It currently ranks as fourth on all websites worldwide with approximately 14.7 billion page views in September 2007. According to eMarketer, 12 percent in Latin America and Carribean, 35 percent in Asia Pacific, and 28 percent in Europe, Middle East and Africa use social networks. The strong international presence will prove to be very beneficial for Microsoft’s investment in the long run.

In October 2007, Facebook sold 1.6 percent to Microsoft for $250 million. The buzz regarding this partnership has run rampant in the news media and the online community at large. How will this impact Facebook? Will it affect online advertising? Will it change the user experience for the better or worse?

The social networking space is fertile ground for Microsoft. Although Microsoft has a presence in the international community, the partnership with Facebook will ameliorate their visibility and connect them with their core and fringe market. Microsoft will also benefit from the expanded advertising audience leveraged by Facebook’s global network. Currently, 43 percent of Facebook’s page views are from international users and that is only expected to grow exponentially. According to Datamonitor, 75 percent of social networking users come from outside the United States.

How is this going to affect the Facebook user who logs into their page to connect with friends? This partnership will provide Microsoft with invaluable information – the contents of their users’ personal diaries. Currently, my Facebook page contains data like my gender, age, origin, relationship status, group affiliation, networks, interests, favorites, my social graph and so much more. Without having face-to-face interaction with me, they know details that only close friends are privy to.

This partnership will provide Microsoft with tangible information that can be leveraged into increased convergences. Utilizing the information that Ben Harper is my favorite musician, I absolutely love shoes, I am a big fan of Weeds and Dexter, and I use T-mobile for cellular service will definitely impact what form of advertising will be filtered to me.

Obviously, Microsoft has the muscles and tools to mine this personal information to their advantage. Online users will no longer be bombarded with banner ads that do not apply to them. They will increase the chances for purchase by customizing the content. This targeted form will decrease the margin of error involved in mass advertising, and provide a better return for investment for the clients’ dollar.

- Reem Abeidoh

Creating Evangelists for Your Brand

Creating Evangelists for Your Brand
By Tarina Carr

What is an Evangelist? If you were playing a word association game the first thing to come to mind is church, but in the world of search marketing and social media the word evangelist takes on new meaning.

Web 2.0 is the birthing place for these people we call brand evangelists. They are enthusiastic advocates of the brands they consume and they spend a lot of time sharing their experiences, good and bad, with others in their circle. They are the kingpins of the blogosphere and can have an overwhelming influence on a company’s brand image, both online and offline. This group is very passionate about speaking their truths and getting others to rally them on in their plight to create or affect change.

Understanding the power that Brand Evangelists have and how you can leverage their expertise to control this “change” that they seek is highly advantageous to any company who wants to be an authority in their search space. How do you do this? The answer is simple, relationship building. Real bloggers and Brand Enthusiasts are self appointed VIPs with a huge fan base, so the way to their heart is through their ego. They know the power of their words, so getting them on your side is not as easy as just asking for a shout out. You have to be willing to get to know them, understand and respect the mores of their group, learn their language, foster friendships with them and other bloggers in the community, and participate in the discussion not only for name drop and product placement opportunities, but with the intent to add value to the needs of the group. While doing this requires a heavy investment in your time, the benefits to your search results are priceless.

As Search Marketing Experts, it’s important for us to not only understand the standard tactics of bid management and Meta  tag optimization. We must also understand that Search is a dynamic and interactive world where consumers are in a position to control the fate of our clients’ brands. Knowing this, we should become motivated to get our clients involved in these social communities to create relationships with those who have the ability to effect change, to encourage the perpetuity of conversations centered on their brands by being there to set the record straight or just to add value to the discussion, to append a humanistic persona to the brand, and to have an overall marketing concept focus where the needs, desires, and feelings of the customer is always top priority.

Find your Brand Evangelists, start building your relationships and watch your results soar!

A Diamond in the Rough

 

A Marketer's Guide to Social Bookmarking & Tagging
SMX Conference -€“ October 16, 2007

A Diamond in the Rough

 After a day-long focus on Digg.com, the Marketer's Guide to Social Bookmarking session finally discussed other social networking sites. To preface this posting, I must admit that if I haven'€™t learned anything else over the last seven hours, I've learned that Digg is to social media as Google is to the search engines. Is the world big enough for two Gods??

