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Activate Media Group Merges with SundaySky - The Global Leader in Automated Video Production

Sun, 02 Jan 2011 20:20:59 GMT

New York, NY – Activate Media Group, a Los Angeles based video marketing agency announced today that it has merged into SundaySky. SundaySky is a provider of automated product video production at mass-scale and studio quality to drive website traffic and increase online sales. Bill Palmer, Activate Media’s founder and president will join the SundaySky team as Director of Sales. The move supports SundaySky’s strategy to quickly expand its market penetration in eCommerce and gives Activate better team infrastructure and financial backing to support new client growth initiatives. The timing and synergy involved in the deal are ideal given the alignment of goals, the momentum in the current online video marketplace, and the recent closing of SundaySky’s series B round of $9 million in October from leading venture capital firms.

Activate’s offices in Los Angeles, CA will become the west coast regional headquarters for SundaySky. “We are thoroughly excited to join forces with Activate and Mr. Palmer. He brings a depth of relationships, sales ability, and creative thought leadership to our global team,” stated Shmulik Weller, SundaySky’s CEO.

It is clear by now that video is an effective sales tool: it increases sales conversion rates, increases order size, boosts traffic to the site and drives user engagement. The challenge online businesses are now facing is how to scale this success: how to generate tens of thousands of videos to fully cover their online catalog and truly capitalize on the benefits of this medium. SundaySky Automated Video Platform addresses that issue by allowing mass generation of video without compromising on the quality of the production. With live deployments from leading brands such as Overstock, History Channel, and Discovery, SundaySky is poised for rapid growth in 2011.

Activate’s President, Bill Palmer, remarked, “Our approach has always been to optimize speed and scalability while maintaining a very light organizational footprint on our client’s internal resources to maximize value creation. SundaySky has built these virtues into the DNA of both their solution and their organization. We are proud to be a part of it.”

About SundaySky
With over 10,000,000 unique product videos produced, SundaySky is the world leader in dynamic video content production. SundaySky produces and manages branded video content designed to increase eCommerce sales and website traffic by 20%+. Leading online retailers, such as Overstock.com, AT&T, GAP, Organize.com, Discovery Store and Adorama use SundaySky's turnkey video content solution to drive engagement, organic traffic, and online sales conversion growth through their product pages, search engine marketing, video email, social media, and mobile video programs. Visit www.sundaysky.com to learn more.

Shop.org 2010 Annual Summit Reflects Purposeful Use of Technology and Renewed Focus on Customer Expe

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 19:25:05 GMT

Article for Apparel Magazine
By Bill Palmer

According to Forrester’s 2010 State of Retail report, online stores and warehouse stores were the only growth sectors in past 5-10 years. Is this trend due to a flight to value pricing, discounts, convenience, or a preferred shopping experience? The reasons for the trend are interconnected, but one thing is clear, online shopping experiences are getting more unified, personalized, and relevant to the overall customer experience and companies are actually listening now.

I recently attended the 2010 Shop.org Annual Summit in Dallas, Texas to gain some additional insight into the rapidly maturing and ever-changing world of eCommerce. Shop.org is part of the National Retail Federation (NRF) and represents a great mix of both pure play online retailers as well as traditional brick and mortar retailers. The conversations, networking, panels, and sessions were excellent.

The summit kicked off on Monday, September 27th with an interactive boot camp that focused on social media and search engine optimization. More than 250 people attended the boot camp, laptops blazing, for some real time workshop activities. Mitch Joel, author of “Six Pixels of Separation”, discussed recent stats and tools showcasing the fact that leveraging web 2.0 means active engagement and community participation. The breath and depth of current web usage now impacts all types of consumers as an integral part of daily life.

After the boot camp, attendees celebrated the official kick-off of the Summit and EXPO Hall with an opening reception where we mingled and networked with a "who's who" of digital retail. The expo featured a wide variety of innovative eCommerce solutions and services spanning the full spectrum of the modern retail world. Here is a full list shop.org exhibitors. While infrastructure and eCommerce platform companies still have a strong presence, it was clear that mobile and location-based retail, online video solutions, social commerce, and personalization solutions were the hot ticket for invigorating discussion with industry leaders.

Tuesday and Wednesday featured inspiring keynote presentations in the morning, followed by an afternoon filled with concurrent sessions, one-on-one tutorials, roundtable discussions, and numerous networking opportunities. Each afternoon focused on four major tracks: Mobile, Cross Channel Optimization, Tactics and The Customer Experience.

The keynote speakers were excellent and shared unique perspectives on some of the most popular topics in the world of digital commerce. Glen Senk,, CEO of Urban Outfitters, may lead a $2.5 billion company representing iconic fashion brands like Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie, but he clearly still considers himself a merchant at heart. Senk began his retail career as an assistant buyer at Bloomingdale’s, so when an attendee at today’s Shop.org Summit asked a question about the future of merchandising, Senk’s eyes lit up. His insights – about why customers shop, how merchandising has changed, and why the best companies leverage technology to make decisions – held the interest of the Summit’s 3000+ attendees.

While much of what he said was riveting, some of Senk’s most compelling insights came when he was talking about mobile retail. Mr. Senk believes that mobile technology is revolutionizing the in-store retail experience even more than online. By synergizing labels and merchandizing tactics to include mobile applications that allow customers to research, check inventory, review, and check-out in-store via smart mobile phones, a unified shopping experience that empowers customers, enriches experience, and potentially cuts cost is the future or cross channel merchandizing.

The keynote address from Scott Savitz of Shoebuy.com was equally engaging and showcased his key lessons from the entrepreneurial trenches on how to trust your path and focus on the customer through constant improvement. A year after Mr. Savitz started Shoebuy.com in 1999, it seemed that every “dot.com” company was failing fast, but Shoebuy.com weathered the storm. Shoebuy’s success through the highs and the lows and have positioned the company as one of the largest online footwear retailers in the industry and #86 on the Internet retailer top 500. Some of the most notable lessons from Mr. Savitz are as follows:

1. Always remember why you got into the business in the first place. “Everyone will tell you how you should be doing your business…but don’t forget why when you started your business it was important to you.”

2. Don’t ever stop innovating and building value. “There are no rules in how you innovate, just that you need to never stop innovating.”

3. Every dollar should be spent as though it is your last; maximize opportunity and minimize risk. “You are not being frugal, you are being smart and responsible.”

4. Go for better than good, be in it to win it; maintain a refuse-to-lose mentality across your entire team. “It is your customers, employees and partners that make you succeed – it is them that allow you to thrive, during good times or bad.”

5. Help others. “Small or big – everything makes a huge difference.”

Clearly the online world is maturing both in terms of technology utilization, integration to the physical world, and underlying focus on the fundamentals of always keeping your eyes and ears focused on the customer and fulfilling their desired experiences. The clear message I got from the keynote speakers and throughout the conference was that in order to prosper outstanding customer service and unified brand experiences across all communication channels is the key. It is the core human skills of listening and responding to customer needs while offering them richer experiences that still makes all the difference.

TED Talks: Chris Anderson: How Web Video Is Driving a Revolution in Global Innovation

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 21:00:12 GMT

TED's Chris Anderson says the rise of web video is driving a worldwide phenomenon he calls Crowd Accelerated Innovation -- a self-fueling cycle of learning that could be as significant as the invention of print. But to tap into its power, organizations will need to embrace radical openness. And for TED, it means the dawn of a whole new chapter ...

About Chris Anderson (TED)

After a long career in journalism and publishing, Chris Anderson became the curator of the TED Conference in 2002 and has developed it as a platform for identifying and disseminating ideas

Transcript:

If nothing else, at least I've discovered what it is we put our speakers through: sweaty palms, sleepless nights, a wholly unnatural fear of clocks. I mean, it's quite brutal.

And I'm also a little nervous about this. There are nine billion humans coming our way. Now, the most optimistic dreams can get dented by the prospect of people plundering the planet. But recently, I've become intrigued by a different way of thinking of large human crowds, because there are circumstances where they can do something really cool. It's a phenomenon that I think any organization or individual can tap into. It certainly impacted the way we think about TED's future, and perhaps the world's future overall.

So, let's explore. The story starts with just a single person, a child, behaving a little strangely. This kid is known online as Lil Demon. He's doing tricks here, dance tricks, that probably no six-year-old in history ever managed before. How did he learn them? And what drove him to spend the hundreds of hours of practice this must have taken? Here's a clue.

(Video) Lil Demon: ♫ Step your game up. Oh. Oh. ♫ ♫ Step your game up. Oh. Oh. ♫

Chris Anderson: So, that was sent to me by this man, a filmmaker, Jonathan Chu, who told me that was the moment he realized the Internet was causing dance to evolve. This is what he said at TED in February. In essence, dancers were challenging each other online to get better; incredible new dance skills were being invented; even the six-year-olds were joining in. It felt like a revolution. And so Jon had a brilliant idea: He went out to recruit the best of the best dancers off of YouTube to create this dance troupe -- The League of Extraordinary Dancers, the LXD. I mean, these kids were web-taught, but they were so good that they got to play at the Oscars this year. And at TED here in February, their passion and brilliance just took our breath away.

So, this story of the evolution of dance seems strangely familiar. You know, a while after TEDTalks started taking off, we noticed that speakers were starting to spend a lot more time in preparation. It was resulting in incredible new talks like these two. ... Months of preparation crammed into 18 minutes, raising the bar cruelly for the next generation of speakers, with the effects that we've seen this week. It's not as if J.J. and Jill actually ended their talks saying, "Step your game up," but they might as well have. So, in both of these cases, you've got these cycles of improvement, apparently driven by people watching web video.

What is going on here? Well, I think it's the latest iteration of a phenomenon we can call "crowd-accelerated innovation." And there are just three things you need for this thing to kick into gear. You can think of them as three dials on a giant wheel. You turn up the dials, the wheel starts to turn. And the firs thing you need is ... a crowd, a group of people who share a common interest. The bigger the crowd, the more potential innovators there are. That's important, but actually most people in the crowd occupy these other roles. They're creating the ecosystem from which innovation emerges. The second thing you need is light. You need clear, open visibility of what the best people in that crowd are capable of, because that is how you will learn how you will be empowered to participate. And third, you need desire. You know, innovation's hard work. It's based on hundreds of hours of research, of practice. Absent desire, not going to happen.

Now, here's an example -- pre-Internet -- of this machine in action. Dancers at a street corner -- it's a crowd, a small one, but they can all obviously see what each other can do. And the desire part comes, I guess, from social status, right? Best dancer walks tall, gets the best date. There's probably going to be some innovation happening here. But on the web, all three dials are ratcheted right up. The dance community is now global. There's millions connected. And amazingly, you can still see what the best can do, because the crowd itself shines a light on them, either directly, through comments, ratings, email, Facebook, Twitter, or indirectly, through numbers of views, through links that point Google there. So, it's easy to find the good stuff, and when you've found it, you can watch it in close-up repeatedly and read what hundreds of people have written about it. That's a lot of light.

But the desire element is really dialed way up. I mean, you might just be a kid with a webcam, but if you can do something that goes viral, you get to be seen by the equivalent of sports stadiums crammed with people. You get hundreds of strangers writing excitedly about you. And even if it's not that eloquent -- and it's not -- it can still really make your day. So, this possibility of a new type of global recognition, I think, is driving huge amounts of effort. And it's important to note that it's not just the stars who are benefiting: because you can see the best, everyone can learn.

Also, the system is self-fueling. It's the crowd that shines the light and fuels the desire, but the light and desire are a lethal one-two combination that attract new people to the crowd. So, this is a model that pretty much any organization could use to try and nurture its own cycle of crowd-accelerated innovation. Invite the crowd, let in the light, dial up the desire. And the hardest part about that is probably the light, because it means you have to open up, you have to show your stuff to the world. It's by giving away what you think is your deepest secret that maybe millions of people are empowered to help improve it.

And, very happily, there's one class of people who really can't make use of this tool. The dark side of the web is allergic to the light. I don't think we're going to see terrorists, for example, publishing their plans online and saying to the world, "Please, could you help us to actually make them work this time?"

But you can publish your stuff online. And if you can get that wheel to turn, look out.

So, at TED, we've become a little obsessed with this idea of openness. In fact, my colleague, June Cohen, has taken to calling it "radical openness," because it works for us each time. We opened up our talks to the world, and suddenly there are millions of people out there helping spread our speakers' ideas, and thereby making it easier for us to recruit and motivate the next generation of speakers. By opening up our translation program, thousands of heroic volunteers -- some of them watching online right now, and thank you! -- have translated our talks into more than 70 languages, thereby tripling our viewership in non-English-speaking countries. By giving away our TEDx brand, we suddenly have a thousand-plus live experiments in the art of spreading ideas. And these organizers, they're seeing each other, they're learning from each other. We are learning from them. We're getting great talks back from them. The wheel is turning.

Okay, step back a minute. I mean, it's really not news for me to tell you that innovation emerges out of groups. You know, we've heard that this week -- this romantic notion of the lone genius with the "eureka!" moment that changes the world is misleading. Even he said that, and he would know. We're a social species. We spark off each other. It's also not news to say that the Internet has accelerated innovation. For the past 15 years, powerful communities have been connecting online, sparking off each other. If you take programmers, you know, the whole open-source movement is a fantastic instance of crowd-accelerated innovation. But what's key here is, the reason these groups have been able to connect is because their work output is of the type that can be easily shared digitally -- a picture, a music file, software. And that's why what I'm excited about, and what I think is under-reported, is the significance of the rise of online video.

This is the technology that's going to allow the rest of the world's talents to be shared digitally, thereby launching a whole new cycle of crowd-accelerated innovation. The first few years of the web were pretty much video-free, for this reason: video files are huge; the web couldn't handle them. But in the last 10 years, bandwidth has exploded a hundredfold. Suddenly, here we are. Humanity watches 80 million hours of YouTube every day. Cisco actually estimates that, within four years, more than 90 percent of the web's data will be video. If it's all puppies, porn and piracy, we're doomed. I don't think it will be. Video is high-bandwidth for a reason. It packs a huge amount of data, and our brains are uniquely wired to decode it.

