This week has been really interesting for me. I started a new job and left an old one behind. I made some great friends and really enjoyed my time at Nielsen. It was a lifetime of learning in a year. Thanks to all my Nielsen friends.
I guess the last few lines has you wondering where my career has taken me. The answer is to Atlas Solutions as a TAM. I am super excited and have been there three days but learned so much its amazing. I am looking forward to this path and all the challenges it has to offer it.
But, I digress. This post is about Twitter and the recent influx of followers I have recently received. As Twitter gains in popularity, I expect to see more notifications from people with backwards followers ratios but this week has seen a influx of dotcoms following me.
Is there something in the water that is making these folks think intruding into my lifestream will make me follow them back?
This post is long overdue but it’s still resonating in my head and therefore must be written (lol). A few weeks back, I penned a post about using the blogosphere to mine consumer-driven keywords from free text-analysis tools available on the web. In the post, I described the difference between what consumers say about your brand versus the internal verbiage used by employees and the ability to adjust search campaign spend appropriately based on consumers thoughts about your brand.
Its particularly interesting in the light of a May 19th post by Gerry Bavaro on the Mediapost Search Insider Blog. (here) In the article, he points out that analytics for search are one of the main factors of the rise of search and its huge spending forecast for the coming years.
I find it very interesting that when most people focus on the analytics of search they tend to look at the primary functions while completely ignoring the underlying causes. For example, we all get so focused on clicks we forget to wonder why someone clicks on a particular ad.
The psychology of the click is an integral part of understanding the nature of everything from visitors intent to consumers relationships with products. Why someone clicks, is the foundation of online advertising and could be considered the special sauce. It gives valuable insights into your brand’s position via the consumers mindset and motive when seeking out your services.
Lets face it, the closer you get to your consumer’s mindset, the better you will be in the long run.
Some data from my company, the latest information on social networks. Enjoy.
NIELSEN ONLINE PROVIDES TOP U.S. SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES AND BLOGS FOR APRIL 2008
Nielsen Online provides April’s top U.S. social networking sites and blogs for your reference. They are ranked by unique audience and rounded to the nearest thousand, so LinkedIn had 8.7 million unique visitors in April 2008, growing 361 percent over April 2007.
Please note that these are custom lists compiled by the Nielsen Online PR team with the help of our media analysts. While these lists are not meant to be exhaustive, they provide a good idea of the significant players in each space.
We periodically review the lists and add new sites, so the results may change accordingly. Please source data to Nielsen Online.
I just read this interesting story from the NY Times about online ad spending and the economy. It basically says that display advertisement is down across the board and search remains strong. Its not super surprising to think that in a time of economic slowdown that search with its increased ability to track is weathering this storm well. But I am slightly caught off guard that display has had such significant declines in recent months.
The NY Times reported 16% growth this April compared to 20% last year making the slow down about 4% year-over-year. Not a major slowdown but still enough to be alarmed especially in a weakening market. Although its too early to declare an end to online advertisement’s growth, the companies that can better attribute steps in the online sales funnel to display, stand to gain a great competitive edge.
Keyword research can be a daunting task. Relationships between consumers and brands can be like the difference between Japanese and English. Finding an appropriate starting point for setting up your first search campaign can be the biggest roadblock. After determining what product or products to build your campaign around putting together a great set of keywords is the next step.
Keywords form the spine of the your search campaign; getting these relationships right is important to your success. Where do you begin? Corporate websites, brochures and other marketing materials can be a good starting point for relevant terms being used to discuss your brand but they sometimes lack closeness to the consumer. Don’t be alarmed though because consumers have left a virtual digital treasure chest of keywords waiting be discovered in blogs, message boards and forums.
Here is my 5 step process to begin to gain insight in the blogosphere to what is being said and using it for keyword research:
- Compile a list of blogs that talk about your brand - Perhaps the most important step is to explore the blogosphere and see who is talking about you. Del.icio.us, Google Blog Search and Technorati are a great place to search your brand and see who is talking about you. Then put together a list of the ones you find to be have the most scope and activity. Look for plenty of comments and large readership. Check for hints including RSS subscribers and comments counts.
- Read and look for patterns of conversation - Pay particularly close attention to the comments and specific language being used to talk about your features, models and brands in them. Do they use model numbers or branded terms* to discuss products? Comments are insights straight from consumers about the language that is being developed around you. Tag clouds also hold interesting patterns.
- Make a list of terms - Compile a list of terms that you see in multiple places. Segment the list and make sure you don’t forget the long tail.
- Rank terms on list - Once you have a master list of all your consumer-driven keywords# put them in order of importance. Focus on consumer talk and how they might search for you not how you would search for your product.
- Decide how much to bid on terms - Should you bid more on terms that are from consumers or same? Should they be contextually driven or keyword? For instance, Chevy is used more in conversation than Chevrolet according to BlogPulse. Does this chart mean you should invest much more into contextual advertising for the term “chevy”? One thing is certain you would get more placement due to its increased term use.
