Facebook and Twitter Getting Free Advertising through Redirection

Facebook and Twitter Getting Free Advertising through Redirection

Have you noticed lately how many companies post somewhere in their advertisement that they have a Facebook or Twitter page?  Perhaps you have seen wording like:  “Follow Us on Facebook” or “Follow Us on Twitter”.  Imagine if your company was mentioned like that on everyone else’s advertisements and you didn’t have to pay for that.

This is something that is new in the advertising world.  In the past, you would see companies listing their websites to direct their business to their own companies.  They still do this, of course, but now they are also directing business to Facebook and Twitter to get people to come to their website indirectly. This redirection may have implications on web analytics, making it more difficult to know how many customers are seeing the company’s message.  However, the advantages for using sites like Facebook for advertising can be significant.  Tnooz.com reported, “With one in every 13 people on the planet using Facebook, the potential exposure that Facebook advertising offers can be massive, costing a fraction of what a TV advertising campaign might cost.”

This redirection of business is something that is growing.  It can be easier to get people to go to Facebook or Twitter initially due to their popularity.  Sites like bit.ly allow links to be shortened and more information to be included in a tweeted message.  This can also be useful for redirection to mobile devices.  Webupon.com reported, “Facebook and Twitter are two of the most user-friendly sites on the mobile web – and that’s great news for those who are going mobile with their websites, because it means people can right-click on bit.ly links in Twitter – and be automatically taken to a mobile version of your site, if they’re accessing it from Twitter.”

Sites like Facebook are helping increase what used to be called word of mouth advertising by allowing people to pick “I like” on a product page.  Trendwatching.com refers to the F-Factor involved here, meaning Friends, Fans and Followers on Facebook who can influence purchasing decisions. Check out an article by Converge2003.com that suggests there are 10 tactics to increase your number of Facebook likes.   For more information about adding a Facebook Like Button to your site, click here.

2010 Advertising Successes and Failures

As the year comes to an end, many marketing departments are looking back at the year’s results to see if their plans were successful.  With the new year and the Super Bowl just around the corner, advertisers are analyzing what worked and what didn’t. 

One of my favorite ad campaigns was the Old Spice Guy.   I also enjoyed the Snickers Betty White ad.  The Wall Street Journal had a nice article about “The Best and the Busts” advertisements from 2010.  This article mentioned the Old Spice and Betty White ads.  I was curious as to the success of Old Spice specifically, as that was a product I had previously associated with older men and drug stores. According to their article, “Since February, the initial video has drawn over 25 million views on YouTube.  More important for Procter & Gamble, the Old Spice brand saw sales double from mid-June to mid-July versus the prior year, a period when the social-media part of the ad campaign heated up.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE&fs=1&hl=en_US]

Not all campaigns have been as successful.  Some failures that were listed in the WSJ article include:

  • PepsiCo’s Crunch Time Sun Chips Ad
  • The Nike Tiger Woods Apology
  • Gap’s No-Go-Logo

In the marketing courses I teach, we often discuss advertising.  For current advertising examples of how to create a specific effect, I like a site called Adcracker.com.  Check out some examples of advertisement styles by clicking the following links:

Dramatic Conflict

Problem Solution

Personification

Exaggeration

Metaphor

Employee Brand

Reasons Why

QR Code: Why You Should Be Using It to Promote You, Your Business and Products

QR Code or Quick Response Code is a two-dimension matrix code developed in the mid 90’s in Japan.  Businesses are drawn to it because it offers an improvement over barcodes.  Wisegeek explains, “QR Code contains data in both vertical and horizontal directions, whereas a bar code has only one direction of data, usually the vertical one. QR Code can also correspondingly hold more information. QR Code is easily digested by scanning equipment, and because it has potentially twice the amount of data as bar code, it can increase the effectiveness of such scanning. QR Code can handle alphanumeric character, symbol, binary, and other kinds of code. QR Code can hold up to 7,089 characters in a single symbol. ”

QR Code has become increasingly popular with the use of cell phones.  I recommend checking out an article by Searchengineland.com to see some video demonstrations.  A code can easily be generated on sites like Kaywa.com.  If you are wondering if search engines like Google will be able to recognize them, “If you add them to your website, the search engines will see that your pages have changed, and that you are updating pages. The search engine will see a new image and index it accordingly. At some point soon, the search engines will likely recognize QR codes and possibly index the content in them.”

There are several recommended uses for the QR Code but one that I found to be interesting was that you could add one to your business card.  People would then be able to scan your information directly into their cell phone contact database.

Some other recommended uses may be to add them to media ads.  This simple little code could communicate product, contact, offer, and event information as well as coupons and social media links.

Related Articles:

YouTube Uploads 35 Hours Of Video Every Minute — InformationWeek

 

image via textually.org

You may already know that Youtube is extremely popular, but a recent article from informationweek.com really spelled out the numbers.  Think about this . . . according to that article:

In March, users uploaded more than 24 hours of video per minute, Hunter Walk, director of product management at the video social networking site, said in a blog. Within only eight months, traffic has increased by almost 69%.

“That breaks out to 2,100 hours uploaded every 60 minutes, or 50,400 hours uploaded to YouTube every day,” Walk said. “If we were to measure that in movie terms (assuming the average Hollywood film is around 120 minutes long), 35 hours a minute is the equivalent of over 176,000 full-length Hollywood releases every week. Another way to think about it is: If three of the major US networks were broadcasting 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for the last 60 years, they still wouldnďż˝t have broadcast as much content as is uploaded to YouTube every 30 days.”

to read the rest of the article, click here:  informationweek.com

New Study by Krux Digital Shows Data Leakage on Popular Websites

 

Data leakage occurs when an external entity, often without a publisher’s consent, collects data about a user while the user is on the publisher’s website. Krux Digital has recently released information from their study that found tracking tools on major websites were installed without the company’s knowledge.

According to earthtimes.org key findings include:

  • 31% of all data collection was enabled by parties other than the publisher, often without their control or consent
  • 55% of all companies collecting data on a Web site also brought in other companies to collect data as well
  • 27% of all collection was conducted by parties that are potentially competitive to publishers in media or data sales
  • 167 different companies were observed participating in active data collection across just fifty publisher sites, few of whom appeared to be doing so in the publishers’ interest or at their request

To find out more about these results, click here.