Here, let me introduce you to Sam Haber. He's a unicyclist. Before YouTube, there was no way for him to discover his sport's true potential, because you can't communicate this stuff in words, right? But looking at video clips posted by strangers, a world of possibility opens up for him. Suddenly, he starts to emulate and then to innovate. And a global community of unicyclists discover each other online, inspire each other to greatness. And there are thousands of other examples of this happening -- of video-driven evolution of skills, ranging from the physical to the artful. And I have to tell you, as a former publisher of hobbyist magazines, I find this strangely beautiful. I mean, there's a lot of passion right here on this screen.

But if Rube Goldberg machines and video poetry aren't quite your cup of tea, how about this. Jove is a website that was founded to encourage scientists to publish their peer-reviewed research on video. There's a problem with a traditional scientific paper. It can take months for a scientist in another lab to figure out how to replicate the experiments that are described in print. Here's one such frustrated scientist, Moshe Pritsker, the founder of Jove. He told me that the world is wasting billions of dollars on this. But look at this video. I mean, look: if you can show instead of just describing, that problem goes away. So it's not far-fetched to say that, at some point, online video is going to dramatically accelerate scientific advance.

Here's another example that's close to our hearts at TED, where video is sometimes more powerful than print -- the sharing of an idea. Why do people like watching TEDTalks? All those ideas are already out there in print. It's actually faster to read than to view. Why would someone bother? Well, so, there's some showing as well as telling. But even leaving the screen out of it, there's still a lot more being transferred than just words. And in that non-verbal portion, there's some serious magic. Somewhere hidden in the physical gestures, the vocal cadence, the facial expressions, the eye contact, the passion, the kind of awkward, British body language, the sense of how the audience are reacting, there are hundreds of subconscious clues that go to how well you will understand, and whether you're inspired -- light, if you like, and desire. Incredibly, all of this can be communicated on just a few square inches of a screen.

Reading and writing are actually relatively recent inventions. Face-to-face communication has been fine-tuned by millions of years of evolution. That's what's made it into this mysterious, powerful thing it is. Someone speaks, there's resonance in all these receiving brains, the whole group acts together. I mean, this is the connective tissue of the human superorganism in action. It's probably driven our culture for millennia. 500 years ago, it ran into a competitor with a lethal advantage. It's right here. Print scaled. The world's ambitious innovators and influencers now could get their ideas to spread far and wide, and so the art of the spoken word pretty much withered on the vine. But now, in the blink of an eye, the game has changed again. It's not too much to say that what Gutenberg did for writing, online video can now do for face-to-face communication. So, that primal medium, which your brain is exquisitely wired for ... that just went global.

Now, this is big. We may have to reinvent an ancient art form. I mean, today, one person speaking can be seen by millions, shedding bright light on potent ideas, creating intense desire for learning and to respond -- and in his case, intense desire to laugh. For the first time in human history, talented students don't have to have their potential and their dreams written out of history by lousy teachers. They can sit two feet in front of the world's finest.

Now, TED is just a small part of this. I mean, the world's universities are opening up their curricula. Thousands of individuals and organizations are sharing their knowledge and data online. Thousands of people are figuring out new ways to learn and, crucially, to respond, completing the cycle. And so, as we've thought about this, you know, it's become clear to us what the next stage of TED's evolution has to be. TEDTalks can't be a one-way process, one-to-many. Our future is many-to-many. So, we're dreaming of ways to make it easier for you, the global TED community, to respond to speakers, to contribute your own ideas, maybe even your own TEDTalks, and to help shine a light on the very best of what's out there. Because, if we can bubble up the very best from a vastly larger pool, this wheel turns.

Now, is it possible to imagine a similar process to this, happening to global education overall? I mean, does it have to be this painful, top-down process? Why not a self-fueling cycle in which we all can participate? It's the participation age, right? Schools can't be silos. We can't stop learning at age 21. What if, in the coming crowd of nine billion ... what if that crowd could learn enough to be net contributors, instead of net plunderers? That changes everything, right? I mean, that would take more teachers than we've ever had. But the good news is they are out there. They're in the crowd, and the crowd is switching on lights, and we can see them for the first time, not as an undifferentiated mass of strangers, but as individuals we can learn from. Who's the teacher? You're the teacher. You're part of the crowd that may be about to launch the biggest learning cycle in human history, a cycle capable of carrying all of us to a smarter, wiser, more beautiful place.

Here's a group of kids in a village in Pakistan near where I grew up. Within five years, each of these kids is going to have access to a cellphone capable of full-on web video and capable of uploading video to the web. I mean, is it crazy to think that this girl, in the back, at the right, in 15 years, might be sharing the idea that keeps the world beautiful for your grandchildren? It's not crazy; it's actually happening right now.

I want to introduce you to a good friend of TED who just happens to live in Africa's biggest shantytown.

(Video) Christopher Makau: Hi. My name is Christopher Makau. I'm one of the organizers of TEDxKibera. There are so many good things which are happening right here in Kibera. There's a self-help group. They turned a trash place into a garden. The same spot, it was a crime spot where people were being robbed. They used the same trash to form green manure. The same trash site is feeding more than 30 families. We have our own film school. They are using Flip cameras to record, edit, and reporting to their own channel, Kibera TV. Because of a scarcity of land, we are using the sacks to grow vegetables, and also [we're] able to save on the cost of living. Change happens when we see things in a different way. Today, I see Kibera in a different way. My message to TEDGlobal and the entire world is: Kibera is a hotbed of innovation and ideas.

(Applause)

CA: You know what? I bet Chris has always been an inspiring guy. What's new -- and it's huge -- is that, for the first time, we get to see him, and he can see us. Right now, Chris and Kevin and Dennis and Dickson and their friends are watching us, in Nairobi, right now. Guys, we've learned from you today. Thank you.

And thank you.

Roundup of eCommerce Video Marketing Statistics - Impact of Online Video on Sales

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 16:06:28 GMT

eCommerce Video Drives Conversion, Sales and Traffic While Reducing Returns

* Internet Retailer reports that visitors who view product videos are 85% more likely to buy than visitors who do not, based on OnlineGolf.com results. (Internet Retailer, April 2010)

* Retail site visitors who view video stay two minutes longer on average and are 64% more likely to purchase than other site visitors. (Comscore, August 2010)

* In tests merchants such as Archie McPhee experienced conversion rate increases averaging 30%, with a range from 12% to 115%. (Practical Ecommerce, November 2008)

* According to Internet Retailer, Shoeline.com saw a 44% increase in online sales conversions by using videos to showcase their products. “With such positive results on our existing videos, the goal right now is to add video to as many of our products as possible,” says Frank Malsbenden, VP and GM of Vision Retailing Inc., the parent company of Shoeline.com. (Internet Retailer, January 2009)

* Zappos reports a 6% to 30% increases in sales for products with video. (ReelSEO, December 2009)

* Discovery Channel increased video streams 123% by properly implementing video sitemaps

* 20% of all males surveyed cited online video as a significant influence in recent purchases of jewelry and watches. (Ad-ology Media Influence on Consumer Choice survey, September 2008)

* Ice.com found that viewers who chose to view video converted at a 400% increase over those who did not. Ice.com also credits video with decreasing returns by 25%. (Internet Retailer, December 2009)

* Implementation of video decreased returns by 27% for PFI Western. (Videocommerce.org, December 2009)

* Simple video merchandising best practices can nearly double the impact of eCommerce video (Invodo research, February 2010)

* Shoppers who view video at Onlineshoes.com convert at a 45% higher rate than other shoppers, and the site has seen a 359% year-over-year increase in video views. Product pages with video have higher conversion rates than product pages without video. (Internet Retailer, February 2010)

* With proper optimization, video increases the chance of a front-page Google result by 53x. (Forrester, January 2010)

* Video in email marketing has been shown to increase click-through rates by over 96%. In response, the number of marketers planning to use video in email campaigns has increased 5x since the beginning of 2009. (Implix 2010 Email Marketing Trends Survey)

* Consumer packaged goods firm Reckitt Benckiser found that online video delivered a 6% increase in in-store sales. (Reckitt Benckiser / Nielsen, May 2010)

* Rich media ads containing video increase purchase intent by 1.16% and drive success more than four times that of Flash animation. In addition to the increase in purchase intent, video ads appear to increase consumer brand loyalty. Viewers favored a brand 2.30% more when exposed to rich media with a video ad opposed the tiny 0.15% increase simple Flash animation experienced. (DoubleClick, The Brand Value of Rich Media Ads, June 2009)

Consumers Use and Trust Online Video

* From July 2009 through July 2010, the number of US video viewers on retail sites grew 40%, outpacing 17% growth in the number of total US online video viewers. 96% of online shoppers also watch online video. (Comscore, August 2010)

* Video views doubled from 14.8 billion to 33.2 billion between January 2009 and December 2009. 86.5% of all US Internet users watched online video during the month. The average viewer watched 187 videos and 12.7 hours of online video during the month. (Comscore, February 2010)

* A minute of video is worth 1.8 million words according to Dr. James McQuivey of Forrester Research. (Forrester, January 2009)

Online Retailers are Implementing eCommerce Video

* 33% of online retailers plan to add video to their sites in 2010, making it a higher priority than any other advanced feature. (eMarketer, March 2010)

* Leading online retailers added video to their sites in 2009 to increase online sales. PetsUnited, the owner of 10 eCommerce sites, saw a 50% jump in average sales when shoppers made a purchase after viewing a video. (eMarketer, January 2009)

* eCommerce video success can be clearly measured. Conversion rate, cart abandons, increased traffic and View Through Rate (VTR) are key to demonstrating success. (Practical Ecommerce, March 2010)

* eMarketer senior analyst Jeffrey Grau characterizes the benefits of video as including “…a lower number of abandoned shopping carts, reduced return rates, and higher sales.” (eMarketer, January 2009)

* Search engine optimization (SEO) and online video were the two top priorities for online retailers in 2009. Online shoppers who viewed video had a larger shopping ticket than those who viewed traditional rich media such as flash animations. (Internet Retailer, January 2009)

The New eCommerce Reality: Every Company is a Media Company

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 16:14:09 GMT

In "Every Company is a Media Company" author Tom Foremski accurately points out "When every company is a media company this changes more than just a company's PR/communications department -- it changes nearly every aspect of an organization." He adds, "'Every company is a media company' is the most important business transformation of our times because every company is affected. It is also a massive business opportunity for so many businesses."

In this week's Jack Myers Media Business Report delivered yesterday to subscribers, I shared proprietary economic insights on companies ranging from Wal-Mart and Whole Foods to Johnson & Johnson and P&G that are investing significant organizational and financial resources in building media properties. These media assets are not intended only to deliver marketing value, but to generate enhanced economic value and enhance the companies' shareholder value. While websites, mobile applications and social media are the visible tip of the iceberg for many companies' investments in media ownership, they are also developing place-based digital media and expanding their event and experiential marketing commitments, which will represent nearly $18 billion of marketers' expenditures this year.

Event and experiential marketing has traditionally been approached as a series of one-off consumer outreach initiatives by marketers. Now they are being reconsidered as renewable and sustainable media properties that can often be partially or completely self-funding.

As mobile scanning capabilities in the U.S. become as developed as they are already in several Asian and European countries, both retailers and brand marketers will invest in building direct marketing, couponing and promotional apps that are designed to drive traffic and generate real-time response. These apps will increasingly put marketers directly into the media business as they seek to generate ancillary revenues from endemic and non-endemic partners.

With consumers living in a mash up of apps, blogs, RSS feeds, links, text messages, tweets, self-generated content, social networks and location-based promotion, strong media brands will extend off the screen and page into merchandise and consumer services, while strong product and service brands will morph into media properties. Progressive media companies and marketers will become indistinguishable and undifferentiated.

To comment, visit www.jackmyersthinktank.com. JackMyersThinkTank and MediaBizBloggers are free and underwritten as an industry service by corporate subscribers to Jack Myers Media Business Report. For subscription information, visit www.myersreport.com. Visit the archives of JackMyersThinkTank and MediaBizBloggers. Jack Myers can be contacted directly at jm@jackmyers.com .

Top 10 Considerations in Selecting an eCommerce Product Video Solution

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:30:06 GMT

by Mark Robertson of REELSeo.com

So, you’re thinking about adding product videos to your ecommerce site. Once you’ve made your decision you’ll quickly realize there are a fair deal of things you need to consider in terms of the implementation of your video solution. In order to help you figure out what you should be looking for, I’ve compiled the following list of points you should address in order to ensure that your video solution works for you.

1.) Video Production Method

ecommerce video product Things To Consider When Choosing An Ecommerce Product Video Solution The type of video production you want to use is probably the biggest decision you’ll have to make. Generally speaking, your options are as follows:

* Create your own videos in-house
* Use your manufacturers’ videos (assuming these exist)
* Community videos & consumer generated content
* Outsource to a professional video production company
* Automated product videos

As a business owner your responsibility is to guarantee the highest possible ROI from your video investment. From this perspective, combining your existing videos with automated ones may be your best option:

* You get the biggest bang for your buck – more videos for less $$
* Enables you to update your videos easily and frequently to reflect changes to your products and offerings.
* Some platforms include an analytics panel allowing you to monitor your videos’ performance

Automated videos are offered by several companies. I recommend that you check out Stupeflix, Activate Media Group and Animoto.

2.) Content Delivery Network – CDN

Whereas users watching video for entertainment may at times tolerate slow streaming & poor delivery, this is far from being the case for ecommerce videos. Users have zero patience for poorly delivered content when you’re trying to sell them something. Your providers’ content delivery network must be reliable – period. Be sure to check whether your provider offers high bandwidth and guarantees smooth streaming around the world.

3.) Pricing Model

Video platform price models abound. In order to ensure you have a clear understanding of your billing and can control your expenses select vendors that offer you a fixed price or one that’s tied to usage or performance. Some vendors that offers a risk-free pricing model where you only pay for videos that were actually viewed by your audience. This type of pricing model is often referred to as Pay Per View and is based on the same principal as Pay Per Click .

4.) Integration & Deployment

Before finalizing with a vendor ensure you understand the integration process required to add the videos to your e-commerce website. If you’re only adding one or two videos this needn’t be a major consideration, but if you’re going to be adding hundreds of product videos to your site, you really want to make sure you don’t have to add code to each product page individually.