These 5-steps are starting points for introducing consumer-driven keywords into your paid search campaign. You can not only increase your paid clicks but gain valuable CRM insights into your brand by adding them into your web strategy. The only question left is. When do we start?
* I remember when I worked at a satellite radio manufacturer we had one radio that was called: XTR1, Jimi and Stream | Jockey. Combing through forums, blogs and message boards would have yielded consumer preference for its name.
# Keywords that originate from consumers of a brand and are not necessarily brand driven.
Yesterday eMarketer reported that online advertising spend is approaching 10% of all media spending and will be there by 2009. Considering the accountability, that digital commands and traffic quality it should come as no surprise that money is shifting to online at a quicker pace than other media. But what are some of the social media trends that this move will precipitate? Here are three that I think will be important part of my work here at Nielsen Online.
1 - Social Media become increasingly salient as connection hotspots - As trust continues to erode in traditional media, consumers will look increasingly to social media as a trusted opinion for all sorts of decisions, from which restaurant to eat at or what jeans to buy. Malcolm Gladwell describes, in his book The Tipping Point, “weak links” as influential to humans for making connections that make ideas tip. These individuals will become even more important as online migration triggers even more diverse and larger groups of connections who will exert overwhelming force over trends and ideas. (As I write this, I have over 100 twitter friends most I do not know but they shape many of my opinions on any number of things)
2- Brands continue to fortify their digital positions - With dollars shifting to the internet so quickly, brands will rush to keep up with the digital consumer migration. Brands will increasingly face the tough questions about social media and what they should do in this new platform based web. Corporate blogs are not for everyone but opening up the lines of communication can benefit brands. The question is, what is the best way to leverage social media, to empower your consumers and gain valuable insights.
3- Web trust factor becomes site currency - Inevitably, web sites will come that try to game the system and erode consumer trust in social media. From this, will arise a digital trust factor that will eventually become a web currency. It could come in an organized fashion or maybe it will just be semantic based - meaning you don’t travel far from home on the web. You have a few sites you visit and trust based on history, promotion and recommendations and only visit them frequently. This trend will hasten the move to platforms that portalize you to the web at large - Facebook applications are a good example of this in action.
As we see all media continue its move to digital, these three trends are one to watch. Any I missed?
I have been a loyal Wachovia customer for 14 years now but lately I have been contemplating defecting to a new bank. Why? My defection has many reasons but mostly it has to do with my personal feelings toward their treatment of me. Personal banking should fulfill three needs for me at this point: convenience, low-fees and professionalism.
Let me explain how my dilemma evolved, I recently noticed that some online company has gotten my debit card number and fraudulently charged. I have complained to Wachovia numerous times and had the loss department open a case each time. They recommended a few fixes (which have all failed) including: ordering a new debit, contact said company (I could not find a listing to contact) and close my account and open a brand new one. I am currently on fix #4 and I am not hopeful that it will work.
Wachovia has failed me consistently on three of my personal needs over the last few months. Lets look at them separately:
Convenience – I am currently averaging about 16.00 a month in ATM withdrawals from other banks. The fact that Wachovia has not strategically placed their branches in Manhattan is the number one factor. Many of the branches seem to be located on the east side. In fact, on one stretch of Third Ave. you can find three Wachovia’s within a few blocks. But if you are on the West side you have to go for many blocks before you find one. Hence the high monthly fees in ATM withdrawals.
Low Fees – The free banking is nice but I have to compromise my convenience to enjoy it fully. They charge me infrequently for all sorts of things including charges I cannot normally explain. (Wachovia – I would love to know why I am randomly charged. Can you not just give me an itemization of the charges on my monthly balance?) It is deceptive practice to just throw some arbitrary number on my statement (arbitrary because It makes no sense to me).
Professionalism – I cannot complain about the local branch by my work. They do a tremendous job of helping me and trying to fix any errors. But the phone people are absolutely abhorrent. They are usually very unhelpful and place you on hold numerous times before asking you questions about your account that you have answered three times already. I am from Georgia but the accents on some of these phone people are scary and remind me of Deliverance. Can we get them some training on sounding like a bank?
Despite all this I continue to use Wachovia and have expanded my accounts to include the “way-to-save” account. Why? I have yet to find a bank that can satisfy my three personal needs. I guess we have to attempt to get as close to those as possible until some bank comes along and totally rewrites the rules. I am waiting.
A quick Blogpulse chart showing buzz on my hometown sports teams yields some interesting results. The Miami Dolphins seems to be the talk of the town even as we see the NFL season coming to a close. It reminds me of my Dad who always laments that “baseball will never get a decent base following because all Miami can talk about is the Dolphins.”
The two spikes you see for the Dolphins are of course in correlation to the New England Patriots quest for a perfect season. (Note: 1972 Dolphins are the only perfect season in the NFL) The Miami Heat spike comes from the trade of Shaquille O’Neal to the Phoenix Suns for Shawn Marion.
Woefully, the Marlins hardly register in buzz talk. With the stadium deal close to being signed and all the offseason trades there is hardly a peep from the blogosphere. I guess it goes to show “father knows best.”
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