 Anyway, this session provided applicable knowledge that can be utilized by a wider range of industries. Much of social media is subjective to the audience'€™s opinion, which gives the audience ultimate control over your posts'€™ destiny. This doesn'€™t fly in the Pharma vertical where everything that is shared on the web has to be legally approved. I understand the importance and relevance of Digg.com, but can it be used for my purposes?  When I asked a few of my social marketing colleagues about how to best utilize these sites for this specific category, they were just as bewildered as I was, yet interested in helping me find a solution.

 Social bookmarking and tagging helps to break this mold of subjectivity by creating an environment where a client can indulge in a little self-promotion, but still remain in control of their content. Social Bookmarking and Tagging involves the use of collaborative bookmarking and social news sites like Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Newsvine, and others. The tasks involves properly tagging articles, webpages, images, and videos with targeted keywords and submitting the content to appropriate social networks.

This "a la carte"€ Search Media Marketing (SMM) menu option is all about leveraging the opportunity to create compelling content that encourages people to link to and then have it spread like wildfire within the social news environments. It'€™s about establishing a network of friends on these modules, which will help to increase your brand awareness and link popularity.

I am excited about becoming more conscious about the content I choose to bookmark and the words I associate with them to describe their relevance. I am also excited that after almost six hours of sitting and wondering how any this "€œstuff"€ applies to me and the clients I serve, I've found my diamond in the rough and will be taking it back home to  St. Louis.

Online Videos Watching to Increase Exponentially in 2011

Innovative new television sets are selling like hot cakes with price tags starting in the $1000 range. Features like High Definition Television (HDTV), high resolution and enhanced pixels are major selling points for buyers. This is a strong indication that people have not stopped watching their favorite shows on their fancy TVs. But something has changed. Those same people are now watching broadcasts online as well. Social marketing through online videos, AKA Television 2.0, connects the community to the shows and enables interactivity.

According to The Conference Board and TNS, 16 percent of internet households in the US are streaming TV broadcasts online. In 2006, news programs accounted for approximately 63 percent of online content watched by Americans.  There were around 47 percent of US online households watching entertainment programs online. In 2007, 44 percent of content watched online is entertainment programs, which matches the viewership of news programs. It is evident that the love for entertainment has had a large effect on online TV viewing. eMarketer projects that there will be 200 million broadband internet users by 2011, and 91 percent of those users will watch videos online.

There are definite perks to watching TV shows online. It enables people to view their programs at their convenience will limited commercial time. Paul Verna, senior analyst at eMarketer, doubts that online video will impact US TV viewing time. He predicts that both channels will grow at the same rate and online video will serve as a support tool and even complementary to mainstream TV. comScore’s analysis in March 2007 noted that Americans usually watch videos online from 5 p.m. until 8 p.m. on weekends, which works well with the standard TV primetime schedule of 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. on weeknights.

A great example of this is the “30 Rock” show on NBC.com . If you missed an episode on TV, you can go to their website to load and view it. After a brief advertisement, you are able to enjoy the entire episode. There is even expanded content on the web, which encourages interaction and participation with the online community. This social element directly connects program watchers to the show, the actors and the general brand.

While these benefits are attractive, there are drawbacks to online videos. If many people are accessing the same online file, they are sucking up NBC.com’s bandwidth which in turn stalls the process. Similarly, if a user’s virtual memory can’t process all the info at the necessary speed, the viewing experience is slow. This cannot compare to the simplicity and immediate gratification of TV watching. However, this is soon to change as an increasing amount of people are using broadband internet. Pike and Fischer estimated that by the end of 2007, 58% of US households will have broadband.

Social media applications like Television 2.0 are increasing viewer capability to maintain their schedule while catching up on their favorite shows and interacting with fellow program lovers. It is easy to access, download and enjoy. Still, I agree with Verna; people are not going to trade in their 60 inch name brand TV for their laptop or desktop screens any time soon. There is still something to be said for the traditional viewing experience.

- Reem Abeidoh