KEY WORDS Online Community Social Media Contextual Advertising Trending Twitter
http://mikejmoran.typepad.com/files/pedestrian-by-bradbury-1.pdf
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very little physical newspaper, and even in that, loyalty changes every few months (You cant blame me! the standard of each newspaper being poorer than the next). I get most of my reviews of movies from comments people leave on Facebook, I get most news, articles of interest, and updates as an instant message from a friend on GTalk, Facebook or Skype. I research online for products, prices, and information. I track my investments online, and dont remember when I physically visited my main bankers.
masses to set up their own professional-looking content publishing sites. Instant blog updates would be sent to subscribers through RSS (really simple syndication protocol) so, no more visiting a site to get an update. And, Google genuinely turned the industry around by allowing people to actually earn money off their publishing by having Google display contextually relevant ads on the site. Google of course earned a big commission on these ads. So, unlike Geocities where the writers would be put off by the ads, here was an opportunity for them to make a bonus just writing the stuff they liked of course the writers did not mind the ads. And, Google made a lot of money off the commission off the long tail of writers (more about long tails below).
Wayback machine:http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
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One can build a community on platforms such as Jive and Ning. Most communities come with out-of-box tools for community interaction short message updates, profile pages, ability to add third-party widgets to the pages (Twitter, etc), newest members, active members, member scoring algorithms, etc. Or one can opt for building communities on open public frameworks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the like. One can create personal networks, with thousands of friends as part of the network -- you sneeze, and you can let the network know. Or you speak at a professional event and let the community know about it. One can create pages for brands or a cause or just about anything! Brand pages can have hundreds of thousands of followers, where brands can connect with their followers and fans and spread marketing messages.
the basis of the phrases that are used in an article. Google shows ads in Gmail on the basis of the content of the mail. Well, it is just a matter of time before we get ad SMS-es in the context to telephonic conversations we have with our friends. Context has been used very effectively by shopping sites offering suggestions such as people who bought this bought also bought; LinkedIn offers suggestions like people who viewed this profile also viewed, and news and information sites suggest related news and info to readers. Communities are all about context All people bound to the same cause or brand. All people liking the same story. All people with similar tastes and profiles. All people sharing the same bookshelf. All people who hate the movie Yaadein.
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revenues come from the really long tail of advertisers and spenders be it Google, Facebook, Farmville3 or an online book shop. Usability: The world of online is new, and most of us are still figuring out how to interact in that space. It is not like setting up a brick-and-mortar shop and knowing instinctively what goes into creating a good shop. It is not like designing a new magazine or a newspaper. Most of our conscious lives, we have visited shops and read magazines. But interacting online is different how do we tell all we need to tell in 10 seconds, and within the top viewable area of the page? How do we get users to fill up long passport and credit card forms when the systems might crash? They might do it across 4-5 sittings; they might have different people filling up different sections of the form. How do we assure that consumers are not confused while buying on the site, and would trust you enough to share the credit card details? It is important for us to make the sites usable or userfriendly (well, consumer-friendly, if you wish). Usability is an important branch of online marketing that is frequently missed by marketeers, but can go a really long way in retaining and attracting customers. Resources for usability are available under human-computer-interaction4 (HCI) nomenclature as well.
New Challenges
Of course, there are challenges aplenty. Social media and communities are a great place for people to engage with the brand. But if things go wrong (well, there can never be a guarantee that they wont), it would take very little for people to publicly denounce the brands product or service. And it may require a lot of experience and understanding to manage such outbursts. 9
ROI of e-mail Relevance: http://www.forester.com/rb/Research/ roi_of_email_relevance%2C_2009/q/id/5434 Some of the tools: LeadForce 1, TrueInfluence, ExactTarget, Boomerang Attributed to John Wanamaker of Lord Leverhulme Google Advertising Innovations: http://www.google.com/ads/innovations/index.html 1) Nestle mess shows sticky side of facebook pages 1 2) http://prdisasters.com/five-lessons-from-nestles-facebook-pr-disaster/
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http://www.farmville.com/ At Zynga, our mission is to connect people through games. We make social games that are free and accessible for everyone to play. http://www.hcibib.org/ Human Computer Interaction (HCL) is a discipline concerned with the design, evaluation and implementation of interactive computing systems for human use and with the study of major phenomena surrounding them.
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Spam is on the rise whether it is e-mail or content on websites or communities. Given the volume of content and the use of marketeers to use these mediums for their own end, it is getting increasingly difficult for users to sieve genuine content from advertorial or spam content. Given that the medium is so new, and things change almost everyday, it is difficult to predict outcomes, based on experience. One simply needs to try a lot and find the right mix for ones own self or take an experts advice.
One couldnt have predicted five years ago that Facebook would overtake Google on volume of traffic to their respective sites.. Three years ago, one couldnt have predicted the exponential growth of Twitter. Well, I really have no clue which of the current online properties will compete with Facebook or Twitter in the next few years. As marketeers and business owners, we need to be aware of the changing landscape and keep ourselves receptive to signals from the space; and adapt ourselves suitably to extract value in the windows of opportunities that present themselves. We are in for exciting times, and I am looking forward to it!
Nimish Vohra is the Vice President and Country Head (India) at Regalix, and is responsible for driving business development and client satisfaction. He has over a decade of experience in digital marketing, human factors, and creative design. He has helped turn around many BtoB and BtoC businesses, including that of one of worlds largest banks. His areas of interest include ROI-oriented marketing, role of creative messaging in ROI, Web2.0, and optimal digital footprint for established businesses and startups. He comes to Regalix from Star TV, one of the largest entertainment and media compa-
nies in India, where he was the Programme Manager for next generation cable/satellite television programmes. Before Star TV, he helped build ChaiTime, a large online community of NRIs. Prior to that, he worked with Sony Entertainment and UTV as their Creative Lead. He has a Masters Degree in Visual Design from IIT Mumbai and an Engineering Major. e-mail: nvohra@regalix-inc.com
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