The easiest integrations for large scale video integrations are based on addition of code to your product page templates. A parameter for the SKU can be used to automatically match the right video to the right product. This type of implementation also means that adding new videos will not require internal resources.

5.) Analytics & Measurements

By now good analytics are already widely accepted as being vital to any etailers success. More than just having a feeling for the site’s overall performance it’s important to have a good understanding of how every component on the site is contributing to its overall success. This is true for your new video component as well.

The basic requirement is that you have some form of reporting tool offering you information on video views which you can then correlate to your sales data. Some vendors provide advanced analytics that already tie these details into the platform, including measurements for your video’s conversion rates, comparisons of CVR for visitors who watched video and those who didn’t, and support for A/B testing of multiple video versions per product.

6.) Offsite Video Syndication

Video content destinations are among the most popular sites online today. So much so that Youtube is now ranked as the world’s 2nd most popular search engine and the 3rd most visited site on the web. To fully realize the ROI potential of your video investment you may want to syndicate your video content to outside video destinations. This can not only provide you further exposure and increased traffic, but can also have a great impact on the visibility of your video content across search engines. Some ecommerce video platforms include automated syndication to the major video sharing sites as an optional feature.

7.) Search Engine Visibility

Closely related to the former point is the issue of your video’s SEO. Ideally, you will want to be sure that your own video content is picked up by search engines for your own website domain. It’s easy to test the success of this effort, so make sure to choose a vendor that can show you proof with examples from existing clients.

8.) Share/Like Option

You may want to harness the social web to your benefit by adding options to share and Facebook “Like” your videos. This is a great way to further disseminate your content and create interactivity.

Remember to run A/B testing to see whether a clean video, with no “distractions” provides better ROI.

9.) Mobile Compatibility

The mobile web is exploding literally while you’re busy reading this.

With Google’s Android phones alone being sold at a rate of over 65,000 units per day more and more shoppers surf the net from their cell phones every minute. Your videos must be available to mobile devices: iPhones/ iPads, Blackberrys, Androids are a must in my opinion.

10.) Advanced Utilization of Video

It’s always smart to re-appropriate your existing content in as many ways as possible. Check if your vendor supports embedding videos in email campaigns, video banners, and video galleries, in order to maximize your existing video content and expand your reach.

Conclusion

This list is in no way exhaustive but it should serve as a starting point for prioritizing how you select your ecommerce video vendor and identify the solutions that best match your needs.

Consumers Who View Product Videos 64% More Likely To Complete Purchase

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 22:19:40 GMT

Brands are increasingly incorporating online video marketing to their multichannel brand campaigns, and with good reason. Shoppers who view online videos are more likely to make purchases, indicates a new report from comScore.

Consumers who view videos on websites are 64 percent more likely to buy something from the site
Consumers also tend to spend more time (up to two minutes) on webpages per visit.
96 percent of shoppers who make online purchases have watched online video before.

For advertisers, online video is also able to influence shoppers' buying decisions. According to comScore, 63 percent of total U.S. internet users are reached by video advertising. These consumers account for 83 percent of online sales, making them highly valuable targets.

Many marketers are increasingly incorporating online video solutions into their digital marketing campaigns - a trend that is sure to continue as brand marketers and online retailers wake up to the revolutionary shift in content production and content consuption happening with on-demand video. The key is still creating a clear and unique message that resonates with the customer, but approaching the distribution of that message in a radically different way. Instead of broadcasting or instead of "hoping" a piece of creative will go viral focus on the eliminating wasted time and money from the content engine and prime the pump with dynamic, relevant, exciting content optimiaed for search and interactively designed for sharing. Get the workflow down and crank it out based on leveraging your product portfolio digital assets and existing content rather than buying someone else's content or borrowing from ad networks.

Social Media and Inbound Marketing Impact on Business Strategy

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 18:54:45 GMT

The video above can appear overwelming and scary due to the rapid pace. Change can be difficult and business is tight, but your instincts and mounting evidence tell you that figuring out the right programs for social media and web 2.0 needs to be a top priority. Forget the buzzwords and the latest tools; for many companies, sustainable competitive advantage or extinction hangs in the balance. Something is dying - traditional media and something is being born - new media.

Executives today are realizing that social media is not a fad or yet another marketing channel, but a new inbound marketing and public relations approach to filling the top of the sales funnel with new customers and responding to those customers faster, with greater transparency, and garnering greater loyalty en route.

Social media marketing is just that: marketing. Social media online communities such as Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube are merely "touch-points" whereby you can effectively convert conversations into leads, sales and quality improvements with remarkable content and compelling calls to action.

Forget the tools and tactics for a second and take a fresh look at the strategy as part of an integrated strategic marketing plan. Content development costs and time are the main bottleneck to finding ROI from social media campaigns. This is where workflow automation and internet tech. are so key to business. Overstock.com and Zappos.com understand this which is why they are winning. Search engine marketing and social media are merging. This is why Activate has focused on the most powerful content - video and the most scalable technology to eliminate the content bottleneck. Activate Media Group is an innovative digital media company specializing in strategic video marketing solutions. Activate’s turnkey, automated solution produces premium quality, custom product videos, manages the content delivery platform, and syndicates videos to social media video portals at the highest scale and lowest cost in history.

The unique advantage of Activate's video marketing solutions is the quality, scalability and cost efficiency of our video content coupled with its search and social media optimized workflow. Activate creates strategic advantage for clients in sales effectiveness and marketing efficiency by flipping the digital marketing advantage from media buying power to the power of the existing product portfolio.

When we truly grasp the ability to define action and measure it, we can expand the impact of new media beyond the P&L. We can adapt business processes, inspire ingenuity, and more effectively compete for the future of the fashion and apparel business.

Online Video Advertising Reaching 'Frenzy Point'

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 22:02:30 GMT

With the flood, comes the feast. Advertising dollars are pouring into online video. Some of the largest online video ad networks are seeing revenue growth accelerating this quarter, and expect the fourth quarter to be even bigger. “Last year we grew 40%, this year we are growing 90%,” says Keith Richman, CEO of Break Media. He expects Break’s total revenues in the third quarter, which include more than just video advertising, to be well above $10 million for the first time.

Tremor Media, which is one of the largest video ad networks and second only to Hulu in the number of video ads it serves, is also seeing a doubling of ad revenues. “It has reached a frenzy point over last three quarters.” CEO Jason Glickman tells me. “We see television dollars moving to online video,” he declares. The fourth quarter “is lining up to be a monster,” and next year Tremor’s revenues are on track to top $100 million for the year.

TV advertising still dwarfs online video, with about $70 billion spent on there in the U.S. Online video advertising is estimated to reach $1.5 billion this year, up from $1 billion last year, according to eMarketer. “Our share of the $1 billion or $2 billion pie for online video is insignificant compared to the budgets that are coming over,” says Glickman.

Relatively small shifts in advertising budgets from TV to online can create huge swings in growth for online video. eMarketer estimates that online video advertising will grow 48 percent in 2010, accelerating from 39 percent growth last year (which was a weak year compared to the 127 percent hypergrowth in 2008). But judging by what Tremor and Break are seeing that $1.5 billion estimate might prove to be conservative. Glickman expects revenues next year to top $100 million. Caveat: treat their experience as anecdotal snapshots of the industry which happen to match.

It very well may just be the big ad networks and properties like Hulu that are seeing the vast majority of new ad dollars. “If you are not in the top 10 on comScore you will have a tough time, notes” Richman, “money goes to the guys who are big.” TV advertisers want to match their reach on TV, and online video that is deemed to be safe, professional content is starting to get to those levels. It is not American Idol,” says Glickman, “but it is like a large cable network.” Advertisers can’t yet reach 30 million people in an hour with a single media buy online, but they can reach that many people over the course of a week, and they can target to specific demographics and get some feedback on how the ads are performing, which TV advertising still can’t do very well.

Advertisers are becoming increasingly comfortable with putting their video ads online. Hulu, which may be filing for an IPO, is the largest beneficiary of this trend. If an advertiser already puts ads against House or The Office on TV, it is a no-brainer to match that online on Hulu. But they are also beginning to trust the larger video ad networks like Tremor and Break, which put ads against a wider range of professionally-produced video from guy videos to sports clips and movie trailers.

“I have never seen test budgets that start at half a million dollars,” says Glickman. Usually ad agencies start testing with one tenth as much. Also, he is seeing about a dozen larger commitments in the double-digit millions over the course of the year, deals he calls “online video upfronts” because they are negotiated in advance like regular TV upfronts. According to comScore, Hulu showed the most video ads in July with 783 million, but Tremor came in second with 452 million video ad views.

Video is definitely shaping up to be a large and growing business for the bigger players and ad networks, but will those advertising dollars trickle down to the smaller guys as well?

One strategy not covered by big media or video ad networks that will have a major impact on online video is automated video production and ecommerce video marketing from companies like Activate Media Group . These companies leverage existing web content to create and syndicate video organically shifting the power from the size of the ad network to the size of the product catalog and creating huge sales conversion and organic SEO lift in the process.

About the author: Erick Schonfeld

Erick, Co-Editor of TechCrunch (www.techcrunch.com), has been covering startups and technology news for 14 years. At Business 2.0 he wrote feature stories and ran their main blog, Next Net, which has nearly 50,000 RSS subscribers.

Best Practices in eCommerce Product Video: Top 5 Sales Conversion Boosters

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 21:40:26 GMT

Research shows that when product videos are featured, visitors are 85% more likely to convert. The evidence is overwelming that product videos really work.

However, as any experienced online marketer knows, optimizing conversion rates is never an automatic achievement, no matter how good the approach and tools. Focusing on the details and being consistent in your approach to online video is key.

Split testing is also an essential component of a good program and should not be done as an afterthought. Tactics like adding appropriate background music, voice-overs, and text can all generate more clicks to purchase among visitors to your web site. The key to knowing what’s appropriate and what enhancements drive desired responses.

Testing your creative and your messaging has long been a standard practice for brand marketers. Large companies have been built focusing on research, focus groups, polls, etc. With online video systems like Activate's can bring this power to your online portfolio without the guesswork, the additional time or the agency expenses.

We recommend pilot testing and split testing for each custom video solution developed for our clients. However, here are some general best practices for your consideration that may apply to existing or new videos you are currently working on.

Top 5 Sales Conversion Boosters for Online Video Production

Adding voice-overs often results in higher conversions (see example video here using our automated natural voice database).
With female fashion, a male voice-over might actually REDUCE sales, while a female voice-over can double sales.
A call to action at the end of the video can increase purchasing activity by more than 20%.
Adding text almost always increases conversions. Color of the text is significant as well, and we have found that red works better for some products.
The size and placement of the video player is important – using an actual player embed rather than a video icon or button is best

Activate Founder, Bill Palmer, to Speak on Marketing Trends at MAGIC Convention in Las Vegas 8/18

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 19:36:05 GMT

Please join us at The Las Vegas Convention Center at Sourcing at Magic on Wednesday, July 18th at 1pm. Founder & President of Activate Media Group Bill Palmer will be speaking at the Key Business Trends for a New Decade Seminar on leveraging internet technologies for the future of the apparel business. You can find us at North Hall, 2nd Floor, room #N259.

Immediately following the keynote he will be available for a one on one Q&A in the side room. If you are not able to make this presentation or if you are not registered, we can still arrange a meeting at the convention center or at the conference. Please advise us on your availability.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 18, 2010

1:00 PM I LAS VEGAS CONVENTION CENTER – NORTH HALL 2ND FLOOR, N259

FASHION FORWARD: KEY BUSINESS TRENDS FOR A NEW DECADE
From the impact of globalization, social media marketing, new technologies impacting product development, supply chain and sales to sustainable/green initiatives. What will your fashion business need to implement to succeed?
MODERATOR: Walter Wilhelm President/Chief Executive Officer of Walter Wilhelm Associates LLC
SPEAKERS:
Carlos Arias, President – Denimatrix, Guatemala, a division of PlainsCotton Cooperative Association (PCCA)
Bill Palmer, President – Activate Media Group
Jennifer Pritchard, VP Sourcing – Chico’s

Video SEO Critical to E-Commerce Success - QVC vs Overstock.com Example

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:44:27 GMT

This is the story of two respected e-businesses who deployed video on their websites. One did it with SEO in mind and reaped the rewards in Google rankings and resulting page visits and sales. The other took an enormous cache of video content, uploaded it onto a website and left it there – unoptimized, untagged and unprofitable.

Almost any business moving to the web understands at some level that search engines drive traffic. The 100 best companies in Internet Retailer’s Top Retailers Guide report an average of 30 percent of their traffic is search-engine delivered. And by now, most e-businesses realize the importance of deploying video as a means to increase website visits. It is with this knowledge in mind that retailers such as Zappos, Overstock.com and Newegg have deployed thousands of videos across their websites.

Given the apparently widespread awareness of the power of video online, it is amazing to see that many large retailers are investing in multimedia without taking the steps to put those elements to work for search engine optimization.
The Case for E-Commerce Video SEO

Companies that understand the technical steps to achieving a higher SEO ranking with video will make the most of their investments. For example, Overstock.com applied the required technologies — such as text and markup in the page surrounding the video, site-wide descriptive formats, video site maps and proper video embedding — and its 56,000 videos were recognized by Google.

It is equally important that e-commerce sites deploy video across their entire product catalog. It is not enough to simply post a few videos on the homepage and other main pages. For instance, eBags.com manually produces videos that are indexed on Google, but because it is so expensive to produce each video for its entire (large) catalog, the company can only have a limited number of videos. This results in limited video SEO when users search for products, and other sites with video will pop to the top of the results page.
QVC vs. Overstock – Optimized Video Delivers

QVC clearly understands how to make compelling video. The cable shopping network broadcasts live 24 hours a day, 364 days a year. It has a massive store of multimedia and it has loaded tens of thousands of videos onto its website. But one would never know it by the number of QVC videos indexed on the major search engines. Google has one. There are two others on Bing and four on Yahoo!. That’s a total of seven indexed videos for a company that is #11 on the Internet Retailer 500. QVC’s wasted resources are a reminder that the number of videos a business offers on its site isn’t as important as what it does to properly deploy them.

