Year: 2013

Google Dominates, Facebook Rises and Apple Snores

Impressive stats from Google as reported in a new eMarketer study…

Google Takes Home Half of Worldwide Mobile Internet Ad Revenues – eMarketer: “Google earned more than half of the $8.8 billion advertisers worldwide spent on mobile internet ads last year, helping propel the company to take in nearly one-third of all digital ad dollars spent globally, according to eMarketer’s first-ever figures on worldwide digital and mobile advertising revenues at major internet companies.”

Equally impressive is Facebook’s growth from a non-existent program in 2011 to having a small-but-significant chunk of mobile ad revenue in 2013 and beyond.

We’ll see if that holds as more competitors such as Twitter and Pandora (I did a double take there as well, but click through to see all the stats) continue to climb.

It’s no wonder why Apple wants to get into the mobile ad game.

Twitter Analytics Now Open For All

We’ve been using Twitter’s official Analytics back-end with our clients since 2011. Previously, you had to participate in Twitter’s advertising program to get access but it seems as if Twitter has opened up Analytics for every user now…

Twitter analytics: Tool lets you see which tweets your followers are actually reading.: “Twitter user @bdconf noticed yesterday that logging into analytics.twitter.com brings up a page designed to help you get started advertising on the site. From there, clicking ‘analytics’ in the top menu bar allows you to view things like where your followers are located, who else they tend to follow, and how many people clicked on each of your recent tweets.”

 

Analytical packages are the meat and potatoes of our agency, so we’re excited that more people get a glimpse of what kind of data we work with in dealing with clients.

Specifically, Twitter Analytics do three nifty things:

– Help us understand how much website content is being shared across Twitter
– Allow us to see the amount of traffic Twitter sends to our clients’ sites or campaigns
– Measures the effectiveness of sharing buttons etc

Our normal client setup for a Twitter campaign also includes implementation with the awesome ThinkUp stats app (which goes much deeper into the data than Twitter Analtyics) as well as a custom shortened URL and stats flow through bitly. Of course, we tie that altogether with Google Analytics.

Facebook Adds Hashtags

Hashtags were “invented” or proposed for Twitter users way back in 2007 when we were still trying to figure out how Twitter worked and might work better. The hashtag caught on and has become an accepted part of global culture from uprisings to Super Bowls.

It’s no surprise to see the hashtag become part of the Facebook platform, and it would serve those of us using Facebook for marketing to make sure that we’re using hashtags to their optimal state in our campaigns:

Facebook Copies Twitter Again, Adds Hashtags: “Facebook today announced that it is bringing hashtags to its service, letting users add context to a post, indicate that it is part of a larger discussion, as well as discover shared interests. The company says hashtags have become ‘a vital part of popular culture’ and since it has seen users using them on the social network organically, it has decided to actually implement the feature.”

I’m excited to see what types of interactions this will open up with more users, especially in terms of discovery marketing.

This is potentially huge for advertisers.

“Every Day Do Something That Won’t Compute”

Go read the whole thing. Fitting for these times…

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front:

“Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.”

Email as the Ultimate Social Network

I can’t agree more that email is the real social glue that binds together the social web, for better or worse.

If you want to have a company that has successful social media presence(s), make sure you’re also doing due diligence with tools such as MailChimp, Constant Contact, Aweber or iContact to ensure the best results over time.

We love and swear by MailChimp but folks like Shawn Collins do the same with Aweber because of its performance marketing features.

Whatever you chose to use, include email as a part of your social media strategy (the linchpin of such a strategy we would say).

Email is, honestly, the greatest marketing tool ever concocted by humans in our opinions (and from looking at our aggregate data):

Email is still the glue that holds the social Web together | TechHive: “But don’t forget that email isn’t just the oldest social network, it’s also the biggest, the broadest, the most user-controllable, the most integrated, the most powerful and ultimately the best social network on the Internet.”

What Does Your Brand Stand For?

I’ve asked this question of our clients so many times… “What exactly does your brand stand for so that we can do the best job of marketing that meaning to people who need to hear it?”

The answer I frequently get is “um, well, that’s why we hired you.”

Hiring a marketing agency to help you with getting the word out about your products, services, apps or ideas is a great step but should come after your company has a clear identity. We help folks develop brand strategies, but don’t confuse that with marketing and advertising.

Seth has a good first step for every company to take…

Seth’s Blog – “What does your brand stand for?”: Make a list of the differences and the extremes and start with that. A brand that stands for what all brands stand for stands for nothing much.

Mobile’s Massive Implications

There are some really great slides and info here… highly recommended:

Business Insider – Here’s An Excellent Presentation About The Rise Of Mobile And The Massive Implications: “Revered Apple analyst Benedict Evans of Enders Analysis is giving a presentation May 29 at the BookExpo America convention in New York.

It’s on the rise of mobile and what it means for the industry.”

Make sure to check out the part on ecosystem growth.

Things We Love: WP to Twitter Plugin

You might have noticed that we do auto-posting of things on the blog here to our @harrelsonagency Twitter account. To do that, we use the awesome WP to Twitter plugin for WordPress:

WordPress › WP to Twitter « WordPress Plugins: “WP to Twitter automatically posts Tweets from WordPress to Twitter using your URL shortening service to provide a link back to your post from Twitter.”

That’s a great free plugin, but the paid version called WP Tweets Pro is even better:

Your PRO Marketing Tool for WordPress and Twitter: WP Tweets PRO: “What can WP Tweets PRO do for you? It takes the great posting capabilities already available to you in the free plug-in and expands them: allowing you to publish to different Twitter accounts for each author; to schedule up to 3 re-posts of your Tweet at an interval of your choice; and, with a delay between publishing and Tweeting, gives you the ability to review your tweets before they go out.”

We’ve been very happy with the ability to post up things and have them go out to individual author tweet streams automagically. Plus, the reposting of tweets is somewhat of a necessary evil in 2013 with the inundation of information.

For $30, that’s awesome.

If you’re on WordPress and looking for an easy to use plugin to help you manage Twitter, this is the one for you.