The latest in content development trends for digital marketing:
The upshot here is that while Creators of social media (those posting vids and blog posts, for example) are leveling off, the Joiners (those reading the aforementioned content) are continuing to grow. This makes sense when you think of how many people have joined Facebook just to follow family and friends. It also closely parallels Twitter’s revised strategy as a content source instead of a conversation platform. This all bodes well for interactive marketers, who’s main goal is to get everyone on the same page, so to speak.
Whatever you think of Gawker and Nick Denton, you’d do well to listen to him. Especially when he spouts off on internet content trends. His highlights: Video and images are in – Nobody wants to read. They’re also redoing their blogs to better accomodate that type of info, so the upcoming changes should be quite interesting to see how they’re addressing that need. Note that they’re also emphasizing content aggregation. That last bit is particularly interesting because anyone, including brands, can aggregate content fairly easily. Then it just comes down to making insightful commentary about what you’re aggregating.
Beware the early data trends on this one. Keep in mind, early banner ads got REMARKABLE response rates by today’s standards. And really, sponsored Tweets are little more than the latest paid media unit, albiet trending off a hot social media property. But keep in mind that any time you take a beloved user experience that’s been virtually ad free, and suddenly start interspersing it with ads, those ads are going to see phenomenal response rates. But like the old banner ads, as Twitter starts to increase the presence of these ads, the response rates inevitably drop. It’s the reason why those early to the game in new media marketing often see great results, and why those results are often unsustainable for the years to follow.
With Google having a presence in just about every nook and cranny of the internet, it’s always interesting to hear what they think is going on. And from the CEOs standpoint, mobile is sounding a lot like the early days of the Internet. Strong growth, a lot of upside potential, but just not at the critical point yet. However, two big differences on why I think the mobile market will mature much faster than the Web did. The devices are much cheaper, and the user experience is generally easier. That said, I’d still be curious what Schmidt thinks the timeline is before mobile hits 50% of their revenues.
Social shopping is hot, and here are several new apps that are both making it easier to sell through social circles, and offering consumers incentives for sharing their purchases.
This is an interesting look at what features mobile developers find most interesting. They trend towards emerging technologies, and not the more established ecommerce APIs. Keep in mind that developers are often interested in areas that most consumers aren’t even close to delving into yet. But then again, if you’re a brand wanting developers to develop for your brand, this can indicate what will likely appeal to them.
More information on Forrester’s recent study of changing social media behaviors. It’s not surprising that they’re seeing a new type of participant emerge, one who’s involved at a very light, but potentially frequent level. It’s really the microblogging category, and given Twitter’s persistence and Facebook’s move towards Twitter, it’s not surprising that when we make those behavior’s more easily accessible, people are going to take advantage of them. The challenge for marketers is how to enter these conversations. It would seem that these more fleeting, spontaneous forms of social media would really benefit marketers. I wouldn’t write a blog post in a new pair of Nike’s, but I might post it to Facebook. Or comment on someone else’s post. I also see this bringing more potential for brands to involve people through lighter entertainment experiences, since those are often the easiest things for people to talk about.
The most popular apps on Facebook are looking pretty silly, although there are several shopping based games that should have fashion retailers taking notice.
A great peak behind the curtain of where Google wants to take display advertising. This really brings together the powerful tracking and optimizing capabilities of Adwords, with pretty much every other ad technology you can imagine. They also feel display advertising will become a $50 billion market. Not exactly chump change.
Google’s open approach to just about everything means that you have to do a lot of weeding out to get to the best product for you. Conversely, Apple pretty much does that for you. In this case, Google’s doing something about it. While the idea of a comparison shopping engine for phones isn’t earth shattering, the idea that Google is responding to customer complaints with real solutions shows that the giant may not be isolated in their Googleplex the way many accuse them of being
More happenings on the mobile-ecommerce front. Functionalities are starting to niche, and this shows how developers continue to explore ways to refine user experiences, hoping to eventually hit paydirt.