Let’s compare QVC’s approach to that of Overstock.com. The latter, which sells everything from crib sheets to faucets and jewelry at discount prices, rivals QVC in the number of videos on its site. But those multimedia assets are working much harder for Overstock.com, since the retailer took the extra step of optimizing its videos to increase search engine rankings and drive traffic. There are more than 56,000 Overstock.com videos indexed on Google, and the revenue implications of that fact are clear. Here is just one of many examples; if you do a standard Google search for “La Strada ceiling fan,” you’ll see Overstock.com as the number one result, with a video thumbnail accompanying the text link.

We’ve learned from our customers like Overstock.com that video SEO is an important aspect of their considerations when deploying multimedia website elements. From large businesses like Overstock.com to more targeted verticals like real-estate site Sawbuck Realty, we’re seeing that optimized video delivers. With tens of thousands of videos, Sawbuck Realty, for example, now views this offering as a compelling differentiator in a competitive market and an effective way to enhance search engine rankings.

Aside from the SEO benefits that video provides, commerce sites are offering customers an improved website experience, and subsequently experiencing conversion lifts. In terms of SEO, top retailers consider the ability to get their videos indexed on major search engines an important part of their catalog-wide video deployment. Video and search engine traffic are key drivers for web businesses, and video SEO can do a lot to extract the potential of these rich, multimedia resources to support search engine traffic growth.

What is Premium Online Video?

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 23:32:39 GMT

Premium Online Video [vid-ee-oo, noun, derivation Web 1.0]: Video consumed on-demand, on a computer or other Internet-connected device. Content must have previously been consumed by a great many more people, simultaneously (see: linear, analog, TV Guide) on a non-connected video viewing device (i.e. your television set).

That's true. Look it up.

It's hard to argue that if there really was a definition of premium online video today, it would read much the same, whether you were setting out to describe the concept from a viewer's or advertiser's perspective.

For viewers, more than production value or even celebrity, premium is a matter of value consistency. If I tune into "30 Rock," there's a high probability that I will be entertained in a specific way. That is still extremely hard to find in content that isn't primarily distributed on TV first. Viewers also derive value from a shared experience on and offline.

Marketers also assign a premium value to consistency -- it helps them align messages and assure that their brands are appearing in the right place at the right time.

What else separates premium video from everything else?

A food-products client recently told me that their entire online video strategy comprised something called a "TV replacement" initiative. Yes, that means they take some money from linear TV and shift it to the exact same programming online.

Fair enough. Maybe that's exactly what they should be doing. That's probably not what the TV networks really want in the long run, but that's fodder for a different article.

But think ahead a few more years. Ok, say 10 years. All TVs are IP-connected, mass audiences are substantially harder to find, and so on. What will the new measure of premium be when the TV Guide definition fades away?

First, consistency of the product on every level remains important, at least for brand advertisers. If they are aligning with content they consider to be premium, and are paying a premium for, it has to look tomorrow more or less as it looked yesterday.

Second, it will attract a loyal audience. The premium moniker hangs on the audience having a real relationship with the content, because when a marketer taps into that relationship, they get significantly better ROI.

Data, of course, is the third and most important measure of the new premium. Not just a few meta tags of information, but deep knowledge about how and why the content was produced, its historical relationship with a wide range of viewers, and unique information about its component parts. Data about the viewer and the content will combine with the unique passive rating of a video view (if I watched it, I liked it) to deliver a significant improvement in alignment of viewer and advertiser.

Today, consistency, loyalty and rich data don't often come together outside of content that first appeared on television. TV producers and networks are just beginning to understand the challenge of owning the definition of premium in a way that works for their future business.

But outside of TV, anyone producing ad-supported content should be thinking about these same three core markers of premium value to advertisers. Strip away the TV Guide valuation of premium, and think about how to establish consistency, loyalty and data in a way that suits your model for production and distribution.

How Online Video Can Increase Your Sales By 30%

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 23:42:35 GMT

By Jeff Bullas

The use of online video is continuing to grow and develop as higher broadband speeds become more widespread worldwide and the appetite by the younger generation for viewing rather than reading.

The old chestnut phrase , “A picture is worth a thousand words” begs the question, “How many words is a video worth?”

Zappos (an online shoe retailer) does shoes and social media remarkably well and utilizes online video very effectively.

They use video to engage with the buyer as much as possible. Their use of video to create “virtually” the reality experience of a bricks and mortar store, as if the buyer were in store and “more”continues to evolve.

They use online video to

* Describe their shoes
* How to use the product
* To demonstrate

Note: The videos are about the products, are with real Zappos employees and not models or actors… a bit of authenticity happening here, not stock photos with incredibly handsome and beautiful people.

They are testing interactive video on their site for Nike products. The company has launched interactive product videos.

The website provides the following 9 Functionalities, Features and Future Plans

* Allows viewers to click on items in the clips before landing on product detail pages.
* It can signal to consumers if an item is out-of-stock, discontinued, or part of a special offer.
* If the viewer mouses over a shoe in a video, it becomes highlighted, alerting the person that the item is clickable.
* Users are then taken to a product detail page in a separate browser window where the item can be added to a shopping cart.
* Zappos.com’s media player also allows shoppers to post the videos to their Facebook and Twitter profiles while the clip continues to roll.
* The 10 product videos currently on the site are each around one minute long.
* plans to leverage the interactive videos by incorporating them into its user-generated-content program (UGC).
* Its “Daily Shoe Digest” is one of the few e-mail newsletters — in any niche — featuring UGC (User Generated Content) 100 percent of the time.
* Site visitors will be encouraged through future marketing messages to create product video reviews that will also have the interactive features.

Selling products directly from online video content, known as “hot-spotting,” is an advertising niche that’s growing slowly but surely. For instance, earlier this year, H&R Block began utilizing YouTube’s annotations allowing viewers to click on specific items in a video linking to a landing page or another video. And last year, clothing brand Express sponsored Vogue magazine’s online reality show, Models.Live, which featured clickable overlays in a manner combining product placement and direct response marketing.

So what are the effects of using video?

Zappos’s experience has shown “It obtained increases of 6 to 30% in conversions ..for products that use video”.

Note: This has prompted Zappos to strive for 50,000 videos !!! next year (they have about 8,000 currently), they will include “10″ fully working studios in house in 2010 to handle all of it.

Zappos, last month partnered with Overlay.TV and rolled out “Engagement Pages” for specific brands, where the videos engage users with clickable overlays. These overlays allow users to shop within the video content, pull up additional information and click through to product specific landing pages. Users can also record product video testimonials directly from the engagement pages.”

Online at Zappos you can see the shoe from “7″ angles and “3″ different magnifications (see Nike page at Zappos) and the screenshot below.

Note: This goes a long way to overcoming the issues of online shoppings “experience gap” that shopping at bricks and mortar store provides.

This is starting to show how “real” an online store can become, as online video enables a more pervasive and integrated experience within an ecommerce website.

For a good resource on Online Video “Best Practices“ click here

So how are you using online video to good effect? Like to hear your stories and the tools and apps you are using.

Finding the Right Mix of Online Video Ads to Display Ads for Optimal Results

Thu, 06 May 2010 19:31:20 GMT

A recent ComScore research that showed only 16% of internet users clicked on a single ad during March 2009. That is down from 32% two years earlier.

So is it time to stop analysing CTR’s so religiously, and for the industry to adopt new ways to measure the relative success or failure of online campaigns? I believe the answer is a resounding yes, and in the case of video pre-roll advertising, it should have never been measured that way in the first place.

So ComScore set out to see if display and video advertising had any tangible benefits beyond the click. They used a test and control panel, and a series of brands, and measured the percentage of the control group that visited the advertiser’s website without seeing any advertising, and then looked at the test group, and measured the same.

Looking at ad campaign results:

if the test group were exposed to video advertising between 1-5 times it resulted in a 3.3% uplift in visits to the advertiser’s website, without clicking on any advertising.
Straight display advertising achieved a 1.2% uplift in visits, if the consumer was exposed between 1-5 times.
With 6-9 exposures the percentage uplift dropped for video to 2.9% and increased for display to 2.4%
With 10+ exposures the uplifts were 4.3% for video and 3.8% for display.

What’s interesting is that video is a clear winner when measuring 1-5 exposures, but display effectiveness catches up with more impressions. This is great news for the industry, as it will no doubt help convince marketers that online brand advertising can increase awareness and spark the quest to find more information, even if users don’t chose to click as soon as they see the advertising.

It also looks as if a mixture of video and display creative are along the right track to deliver immediate uplift, as well as slow burn uplift. Leveraging automated video commerce solutions like Activate can tubroboost ROI for online marketing initiatives.

Survey of Online Video Services and Portals

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 21:40:53 GMT

By Sean Ashcroft

sean.ashcroft@mac.com

BBC iPlayer
iPlayer began life, uncertainly and largely unloved, in October 2005 as Integrated Media Player. Now, though, it is an established part of the BBC firmament.
Currently, over 400 hours of video is encoded a week for iPlayer, using a 60-strong server farm.
Programming that’s fewer than seven days’ old can now be viewed on virtually any platform, including Windows, Macs, Linux, Nintendo Wii and selected mobile phones (including iPhones).
While rights agreements mean iPlayer programming is unavailable as streams or downloads to non-UK users (aside from news and sports highlights), the BBC admits “it is aware of demand for an international version”. A case of watch this space, perhaps.

ITV Player
Like BBC iPlayer, ITV Player is available via the broadcaster’s main website. Until September 2009, ITV Player used Microsoft Silverlight, but then followed the lead of both iPlayer and Channel 4's 30 day catch-up service 4oD by switching to Flash.
All of ITV Studios' shows – and the majority of independently produced shows – feature on the service, but, sports, movies and imports don't.
In December, ITV announced it is to launch an ITV Player Facebook app. As well as catching up on missed programmes, users can recommend their favourites to friends, be recommended programmes directly via the app, and discover how compatible their likes and dislikes are.

Hulu
Founded in March 2007, Hulu is an online video service that offers TV shows, movies and clips at Hulu.com and other online destination sites in the US. Hulu says its mission is to “help people find and enjoy the world's premium video content when, where and how they want it”.
Ad revenue comes from the ad impressions generated from Hulu.com, video streams from its distribution partners’ websites and from the embeddable Hulu video player.
Hulu says it has every intention to make its growing content lineup available worldwide “sometime in the future”, but adds there “is no timetable” regarding such expansion.

Fancast
US-only video on demand service Fancast is a division of Comcast Interactive Media, and is popular for its extensive library of current and archival television shows, such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Family Guy, The Young and the Restless, and South Park.
As well as offering instant access to TV shows, movies, trailers and clips, it serves up editorial and blog coverage, with in-depth recaps and analysis on the world of television and entertainment.
Unlike Hulu, which hints at plans for overseas expansion, Fancast declares “we do not have the rights to stream content internationally and must limit viewing of full length content to the United States”.

4oD
Launched in November 2006, 4oD allows internet users to stream or download programming shown within the past 30 days on Channel 4, E4 or More4, as well as content from the National Geographic Channel and FX (UK).
As of April 2009, the Flash-based service became fully available to Windows, Mac and Linux users.
Some content is available free of charge, while other programmes and films – including archive programming – is charged 99p per standard programme or £1.99 per film on a per-download basis.
Rights agreements mean 4oD is available only in the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

YouTube
Bought by Google for $1.65 billiion in 2006, Flash-based YouTube is video on demand with a difference, because much of the content is user generated – although a deal of it includes movie and TV clips, as well as music videos.
YouTube’s Partnership Program is a revenue-sharing program that allows creators and producers of original content to earn money based on cost-per-impression advertising. Before August 2009, the Program was open only to professional program makers or very popular accounts, but is now open to anyone.
Videos uploaded to YouTube by standard account holders are limited to ten minutes in length and a file size of 2GB. Partner accounts are permitted to upload videos longer than ten minutes.

Vimeo
Vimeo was created by filmmakers and video creators who wanted to share their creative work, along with personal moments of their everyday life. As time went on, like-minded people came to the site and built a community of people with a wide range of video interests.
A year ago the site announced it had surpassed 1 million uploads, and that 10 per cent of these were HD, leading it to claim it was “the world’s largest repository of high-definition video”.
As of March 2009 Vimeo had more than 2 million members and an average of more than 13,000 videos uploaded daily.

Metacafe
Metacafe attracts more than 47 million unique viewers each month, with nearly 11 million of these in the United States. It specializes in short-form original content from new, emerging talents and established Hollywood heavyweights alike.
Metacafe does not allow any video to be posted – only those that “amaze, inspire and make viewers laugh”. This is not a video site for news stories, personal videos or webcam chatter.
In January this year, Metacafe announced content partnerships with NHL, Sony and Warner Music (among others), designed to appeal to 18-34 year-olds, by adding TV, movies, music, sports and video games to the mix.

Veoh
Veoh, launched in 2004, offers free access to TV and film content, independent productions, and user-generated videos, including those from YouTube. Its idea is to turn “the vast universe of Internet video into an easy-to-use, personalized experience”.
Veoh is a open platform for content publishers of all sizes and sophistication “who want to reach tomorrow's television audience”.
Currently more than 100,000 publishers use the service to connect with a global audience of more than 28 million.
In addition, Veoh's publisher optimization program gives publishers tools to help them raise awareness of their content and cultivate viewing audiences.

sevenload
sevenload is a global social media network for Web TV, videos and photos. It was founded in 2005, and its current community is comprised of 20 country portals, with users from around the world watching TV content, music videos and Web TV shows.
It allows users to upload, tag and organize video content, and then share this with other users.
sevenload also positions itself as a provider of cross-media marketing and advertising solutions. Its
business to business services include the development and production of IPTV based internet platforms, media libraries, branded video platforms, as well as online communities based on its core technology.

Creating a Niche Online TV Station

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:38:35 GMT

By Sean Ashcroft

sean.ashcroft@mac.com

Running a successful internet TV station is something an increasing number of organizations are looking at – everyone from existing broadcasters to entrepreneurs and local authorities are eyeing this market as one that has huge potential.
But while online video sites as a business proposition has obvious appeal, there are challenges, too – not least of which is mastering a broad range of technical skills and marketing knowledge.

“The biggest challenge is that you need to be really competent in a broad range of areas,” warns David Ingram, author of ‘The Internet TV Book: How to Set Up Your Own Station’, currently the sole book on this subject.

Among the business and technical challenges involved in establishing an online video presence are:
– Getting the business model right;
– Identifying your audience and what they like to watch;
– Revenue sources, advertising, sponsorship, subscription, phone-ins, etc;
– Attracting that audience through internet marketing and search engine optimization;
– Making informed choices when buying camera and computer equipment
– Impenetrable supplier jargon;
– Making deals for content;
– Partnering with other web sites;
– Building a web site to launch the station;
– Building a virtual studio;
– Learning the art of scheduling content;
– Monitoring new entrants to market.

Ingram also cautions those from a mainstream broadcasting background not to apply TV rules to online: “People must remember that while TV is all about broadcasting, the internet is better to suited to narrowcasting; it’s far better suited to niche content.”
He adds: “The business-to-business magazine market provides a good parallel, because this sector serves defined audiences that need expert information on particular subjects, and this has real appeal to advertisers. Broadcasting is more the populist glossy magazines, whose audiences are far less defined, and far more fickle.”
Ingram cites video property reviews as an area that might be a viable topic for a niche TV station.

“A channel like this could offer video tours of houses worth over, say, £750,000, and charge people £500 to have their house featured. This would have audience appeal, as people could narrow down their new-home choices without even leaving their own house.”

The real problem people have with making money out of internet TV, says Ingram, is that they don’t understand the business model.
“Because of my book I speak to a lot of people who want to start internet TV services, and nearly always their big concerns are about the technology and the running costs. What they should really be concerning themselves with is the business model, and how they can attract an audience.”

Among the key questions Ingram says should be asked are:
Do you go with video on demand and monetize this with advertising?
Do you have a paid-for membership model and drive toward guaranteed income.
What’s the nature of your content? Will it be video on demand, or an online TV station?

“People get the business model so wrong.” Says Ingram. “A while back the London Tourist Board scrapped its video service because of low traffic. The reason they had low traffic is they targeted a British audience. Why? They should have been going after English speaking audiences in the US,Canada and Australia. It’s a fundamental mistake.”

Ingram also cautions that the key when devising and shooting content is to always be asking what the consumer benefit is. “If it has limited appeal, then why bother,” he says.

Asked about the future of video on demand services, Ingram said he sees them as “an evolutionary dead end”, adding: “People who watch programmes want to skips ads, which is why they live-pause or record on their own TV. The only reason people watch video on demand is because they’ve missed a programme.”

And then there’s advertising. There’s certainly money swilling around online video – but this is mainly in the US. Internet market research company eMarketer projects that by 2011 online video will be attracting $4.3 billion a year in the US alone, but in the UK the picture is far less rosy, says Ingram.

“Until recently, advertising revenue was almost impossible to get [for internet TV services], because here we’re geared to large media buying companies, who deal with large clients with large budgets. Plus, for the best part, media buying agencies simply don’t understand online.” Another barrier to ad revenue is that in the UK, online video lacks an equivalent to the British Audience Research Bureau, which quantifies TV audiences.

“This is something advertisers really need, but for online there’s no such hard audience data to show advertisers.”
There are also technical challenges with internet video.

“When video is encoded for internet use you lose 99% of the information, which means you have to be very careful how you set up a scene,” says Ingram. “It’s the rule of three: include only three elements at any one time – you can’t have complex scenes, because things just get lost.”

Connecting the Dots Between Business Strategy, Social Media and ROI Measurement

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 13:08:14 GMT

Connecting the Dots Between Business Strategy, Social Media and ROI Measurement

This article was written by Bill Palmer, President of Activate Media Group and originally published by Apparal Magazine.

click here to view the article on Apparel Magazine website.

The lady from the 1980's Wendy's commercial had it right all along, "Where's the beef?" We want Internet marketing and social networking to create business value, but approach with healthy skepticism any claims of marketing gold. More practically, we doubt that we have the right mix of budget, time, team resources, or proper metrics in place to truly leverage Web 2.0 for maximum results. We might even dismiss it completely if a meaningful ecommerce sales channel isn't currently a significant profit center.

However, we must reconsider the facts. A recent Nielsen survey showing that 82 percent of people first use search engines to research and find brands before purchase and 89 percent trust peer reviews and ratings over company ads. Traditional outbound marketing is largely broken. Maybe it's time to reconsider the approach to the overall proverbial customer conversation. Think magnet rather than bullhorn.

Social media is not a fad

Change can be difficult and business is tight, but your instincts and mounting evidence tell you that figuring out the right programs for social media and web 2.0 needs to be a top priority. Forget the buzzwords and the latest tools; for many companies, sustainable competitive advantage or extinction hangs in the balance.

Executives today are realizing that social media is not a fad or yet another marketing channel, but a new inbound marketing and public relations approach to filling the top of the sales funnel with new customers and responding to those customers faster, with greater transparency, and garnering greater loyalty en route.

Social media marketing is just that: marketing. Social media online communities such as Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube are merely "touch-points" whereby you can effectively convert conversations into leads, sales and quality improvements with remarkable content and compelling calls to action.

Lately, you might have heard that this is the year of "social media ROI." This is not necessarily true for you and me. Maybe somebody dropped the ball at some point and let you down. If you think that social media has been a waste of time for your business, it probably has been … so far. The business case and marketing plan needs help.

Forget the tools and tactics for a second and take a fresh look at the strategy as part of an integrated strategic marketing plan. So much of the discussion around proving the ROI of social media seems to be about proving the business value of the tools or a specific site. This entire argument is displaced. It isn't about the tools. It is about the brand strategy. It's about the company's core value propositions and how that translates into growing sales and customer loyalty. The tools and tactics follow naturally from this position once the core is remembered, unlocked and activated.

Seeking measurable results

In 2010, executives are demanding budget scrutiny and real results from every expenditure. Business leaders require clarity in a time of abundant options and scarcity of experience; and rightly so. As an internet marketing consultant, I report to executives who have no desire to measure intangible credos rooted in transparency and authenticity. In the end, they simply want to optimize their return on investment by associating all marketing programs with real-world business performance metrics. Bottom line, they want measurable results -- "beef" from social media and hold the "BS."

To accomplish this, we need clear business goals and meaningful metrics based on industry best practices that generate a repeatable "pattern" for success. A one-of-a-kind dress can be beautiful, but not worth much in terms of overall revenue if it can't be duplicated.

One might think this approach a common sense no-brainer. However, elusiveness continues to prevail. According to a 2009 Mzinga & Babson executive study, more than 80 percent of professionals do not measure ROI for their company's social media programs. Granted, social metrics and their measurement techniques are relatively new, and this might account for the lag in tracking.

However, I believe this is primarily due to the process and state of how these projects are initiated and planned. Social media endeavors are usually still funded as pilot programs to steer the brand toward perceived relevance in the hopes that they demonstrate momentum and materialize rewards. Budgets are often borrowed from other divisions to fund the teams and programs led by internal champions who effectively make the case for experimentation. Where that money goes and from where it's borrowed varies by department and by company.

How the results are measured and improved upon are often a political afterthought. We all know what happens when we fail to plan – we plan to fail.

Developing a strategic social campaign

Nonetheless, this is a huge opportunity for advantage to companies who are learning to conduct social campaigns the right way - strategically planed, measured and monitored social media campaigns. Given social media's digital nature, uncovering comprehensive data to measure and track performance is easier and more real-time than ever before. Google Analytics, Omniture, Radian6 and Visible Technologies all have outstanding capabilities for tracking these performance indicators down to the nth degree of detail with actionable tools baked right in.

Optimizing your website, press releases and content distribution for maximum search, social and blog visibility to get found by more customers is also easy to accomplish on platforms such as Hubspot and Marketwire. Much of the information and tools are free, low-subscription-based, or open source. Therefore, the cost is in hiring and managing the right team. This can also be done by certified experts at low agency rates without overhead or contract risk.

This year social media graduates from experimentation to strategic implementation with direct ties to specific measurable performance indicators. Smart CMOs now require a connection between social media and P&L business goals.

My internet marketing agency conducted an analysis that looked at more than 100 case studies as well as an in-depth executive survey from MarketingSherpa involving more thatn 2,000+ marketers to identify the following best practices in measuring social media for the primary business goals of increasing revenue and reducing costs.

Each of these 11 best-of-breed metrics is placed in the context of the performance indicator it gauges (such as authority, attention or effectiveness):

When we truly grasp the ability to define action and measure it, we can expand the impact of new media beyond the P&L. We can adapt business processes, inspire ingenuity, and more effectively compete for the future of the fashion and apparel business.

Top 5 Reasons to Outsource Social Media Marketing

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:09:13 GMT

If you are considering outsourcing B2B social media marketing, Spurspectives has compiled a list of top benefits of outsourcing this function to a social media marketing firm. I’ve added my own commentary to the lists. If you’ve implemented a B2B social media strategy, I’d be interesting in learning more about it.

The Top Reasons to Outsource B2B Social Media Marketing Outsourcing

1. Speed:

If you are new to social media - or ready to embark on a broader social media strategy - outsourcing can get things up and running quickly.

For those CEOs and marketing executives of a certain age and background, Web 2.0 technology can seem very daunting -- they must learn new technology, new terminology, new ways to measure ROI,, new "pull" strategies, new ways to identify potential clients, and new ways to brand their product or service online. It is not very easy to master the learning curve for these activities easily. Every man-hour that you devote to learning and implementing these techniques is one less that you can spend on your core competency (whatever that may be). It is much better to outsource this marketing strategy -- at least in the beginning -- even though it may cost a little more. Since the ROI of social-media marketing is so high, it matters little whether you start the investment internally or externally.

2. Training:

An outside team can teach you how to do things, set up workable systems and schedules, and then transition some duties back to your internal team over time if that makes sense for your organization.

This is a natural result of the first point. Imagine that your company creates a social media marketing strategy -- or even a whole online-marketing department -- from scratch. You will need to determine how to judge the quality of applicants in fields that you might not know. You will need to spend time recruiting, interviewing, and hiring. You will need integrate the new employees and orient them into the company. You will need to determine the organizational structure of the team or department as well as figure out how they will work together with other teams and departments so that there will not be any overlap. It's going to be difficult to set meaningful benchmarks when everyone is starting from scratch.

Conversely, you could interview and hire a social-media consulting company in one day. You can examine their case studies and past results in a few hours. You don't need to spend HR's time. You don't need to integrate them into your company's fabric. You just assign them a task and a deadline, and they will begin working on their own. And when they are finished, you simply take their work and apply it to your operations.

3. Reach:

You will have access to the outsourced team’s existing networks, which can help your social networks grow bigger - and faster.

It is in the best-interest of a social-networking consulting company to promote your business themselves. When the consulting firm markets the services that they provided for your business, they have to mention what your company does and how great you are. By promoting you, they promote themselves! It creates something similar to what is termed the "multiplier effect" in economics -- the effect of one action snowballs as it moves through the chain of media, Internet users, businesses, and other people. The online-marketing term "viral" is simply a new word for an old idea. By outsourcing your social-media efforts, you essentially gain two online-marketing packages for the price of one.

4. Experience:

You’ll also benefit from your outsourced team’s experience with other clients. This will allow you to avoid pitfalls and learn about options and alternatives.

Odds are, a local online-marketing outsourcing company has already worked with a business like yours -- they might have even worked with one of your competitors! But do not be alarmed -- being the "first-mover" or "first-to-market" is not always an advantage. If the consulting company has already worked in your field, they likely already know, for example, which keywords, networks and platforms are best. They might also know which keywords your competitors did not use -- and, therefore, you can capitalize on that missing element. In terms of social media, the firm may already know which networks are best suited to your purpose (like, for example, Twitter rather than Facebook). The competitors in your market who were the first to use these strategies did not have this benefit -- but, if you wanted until now to venture into Web 2.0, you do!

5. Synergy:

An experienced team will be able to create an integrated system of social media tools and channels, rather than a loose patchwork, allowing you to maximize your social media “nodes” for greater impact.

6. Strategy:

An outside social media team can help you develop a strategy and keep you focused on achieving long-term goals.

The benefit of hiring a consulting firm in this context is that it can see the big picture. If you are new to social media and online marketing, it is easy to focus on the digital trees and get lost in the virtual forest. Rather, an expert, outsourcing firm can create an overall online-marketing plan -- tailored to your niche and goals -- and show you how to implement it much more quickly than you could yourself. Remember, hours can matter in the online marketplace.

A B2B consultant or outsourcer also brings value simply because of the fact that the company is independent of your organization. There is no interoffice politics, no turf warfare between departments, and no one who tells a boss simply what he wants to hear even if the employee disagrees. You pay a consultant to provide his honest, blunt advice and to help you achieve your stated goal. And that is all. This is an obvious benefit in all areas -- not only in online-marketing.

7. Branding:

You want to select a partner with marketing and design capabilities in addition to social media know-how. The right team will make sure that everything you do supports your overall marketing strategy, including branding and identity.

Marketing Communications ROI Analysis: Calculating the Total Cost Per Qualified Lead

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:24:15 GMT

The use of online marketing and social media channels such as blogs, LinkedIn and Twitter are becoming key tools in generating new leads according to a new survey.

With marketing staff and budgets tighter than ever become, it is time to think about new strategies for connecting the dots and marketing more efficiently. Lead generation via search marketing, social media, content marketing and PR should be considered under one integrated marketing plan to maximize effectiveness and business value. Traditional, outbound marketing is largely broken and news to be considered in the context of overall cost per lead.

The use of online marketing and social media channels such as blogs, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are becoming key tools in generating new leads according to a new survey.

A recent survey, 2010 State of Inbound Marketing, by HubSpot revealed some staggering results and the growth of inbound (online) marketing.

Average cost per lead for outbound (traditional) marketing was $332. Outbound marketing includes trade shows, direct mailers, cold calls, etc.
Average cost per lead for inbound marketing (social media sites, blogs, SEO, etc.) was $134. - 60% less
Social media sites and blogs are the most cost-effective ways to generate leads out of all marketing activities (trade shows, mailers, telemarketing, etc.
63% of respondents estimated that these tools were ”below average cost” for lead generation.
88% of those surveyed are either maintaining or increasing their inbound marketing budgets in 2010.
61% of respondents reported that they publish a company blog compared to 48% a year ago.
85% of respondents rated company blogs as useful or better in 2010.

The survey by HubSpot not only reveals that companies are using online marketing tools but they are seeing results (i.e. lower average cost per lead). In the apparel and fashion industry, the use of online marketing tools
(social media sites, blogs, SEO, etc.) is growing but traditional forms of marketing still dominate the landscape in our industry. Unfortunately, traditional marketing techniques – including direct mail, print advertising and trade shows – are becoming less effective. Buyers are not only finding ways to tune these messages out (do-not-call lists, TIVO, email spam filter, etc.), but more importantly they now have the capability to evaluate the products and services they need on their own.

As more data such as the HubSpot survey becomes public knowledge, we expect online marketing to become a key element in marketing campaigns. There are some companies that are expanding their marketing efforts to include social media tools. The opportunity is there for companies in our industry to leap-frog their competition using online marketing tools (social media sites, SEO, ebooks, white papers, etc). The question is – who will make the commitment to online marketing and establish themself as a clear leader in our industry?

New Study: Consumers Expect Brands to Engage with Them in Social Media

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:32:58 GMT

New Study: Consumers Expect Brands to Engage with Them in Social Media
10.22.09 by Blake Cahill

Well, is that really anything new? Haven’t consumers always expected attention and respect when they walked into a retail store or when they called a companies contact center? The rising chorus of social network users (4 out 5 US adults online interacted with a social site in ‘09 - Forrester) continue to up the expectation for brands and companies with respect to presence and interaction online. The 24 X 7 consumer and social technologies have enabled new-media users with an ongoing interaction cycle that necessitates attention from brands.

A new study that was just release from Cone reports that among new-media users, a staggering 78% of them interact with companies or brands via new media sites and tools — up from 59% the year before. And that these users are conversing with brands more often: 37% say they interact at least once a week — which is up from one in four when Cone did the study last year.

At this point it is simply not enough to just have a social media presence (although 95% of users expect it.) Increasingly, consumers are looking for companies and brands that have Web sites (58%) and email (45%) which I find extremely low percentages by the way. But, to also have involvement in social networks, such as Facebook and MySpace (30%) and online games (24%). Additionally, despite the annoyance of pop-ups and other intrusive ad methods 43% say they want to see companies advertise online up from 25% last year.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of Cone’s data, however, is that consumers strongly believe that social media is a two-way street, with 62% saying that they can influence business decisions by voicing their opinions through social channels. Additionally, about 25% have contributed their point of view on an issue or contacted a company directly (23%), and most want the conversation to be two-way — 74% expect companies to join conversations about their companies and brands.

Some of the data is inline with other studies I have seen and some of it seems a little be low. Will cross reference with earlier posts and provide updates with how this compares.

Desperately seeking metrics: what’s the business case for social media?

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:27:32 GMT

Desperately seeking metrics: what’s the business case for social media?
by Kelly Feller

About a week ago I became famous. Well, ok–famous inside the company where I work. But since that company (Intel) employs around 85,000 people, I’m going to do a happy dance for this proverbial five minutes of fame as they may be all I get. How did this come about? Recently the team of company journalists who publish our intranet found my internal company blog on social media and decided to link to it on the front page of the intranet website. This sparked an amazing dialogue, with nearly 9,000 views and 50 comments. And it was interesting to see the reactions of folks from a company like Intel–where it’s not unusual to run into colleagues who have worked at the company for 30+ years. (Intel is celebrating its 40th year this year).
My blog post, and the subsequent discussion, focused on whether employees should be encoraged to participate in social media externally. (Internally we already encourage the use of blogs, the Intelpedia wiki, and other collaboration tools). And I was surprised to see how widely people’s sentiment of social media varied. From extreme “be very afraid” to “keep up the good work,” many of these comments asked for the same thing: show me why.
Being the good marketer that I am, I scuried back to my cube to roll up my sleeves and track down how to measure the effectiveness of our social media (marketing) efforts so I could return and win over all the naysayers. Simple task, right? Not!
It turns out that measuring the “value” of corporate social media (marketing) efforts is an inexact science. Folks are definately talking about it–like Jeremiah Owyang and Rodney Rumford from Forrester. And their fresh approach helps us get closer to analyzing how social media efforts make a difference in a corporate marketing strategy. For example, they ask us as marketers to move beyond traditional marketing metrics that measure quantitative data like page views and clickthroughs–essentially traffic. Instead they suggest that we measure “engagement” and focus on these key areas:
Involvement - are customers present? (includes traditional analytics like traffic)
Interaction - are our customers are taking action? (downloading white papers, etc.)
Intimacy - what is customer sentiment or affinity? (how they feel about us)
Influence - are customers are talking about us?
But now that we know what to measure, it’s how to measure that is the next chapter in this ongoing saga. And we at Intel are definately working on that right now as we analyze several pilots that measure the tone of conversations both on and off domain. We’re also looking to capture the frequency with which our products are mentioned in certain dialogues or discussions.
In essence, however, social media makes tracking the ROI of marketing programs more complicated. No longer do easily digested and spit-out metrics–like traffic–successfully capture the effect a company’s social media (marketing) efforts are having on how their customers feel about them. And this makes marketers and company executives who are constantly analyzing the return on investment crazy. I suppose I better be careful. I wouldn’t want to be famous for that.

Bill Palmer speaks at CGT Executive Conference on Social Media

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:58:11 GMT

www.consumergoods.com

Consumer Goods Business & Technology Leadership Conference - formerly known as the CGT Fall Conference
Turning Challenges into Opportunities through Effective Collaboration
October 18 - 21, 2009 | Ritz Carlton | Orlando, FL
The annual 11th Annual Consumer Goods Business & Technology Leadership Conference has been renamed to better reflect the content, direction, and goal of the event. It remains the industry's premier conference committed to providing a centralized leadership forum for CG executives to network with peers, share ideas and experiences, and learn about important industry trends. This year's theme of collaboration will build on previous year's discussions and enable attendees to take home actionable ideas to help improve their business success.

Topics covered will include:

- Collaboration with Retailer Customers
- Leveraging Emerging Technologies
- Understanding Consumer Trends
- Tech Trends Panel
- Shared Strategy Panel
- The Last 100 Feet: Winning at the Shelf
- Sustainability
- Analytics / Business Intelligence
- Demand Planning
- DSD
- Downstream Data
- Using Mobile Technology to Empower your Sales Force
- Innovation and IT

Bill Palmer to Host AAPN Seminar on Social Media at Material World LA

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:15:30 GMT

AAPN and Activate Media group will host a seminar on leveraging Social Media in the Fashion Industry at Material World Los Angeles on September 30-October 2, 2009. Look for room and exact time information in the Show Directory.

MATERIAL WORLD ADDS WEST COAST EDITION IN FALL ‘09

“Material World West” Brings Global Fashion, Style Production Event To
Los Angeles Convention Center -- September 30-October 2, 2009

Urban Expositions and the American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA) will launch a West Coast fall edition of Material World, September 30-October 2, 2009, at the Los Angeles Convention Center in California. Titled Material World West, the new edition will complement the well-established spring Material World Miami Beach event by bringing the extensive resources of the global fashion and style production event to a key target audience of apparel, home and footwear industry members from the Pacific Rim and United States, with special emphasis on the Western region.

“The industry has been encouraging us to bring Material World west for many years,” explains Tim von Gal, President of Material World. “California has the most important fashion manufacturing and import base in the United States. It is the home of top name brands and leading designers. California’s international accessibility lends itself to a diverse mix of participation. For those reasons and L.A.’s indisputable reputation as a Fashion city, it is the ideal location for a fall edition of our event.”

“The addition of Material World West will create new opportunities for all members of AAFA and our partnering organizations,” said Kevin M. Burke, president and CEO, AAFA. “Further, the new show will highlight the dynamic and growing West Coast apparel industry to our international partners.”

Material World West is an official event of the AAFA and is endorsed by other leading associations, including the American Apparel Producer’s Network, California Fashion Association, National Textile Association, and National Council of Textile Organizations. Material World West plans to work with other local and regional industry associations to benefit their membership.

Leading trend forecasters Pantone and Stylesight will extend their support of Material World to the California edition. Pantone is the official color authority of Material World and Stylesight is the official trend partner of the event.

Material World West will be a comprehensive presentation of the fashion and style industry supply chain. “Material World is more of an international product-development show for the fashion and style industries than it is just a textile show,” said Ilse Metchek, executive director of the California Fashion Association. “My understanding is that it will focus more on technology, equipment, facilitation, and the supply side of product development, including denim textiles and finishing organizations; segments not currently included in the local show.”

"Los Angeles is where fashion trends begin and we are delighted to welcome Material World to the Downtown region, the hub of the apparel industry on the West Coast," said Mark Liberman, president and CEO of LA INC., The Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau. "The apparel and textiles industry is the largest manufacturing sector in LA county and we are looking forward to hosting such a popular trade show that will showcase one of our City's most well-known attributes." The apparel and textiles industry generates $24.5 billion annually in wholesale volume, and Los Angeles employs more people in teh apparel and textiles industry than New York City.

While the Miami Beach and Los Angeles events will each highlight seasonal trends, timely educational opportunities and a tremendous selection of fabric, trim, technology and sourcing products and services, each edition will also capitalize on its geographical location to highlight key areas of focus that will differentiate it from the other.

Focusing on California’s position as a major manufacturing and fashion center, Material World West will bring together a broad base of traditional fabric, sourcing, technology and logistics resources. In addition, the West Coast event will include home fabrics resources and a garment production equipment and machinery section. Building upon Los Angeles’ proven position as the place where trends happen, Material World West will also feature expanded trend pavilions and forecasting presentations.

Entering its ninth year, the Miami Beach event, scheduled for April 21-23, 2009, capitalizes on the city’s undisputed position as an international trading hub and United States gateway to Latin America. It is also a city that naturally draws traffic from all over the US, Canada and Latin America. In fact, many of the country’s largest sourcing groups have set up their sourcing operations in Miami. For Latin America in particular, the Miami venue delivers a centralized trade show offering the largest fabric product and sourcing opportunities, technology and fashion information.

Like its Miami Beach counterpart, this exhibition will showcase the introductions and innovations from leading companies from around the world in every sector of apparel and home industries, including fabric and textiles, trims and components, full package/contract manufacturers, service providers, technology solutions, equipment and machinery.

The September 30-October 2, 2009 event is expected to attract key decision-makers, including presidents, general managers, chief information officers, manufacturing vice presidents, sourcing executives, product development executives, designers, manufacturers, purchasing agents, marketing executives, branded apparel companies and retailers, including mail order, private label and e-business, importers and others.

For 2009, both editions of Material World will also put a special spotlight on green products/services, performance, Technology Solutions and global matchmaking through special advance and on-site marketing efforts and focused educational tracks.

MATERIAL WORLD WEST QUICK FACTS:

Hours:         Wednesday, September 30, 2009 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
                   Thursday, October 1, 2009              10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
                     Friday, October 2, 2009                 10:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.

Location: Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA

Travel: For discounted hotels, call Connections at 1.800.262.9974

Show Info: For exhibitor or attendee information on Material World, call 1.800.318.2238 or 678.285.3976.
E-mail: mwinquiry@urbanexpositions.com

WWD Article: "Social Media Rewrites the Rules for Brands"

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:39:52 GMT

Social Media Rewrites the Rules for Brands
by LAUREN BENET STEPHENSON
From WWD ISSUE 06/24/2009

Fashion houses, designers and retailers are rushing into the free social
media phenomenon that is reshaping not only interpersonal communication, but
how apparel, accessories and beauty products are marketed and sold.

They are tweeting, blogging and updating their profiles in an effort to mold
their brand personalities on real-time global platforms and form
relationships with a community of customers, particularly consumers for whom
the Web is as important as a limb.

“Customers can feel like they are part of the brand’s extended family, and
therefore the brand itself, while the interactive element further deepens
that relationship,” said Alex Bolen, chief executive officer of Oscar de la
Renta. “These characteristics address and satisfy that ‘tribal’ part of the
fashion consumer — the way in which people identify themselves by the brands
they buy.”

A key component of social media “is real-time feedback — an ability to
accurately measure marketing results,” Bolen said. “While this aspect of the
Internet’s promise has yet to be fully realized, one can adjust, fairly
quickly, to emphasize those initiatives that are working best.”

The newness of the platforms has made quantifying the sales impact of social
media tough to pinpoint, although companies cite rising Web traffic and more
customers using promotions.

“How do you quantify something that prevents a customer service problem that
could’ve been a disaster,…[that] can create new buzz for a new product?”
asked Paul Argenti, a professor of corporate communications at Dartmouth
College’s Tuck School of Business. “How do you quantify that? Where else can
you get that kind of instant feedback? It’s all unquantifiable and all
incredibly useful.”

Reggie Bradford, ceo of Vitrue, a social media consulting firm, believes
it’s important to view the situation in reverse, saying a brand will
ultimately be “measured in growth or losses by being there [on social media]
or not being there.”

More than any marketing medium, including print, where advertising is
suffering, social media give brands a chance to be a part of a dialogue
about their own companies. In this new and evolving framework, everyone is a
participant. According to Forrester Research, Facebook, with an estimated
200 million users, classifies two-thirds of its users as being of
post-college age, with 35-plus the fastest-growing demographic. Twitter, a
platform for messages of 140 characters or less that had 20 million unique
visitors in May, has 42 percent of its users in the 35-to-49 age range and
20 percent ages 25 to 34.

You don’t have to be famous to get a following, but it helps. The king of
the Twitter hill is Ashton Kutcher, who got into the game early and has more
than 2.3 million followers. Oprah Winfrey, whose first tweet didn’t come
until April — “HI TWITTERS. THANK YOU FOR A WARM WELCOME. FEELING REALLY
21st CENTURY” — now has over 1.6 million followers.

The fascination with fashion has even helped breed followings for Twitterers
masquerading as major industry figures, including fakekarl (Lagerfeld) and
fakeanna (Wintour). WWD’s own Twitter page has grown to more than 688,000
followers from a mere 200 since its launch in February.

Designers such as Rachel Roy and Charlotte Ronson share snapshots of their
personal lives and their company’s activities via social media.

Brands including Gap, Victoria’s Secret, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Nike
and Adidas also have tapped into YouTube, MySpace and other sites, where
their videos, commercials, behind-the-scenes footage and fashion shows are
posted.

“Everyone wants to know what makes [designers] tick, why they design, and
get closer to the brand,” said Frances Pennington, vice president of global
marketing for Juicy Couture.

Ronson said she updates her Twitter fans at least daily “letting them know
if something new comes in or something sells well. It’s a good way to keep
everyone connected.”

The designer maintains a Twitter page for her business —
Twitter.com/shopronson — with 2,084 followers since starting in the last
three months. It includes examples of the Twitter-as-marketing technique,
such as a recent tweet that said, “Just got in some great Rag & Bone
items…hats, ties and belts…come check it out!!!”

Ronson’s attention to her Twitter page has yielded results in her retail
site’s traffic. About 10 percent of Ronson’s total site traffic originates
on Twitter, and 93 percent are new visitors. Ronson also posts daily updates
on her personal Twitter page, Twitter.com/cjronson, which has 11,946
followers, with musings about her day, such as, “I’m watching ‘Funny Face,’
the musical with Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire…Need I say more…”

Roy tweets several times daily on Twitter.com/rachel_roy and has attracted
1,672 followers who frequently retweet — the Twitter term for forwarding a
message — her posts. The designer mixes promotional tweets, such as, “The
entire RR 2010 Resort Collection Lookbook has been posted on Rachel Roy’s
official Facebook Page. Check it out,” with more personal tweets — “I found
some cute wellies by Hunter for my daughter and I — green for me and purple
for her. Here’s a link to more.”

The juxtaposition is engineered to nurture ties with customers. “I hope that
my relationship with customers will become more intimate as they get to know
me beyond my designs,” she said.

Facebook relaunched its company page platform in March with more options for
organizations to elevate “the power of the brand,” said Tom Arrix, the
site’s vice president of U.S. sales. The result is a company page that looks
identical to a user’s page, with a “Wall” where the company and its fans can
post messages, photos and video; a tab for information about the company,
and additional tabs where a firm can add everything from sale promotions to
trailers for new ad campaigns.

Facebook offers its users the ability to “fan” a firm or brand — a component
that sets it apart from a standard company Web site. Once a user has
“fanned” a brand, the business has direct access to them and is able to send
messages and updates via a constant news feed on the user’s home page.

The result is a “powerful brand advantage….The company is now in the middle
of two-way communication with their consumer,” Arrix said.

To join Twitter, a user creates a free user name and password and then sifts
through a search function to find friends and companies the user would like
to “follow.” Once a user is following a company, the user’s home page is
refreshed with every update that company sends. For instance, if
LouisVuitton_US tweets “Louis Vuitton’s new Core Values campaign profiled in
today’s @nytimes,” all 10,492 of its followers will see this message on
their home pages.

Some naysayers may find it hard to understand why a person would invite a
company into their virtual personal life by fanning a company on Facebook or
following them on Twitter, but millions have done just that.

It remains difficult to decipher what an online following means for
companies in the long term. The more established Facebook and MySpace now
have retention rates of almost 70 percent, according to Nielsen Media.
However, Nielsen Media estimated more than 60 percent of first-time Twitter
users neglected to return to the site after a month.

Vitrue created a Social Media Index to measure what people are talking about
online. The index is generated from an algorithm that scours the Internet
for a specific term on searches and social media networks and produces a
score. The higher the score, the more frequently that term has been
mentioned on the Web. Vitrue looked at 35 major fashion brands and retailers
from May 26 to June 1. The five most-talked-about brands were Gucci, Target,
Gap, American Apparel and Urban Outfitters.

These brands are, not coincidentally, active on social platforms. They
“leverage their presence on social networks, have great content [updated
frequently] and tools for engagement and conversation,” Bradford said.

“Fashion brands are emblematic of a person’s personality and how they want
to be perceived; it’s woven into [her] identity,” he said. “Everybody loves
brands — whether they’re generic or Gucci. It’s a statement.”

Gucci first became involved with Facebook in November 2008 after noticing
that about 50,000 fans had signed up for a Gucci page started by a person
unaffiliated with the fashion label. So Gucci decided to launch a company
page, raising the fan count to its current total of 402,502.

The weekly updated page contains original video uploaded to the site, photos
from events and new product announcements.

The Gucci by Gucci label launched its Twitter page —
twitter.com/GuccibyGucci — in March and has 2,840 followers.

The “currency of the Internet is such that if you’re not updating on a
timely basis, individuals are disappointed,” said Robert Triefus, worldwide
marketing and communications director for Gucci. “In fact, it can end up
backfiring.”

Target has used its Facebook page — with 452,856 fans — for advertising its
latest designer collaborations. The retailer most recently posted a video of
Dror Benshetrit explaining his collection for Target. The chain also used
the page to publicize its philanthropic efforts through a user-interactive
application. The company launched the “Bullseye Gives” campaign that allowed
its users to vote on the charity to which Target should give money. When a
user chose a charity, she was offered the option of publishing her choice to
her own news feed.

For instance, if Facebook user Jane Smith voted for Red Cross, it would
appear on her home page and on all of her friends’ news feeds, with the
message “Jane Smith voted for the Red Cross for the Target Bullseye Gives
project,” with a link to the Target Facebook page. This component is
illustrative of the allure of Web 2.0 — interacting with a customer who then
spreads the company’s message.

Gap has a Facebook fan page with 321,875 fans, and is active on Twitter with
5,269 followers. The Gap Facebook page has videos of designer Patrick
Robinson talking about the brand, as well as photos of events and original
content.

Urban Outfitters posts promotions and events, and encourages its 101,453
Facebook fans and 27,948 Twitter followers to get involved with the brand. A
recent Facebook post read: “It’s your favourite time of the year again —
Sale Time. Our Boutique sale starts today online and in store! This means
Luella, See by Chloé, Anglomania by Vivienne Westwood, Thomas Burberry,
Karen Walker, Peter Jensen et al. are all waiting for you; but not for
long!”

Within four days, 72 Facebook users had responded to that post, one of whom
recommended a particular Urban Outfitters location, saying, “Best sale
upstairs at santana row!”

When American Apparel and its ceo, Dov Charney, were embroiled in a lawsuit
filed by Woody Allen over unauthorized use of his image, the company used
its Twitter page, with 31,167 followers, and Facebook page, with 133,577
fans, for direct access to customers by posting its official statement on
Facebook and linking to Twitter. “We were able to speak and reassure
customers,” said Ryan Holiday, an American Apparel spokesman.

According to company estimates, 10 percent of all traffic to
americanapparel.net originates from four social media sites — Facebook,
Twitter, Chictopia and LookBook.

Oscar de la Renta and Donna Karan have each dedicated a Twitter page to
their “PR girls” — Twitter.com/OscarPRgirl and Twitter.com/dkny.
OscarPRgirl, which promotes itself as “reporting from inside one of the
world’s most prestigious design houses,” began tweeting on June 4 and has
162 followers. A recent tweet: “Hathaway is the new Hepburn: Anne H. looking
impossibly chic @ the tony awards in Oscar de la Renta.”

The DKNY page, which launched on May 8 and has 981 followers, bills itself
as providing “behind-the-scenes scoop from inside DKNY” written by a “PR
girl.” The tweets are personality-laced messages that promote the Donna
Karan label, such as “So great! Karen Olivo won the TONY (Award for “West
Side Story”). She looked so chic in Donna. Huge pic in the @dailynews.”

Betsey Johnson began her Twitter page, Twitter.com/xoBetseyJohnson, Jan. 23
and has 8,068 followers. The page is updated several times daily with
promotional tweets such as “Don’t miss out on our Memorial Day sale!
Tomorrow is your last day to save 30%!” mixed with attentive dialogue with
her followers — for instance one follower said “doing some damage on the
@xoBetseyJohnson Web site. retail therpy” and xoBetseyJohnson responded
“Nice! Everyone needs retail therapy! Xox”).

“We saw [social media] as a real opportunity to reach out to customers, to
use it as free advertising and be a human voice for the brand,” said Agatha
Szczepaniak, public relations director.

Kate Spade coined the term “tweetwriter” — a combination of “Twitter” and
“typewriter” — as a tool in the company’s venture into social media. The
Tweetwriter is an antique typewriter, which was set up in the brand’s Fifth
Avenue store in May. The staff encourages customers to type messages they
would like to see on the Kate Spade Twitter page, which has 641 followers.
Eclectic entries such as, “from 135 5th ave: i could watch the clouds pass
all day” fill the page, giving it a quirky feel. Lindsay Stevens, director
of marketing and strategy, said the aim is to project “a collective point of
view from our customers.”

Juicy Couture launched an interactive social media platform on its own site,
called Club Couture. The technology allows consumers to put together looks
from the collection and share the outfits with friends who can then rate the
outfit and create their own.

This social interaction has resulted in a conversion rate 162 percent higher
than any other part of the site — meaning a user who happens upon the Club
Couture page on the company’s Web site is 1.62 times more likely to purchase
an outfit on the site than if she had been browsing any other page on
juicycouture.com.

It is essential for businesses to have a clear strategy and goals regarding
social media, said analyst Diane Clarkson of Forrester Research, who wrote
the report, “How Twitter Can Influence eBusiness.” Diving in without them is
not a viable option.

Social media is “a little bit of a Pandora’s box,” Gucci’s Triefus said. “If
you’re going to get involved, you have to have the resources to be able to
do it correctly.”

If a brand isn’t vigilant, a constantly adapting, public organism like
Twitter or Facebook might do more harm than good. For instance, a “Twitter
storm” is a digital mob of sorts that forms around a topic or current event
— which, when negative in nature, can harm a company’s image if there’s no
counterpoint from the brand in question.

“We’ve seen Twitter storms with fast backlash when a company does something
that [fans] don’t like,” Clarkson said. “I’d want someone accountable for
the brand to be behind that.”

What appears certain, however, is social media platforms will keep evolving,
proliferating and gaining influence.

“The fashion world is shifting, needs are changing and people’s shopping
habits are changing….It’s clear that [consumers on social media] are part of
the overall fashion conversation,” Roy said. “And I don’t think that is
going to change.”

Activate to Address Secrets of Social Media in Keynote Speach at Apparel Executive Forum

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Mark your calendar for the 9th Annual Apparel Executive Forum – "Maximizing Performance in a New Apparel Environment."

Our new format for 2009 includes hands-on executive workshops offering high-value, results-oriented strategic and tactical information. Watch for details!

This invitation-only event delivers a unique high-level networking and thought leadership experience to apparel, brand and retail executives, providing targeted and highly relevant industry intelligence designed to improve decision making.

PLUS, Compelling Keynotes:
Moving Beyond the Data to Target New Growth Opportunities, presented by Marshal Cohen, Chief Industry Analyst, The NPD Group Inc.

Unveiling the Secrets of Social Media for the Fashion Industry, presented by Bill Palmer, Lead Brand Architect, Activate Media Group
Early bird discount registration fee of $595 now available until July 24!

When registering, enter "AEF595" in the promo code box to receive your early bird registration rate. If you have any questions or would like to register please call Jaime Palladino at (973)-588-4011 or email him at jpalladino@edgellmail.com.

Visit us at www.apparelmag.com

The Definitive Guide to Social Media Press Releases

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The report below is from PR 2.0 guru Brian Solis.

The Social Media Release is back in the spotlight once again and its sparking conversations, inspiring experiments, and raising confusion along the way.

This time, intent and distribution take center stage.

Good friends Todd Defren and Christopher Lynn took the time to research how wire services are positioning their products for Social Media. TGreat work guys!

Basically, when you call your local representative, you’re presented with the following capabilities.

Now, whether these stats are accurate, that’s up to what you discover through direct research. Ultimately, you have to hear directly from your rep and try these for yourself in order to draw exact conclusions. But, as Defren points out, his research is representative of what the wire services "know and sell" right now.

So, this brings up a couple of important points:

How do you distribute these things?

And, is this what reporters and bloggers really want and do we really need them?

OK, NEWS FLASH….

For Immediate Release:

Press Releases Are Only One Way To Tell Your Story; Social Media Releases Can Complement Traditional Releases

DATELINE: The Blogosphere -- NOW -- Brian Solis, a “leader” in what should be nothing more than the obvious, today announced that Social Media Releases can complement your outbound communications strategy based on what the people you’re trying to reach want to see and how. They do not replace Traditional Releases.

“I am so pleased and excited that the PR industry is interested in something new to help reach journalists, bloggers and their customers,” said Brian Solis, author of the PR 2.0 blog. “But, I’m sorry to say, that just because a new tool is available to you, you still have to make your story interesting, relevant, and newsworthy. The Social Media Release is not going to miraculously fix a hyperbole-ridden, over-stated, incomprehensible document riddled with BS. The people that matter to you are simply seeking context, relevance, what’s new, what you do, why it matters, how it’s different, and to whom. You still have to do your homework and write something compelling and clear.”

# # #

Why Do We Need the Social Media Release?

OK folks, it’s time to separate the hype from the hope.

I think we’re learning “how” to create Social Media Releases, aesthetically at least. But, I don’t see many discussions that effectively and clearly say “why” we need them.

There's plenty of talk. And, there’s definitely no shortage of critics out there. And to some extent, I too am skeptical of any one tool that carries the hopes of an industry to magically change the popular perception of PR and press releases in general.

But, IMHO, the SMR is an important icebreaker for the bigger discussions of how and why we should write better press releases in general.

I use them in conjunction with traditional releases and they work extremely well. Personally, I prefer using a blog platform to create and distribute them.

Are they as effective when distributed through a a wire service?

For example, let’s use MarketWire’s recent launch of its new Social Media Release service, “Social Media 2.0” as a case study to see if we can answer why Social Media Releases are worth our time and if they really work. Disclosure, Thom, Kevin, I’m a big fan of MarketWire, so what follows is just an open discussion of a public launch related to a relevant topic.

Facts:

MarketWire recently acquired Kevin Dill’s PRNN service, which was an effective solution for distributing releases online.

Now part of MarketWire, Kevin helped the company build a new Social Media solution dubbed, “Social Media 2.0, the Industry's Most Authentic Social Media Product.”

They announced it via a Social Media Release format, a service which I also helped them manually code over the course of several announcements starting in 2006.

First, let’s examine the headline, “Marketwire Unveils Social Media 2.0: Industry's Most Authentic Social Media Product.”

The only reason I’m calling this out, outside of the Social Media ingredients that define the release, is because any product related to Social Media Releases is important and especially relevant to the discussion. Whether Traditional or Social, this headline unfortunately contributes to PR’s usual tendency to hype, hype, and hype some more. It steals from the significance of Social Media and the SMR, demonstrating why PR has a hard time getting taken seriously. Thom, Kevin, consult with us first. It’s free and it’s only going to help the bigger cause that we’re all collaboratively working towards.

Wanna know what the industry’s most authentic Social Media product is?

Blogs.

Instead of being the most authentic social media product, it instead comes across as a disingenuous and an opportunistic attempt at capitalizing on something momentous and “open.”

The intro paragraph, aside from the hype, serves well for ensuring that the release gets indexed in traditional search engines. Their intro paragraph is packed with key words, which will help it show up in search.

Here are a few examples how well it did for searching “social media” and “Marketwire”

Reuters

Google News

Yahoo News

Could it have been a bit more effective across other key words?

Yes, absolutely.

That’s the art of a SEO-optimized press release, which are complementary to SMRs and traditional press releases.

Did it too reasonably well?

Sure it did.

Here’s where most Social Media Releases fall down…

The link to Digg isn’t generating community voting the way that it does in say, a blog post.

Is this fixable?

Yes.

Unfortunately, the link to search context and discussions within Technorati isn’t yielding all of the discussions we know are present in the blogosphere.

Is this fixable?

Yes.

In the Bookmarking category, the MarketWire SMR has everything needed to ensure that people can save and share this link publicly within social networks.

The trackbacks function only provides a trackback URL, when it could also display a list of all places that responded to the news.

Instead of providing a hub to all external and orbiting conversations, it provides a count to discussions through traditional search engines.

Google

Yahoo

The embedded video and stills ensure that the conversations take place outside and around the news. For example, at the time of this article, the YouTube video featuring Thom’s intro to the new release service was viewed 333 times and counting. However, it’s missing the link back to the release should someone stumble upon it directly within YouTube. But, it’s still bringing the conversation to people and also allowing them to discover it within their networks.

Overall, aside from the “over the top” positioning, MarketWire demonstrated how a Social Media Release can spark conversations across the Social Web. As their coding improves, they’ll be able to track and promote the dialog more effectively, thus extending the conversation.

Unfortunately, though, the release isn’t gaining visibility within Social Media channels, which is an important step in tying everything together, and also promoting the information within the very networks that people go to discover and share information.

Everything else, including RSS feeds, work really well and I’m sure the SMR service will only get better. The products from PRNewswire, PRWeb, and BusinessWire, share similar capabilities, and most likely, results within the Social Media Sphere.

How could all of them improve?

Service providers and businesses looking to amply SMRs should extend the platform beyond an HTML Web page. Building something on a social platform such as WordPress, with full customization capabilities, delivers an inherent social ecosystem which supports the social tools of today and tomorrow and also ensures visibility and search ability using Social Search engines. Offering combo pricing for an SMR plus traditional distribution would raise the bar and create an entirely new playing field for sharing news across Social and Traditional networks.

What Makes a Social Media Releases Social?

Obviously a Social Media Release needs to feature Social Media ingredients, which includes links to bookmarking networks, contextual tags, the ability to track and host conversations, and also discover them within social networks. The inclusion of new features to simply make a fancy, shiny, new whiz bang press release doesn’t necessarily cut it.

So, what socializes a release?

A Social Media Release should contain everything necessary to share and discover a story in a way that is complementary to your original intent; but, the difference is, how they find it and the tools they use to share and broadcast.

Social Media is one big extension to the Web, except it promotes voices, along with content, in a way that focuses on people and their social networks.

Giving everyone what they need and how they need it, requires a different approach. Almost 100% of press releases issued today are done so without video or audio, which are underlying component of SMRs. But it's not about multimedia content, it's about connecting content across social networks and the people looking for it.

Social Media lowers the barriers to entry for companies to record, share and embed video and audio, and most importantly, allow people to also easily share with their audiences. The same can be said for all multimedia content.

Everything within Social Media now is widgetized, meaning that if you upload various content across social networks, you can embed it all in one place and repackage it under one brand umbrella. Without getting all geeky, these networks give you the “embed code” that you need to plop it somewhere. It's just cut and paste. What if the whole SMR was embeddable as well? That could be very cool!

So if we’re promoting conversations, shouldn’t we instill the ability to host or feature comments?

Absolutely.

Social Media is a two-way street and dialog sets the foundation for Social Media Releases.

The next step is discovery.

By placing content across social networks, properly tagging them (inserting relevant key words) within each, and linking back to your SMR (or blog post), you can effectively leverage visibility within each community, and also steer influence back to your intended impressions.

Obviously conversations should be ongoing, so part of socializing the release has a lot do with helping people staying connected and also find it again should they wish to see updates.

Make sure to check out co-comment, Tangler, and SezWho.

RSS for company news is one way to keep people tapped in to what you're doing. Offering links to simply that process could only help. For example, include linked icons for Bloglines, Netvibes, PageFlakes, and Google Reader. In addition, companies should also think about creating individual RSS feeds for product lines and specific services, to keep people connected to specific channels.

And if you’re feeling particularly inspired, creating an aggregated dashboard of relevant content, using Alltop or POPURLs as an example, bloggers, journalists, and customers can stay up to date and connected. Try experimenting with Netvibes to create something like this as a way of experimenting by tracking your favorite voices and stories on the Web. All it takes is an RSS feed.

So again, we ask, what makes a Social Media Release Social?

Well, at the end of the day, if you’ve ever written a blog post, much of what I’m describing already exists. There’s nothing to say that you couldn’t do this right now simply by creating a customized blog that is an extension of your company’s online newsroom.

However, if resources are limited, there are companies, including my own, which help you get there. Or, you can simply use existing services to recreate this process for every news release you wish to publish.

So, at the end of all of this, a Social Media Release should look something like this:

-----------------

Headline

Intro paragraph, rich with key words, relevance and context (summary)

Supporting facts

Quote

Embeddable Video (The new VNR)

Embeddable Audio

Embeddable Images

RSS for the company news

RSS for product info

Post in "insert social network of choice" (Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, or a relevant social network for sharing)

Blog this (links to blogging platforms)

Share on Twitter, Jaikue, Pownce or Tumblr

Bookmarks

Relevant links

Digg, Reddit, and other relevant news aggregators and communities.

Comments - Maybe also include a link to a hosted network on Ning or even a discussion forum on Tangler or Google Groups

Contact: hcard, vcard, LInkedIn, Facebook

-----------------

The Value of Social Media Releases

Even after we define the SMR, the same questions still come up:

1. Should we include sentences or is it supposed to be bullets?

2. Are we designing SMRs for “the wire” or the “web?”

3. Are SMRs created for journalists and bloggers and is it what they want?

4. Do SMRs need to spark and host conversations?

5. Can they, and should they, bypass influencers to reach people directly?

1- In order for these releases to show up in search engines, the truth is that an intro paragraph or two are necessary to help them index properly. Simply relying on bullets won’t get you anywhere, even if they’re sent directly to your contacts.

2 - I guess that parlays into the next point, SMRs should be designed for the Web, while a traditional release (say a compatriot release) is designed for the wire. Social Media Releases play to the strengths of the Web and also Social Media, a feature that wire services have yet to conquer.

3 - Personally, I’ve created SMRs with a private URL and shared with reporters and bloggers before the news was official (basically under embargo). They loved it and the ratio for pitching and publishing was almost 100%. But, all I’m doing is creating, positioning and packaging information in a way that’s relevant to them. The SMR in this case, becomes a wrapper for presenting information in a palatable and digestible way.

4 - Yes

5 - SMRs are more than just reporters and bloggers; they’re about people. When created properly, they can get discovered by the very people you want to reach and thus bypassing traditional influencers. I’m not saying that you should bank on this as a strategy, only think about it when you’re creating your press release strategy. You can write for both influencers and customers using a variety of Traditional, SEO, and Social press releases.

Yes, press releases show up in search engines.

Traditional Search Engines

Let’s start with the basics.

Traditional press releases distributed over wire services, for better or worse, ARE already showing up in search engines (especially Google and Yahoo News) as a natural part of the wire distribution process. Bottom line, press releases are already reaching people directly.

According to an Outsell study, over 51% of IT professionals report that they get their news from press releases in Yahoo and Google news over trade journals.

It's a fact that is changing the game for PR, and it's not only being driven by journalists, but customers too.

What it really represents is an opportunity to do things better. It all starts with making news relevant and writing it in a way that help people “get it.” An awful press release will still be awful, regardless of multimedia or social bling.

So, if traditional press releases already reach people, then why do we need a Social Media Release?

Search and Discovery in Social Media

Social Media Releases may look similar to today’s multimedia releases in format, structure and design, but depending on a series of factors, they have the ability to open up dialog in a way not possible with traditional or multimedia releases.

An important distinction between the two, discovered after spending the last two years experimenting with formats and distribution channels, is this: the content and structure of the SMR is only part of the equation.

What if the people you’re trying to reach are searching and sharing content outside of traditional online communities and instead, or in addition, actively participating in Social Media?

Helping SMRs appear within this realm is the true promise…otherwise they’re nothing more than a fancy wrapper for packaging news for their intended recipients. And, as any good PR person will tell you, providing a summary, images, video, and other supporting facts in one package, specific to their intended recipient, is something they’ve been doing for years.

SMRs are much more than bulleted text and links to multimedia content in social networks. It’s much more than simply sharing information. And, it’s definitely much more than providing building blocks for people to piece together.

SMRs are the hub for relevant content and also the catalyst for the socialization of news.

But, if nobody sees it, what good are they?

A big part of this socialization starts with “findability,” i.e. is the SMR discoverable inside or outside the world of Social Media?

Contrary to popular belief, search engines are not all created equal – especially in the world of Social Media.

The same tools that you use to find bloggers who cover the topics that are important to you, are also the same tools that someone can use to find your SMR (when done right).

- Technorati
- Blogpulse
- Google Blog Search
- Google Alerts

You probably didn’t know this, but most SMRs released to-date not readily discoverable by “social” search engines, even if you embed Technorati tags.

Yep, it’s true. The tags included in most SMRs will lead the reader to contextual links, but, the release itself will remain invisible in the social search engine. For example, click any Technorati Tag in any SMR out there and it will simply force a search for that keyword and produce all related blog posts on the subject, but the release itself won’t be part of the results unfortunately.

Please keep in mind that this is different that the “suggested” tags that you’re seeing in the hybrid examples out there today. If anything, they just help increase findability in traditional search.

Social Media Optimization (SMO)

To be “seen” by these blog-specific engines requires a separate social media optimization (SMO) aka blog search engine optimization (BSEO) process and an entirely different distribution mechanism. If the SMR is not published via a social platform (note: blogs are inherently social) like Wordpress or Blogger, it’s going to be ignored by Technorati, BlogPulse, Google Blog Search, et al.

Most often though, just to get things in perspective, if you place it on the Web or distribute via a traditional wire service, your release will in traditional search.

To apply SMO to your press release, again, think about blogging it in addition to your other release distribution.

Create a virtual fireside chat. Make sure to link each release to each other. And, if you upload content to social networks for embedding into your release, also ensure that there are links back to the releases.

The most important thing you can do to escalate visibility is to tag your content direclty within each social network with the relevant key words that someone might search when they’re looking for information. I can’t emphasize this enough.

Summary

Social Media Releases are only one way to tell your story and they can work extremely well when paired with a traditional release and an effective outbound media/blogger/influencer campaign.

Nothing beats knowing what you want to say, why it matters, and to whom. You still have to do your homework and you still have to write something compelling (meaning well written.)

Conversations are ultimately the tool that will help you spread the word and ignite additional word of mouth and also trigger customer responses.

Writing the news in a way that's helpful, informative, and relative is a critical starting point for any release, whether social, traditional, or SEO.

What this all means is that the future of the Social Media Release is up to you. Raise the bar. Experiment. Provide value. Remember, that releases, regardless of format, are only the tools that can help facilitate discussions, relationships, and also visibility. The ability to tell your story, your way, to the people that define your markets, is where we should all focus our time and effort...the rest, is simply a function of outreach.

Activate Partners with SPESA to Deliver Fashion Marketing 2.0 Webinar Series

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

SPESA, in collaboration with Activate Media Group, is hosting a four part series for SPESA members on marketing 2.0 for the sewn products industry.

Tired and stressed over bulky overhead and unneeded agency retainers? Smart brands recognize that the industry has changed and have begun to leverage new strategies and tools to transform tough times into tidy profits.

Fashion Business 2.0 is a strategy and a toolkit that allows people to build social and business connections, share information, and build “community” around shared interests. This includes blogs, social media, search engines, and online video to build awareness, demand, and loyalty.

In this web presentation Bill Palmer, lead brand architect with Activate Media Group, will share best practices specific to the apparel business and the challenges of B2B social media. You will learn the myths and key definitions in the new social media world, as well as tools and techniques specific to sewn products that can give you a new competitive advantage in the marketplace. This is not about spending more money, but learning how to be more effective with you budget by leveraging the cost-effective power of new media to generate outstanding business results.

Spesa will host 3 more Free Webinars in this series over the next 60 days on the following topics:

Web 2.0
Best practices and case studies for architecting and planning a new Web 2.0 initiative in Sewn Products.

Publicity 2.0
Leveraging the new social media press release and online newsroom to generate more press with less cost

Creative 2.0
Crafting and managing brand message in the sewn products industry. Trends and best practices from award-winning industry designers.