Analytics, PPC & SEO: So Happy Together
“Search is the world’s largest focus group.” A while ago, someone said this to me (I can’t remember who, but buy yourself an eclair if it’s you: you’ve earned it), and it struck me as pure brilliance. We tend to get so focused on the challenge of showing up in search results that we [...]
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Social Media Blunder or Brilliance?
In the latest round of social media’s own “You make the call!” game regarding a social media campaign’s failure or genius enter Pepsi and its Amp Energy brand. There appears to be some buzz in social media circles about an iPhone app that Pepsi developed for the drink that is being called crass by some and ‘just entertainment’ by others. So you know, I could care less either way, I just think it makes for an interesting ‘live’ case study about social media and how it can be viewed, and as a result, manipulated.
Before I get going I want to say that the ‘buzz’ around this iPhone app dilemma is probably not nearly as big as we in the social media industry are going to make it out to be. Oh we will beat it to death but the actual influence of any of this beyond the industry is another topic of debate for another day. Having said that and drawn the ire of some social media types we can now move on.
AdAge reported yesterday that Pepsi had developed and distributed and app around its Amp Energy brand.
The app, “Amp Up Before You Score,” offers guys pickup lines and background info for 24 different types of women, ranging from “military chick” and “political girl” to “married” and “sorority girl.” The app pulls in information from Wikipedia on the punk movement for a girl who’s into punk rock, and offers suggestions and directions to vegan restaurants if you’ve got a “treehugger” on your hands. The free app was built by Interpublic Group of Cos. digital agency R/GA.
Patently offensive? To some. Funny? To others. So this is no different than anything else in the world since we all have the choice to engage or not with this type of marketing. Well, apparently there has been enough ‘backlash’ (I use this term with caution because I am a firm believer that Pepsi is getting the exact mileage that they wanted from this) to have Pepsi consider and execute a Twitter-culpa (that’s a mea culpa in the “Land that Biz Built”) using the hashtag ‘#pepsifail’.
If you search Twitter for the hashtag you get a mish-mash of results including quite a few German Twitterers and I can’t tell if they are angry or not.
So as not to give the brand any more free publicity for this let’s just say that Pepsi and its PR folks have ‘dragged’ in other brands like Mountain Dew and attached them to the ‘#pepsifail’ deal. So there is debate as to the wisdom of this as it relates to Pepsi as a whole blah, blah, blah, blah.
Here’s the bottom line. It is likely that mostly social media junkies care about this or even know about this at all. Social media folks like energy drinks. How else do you stay up all hours of the night and day digesting this stuff? As a result, some of them might actually consider Amp over their Red Bull or whatever. The downloads of the app went from 150 or so to about 17,000 in a matter of days. Is that because all of a sudden iPhone users who love Amp found this out? Not likely. It’s more like there are social media folks who downloaded the app to see what the hubbub was and are now aware of the brand. Hook, line and sinker. Well, done Pepsi.
Let’s face it, if they were really concerned they would pull the app from the AppStore right? Well, they have gone so far as to say that they have no intention of doing that. Are they making a stand so that the frat boy crowd of America can have their apps or are they just waiting for more coverage like this to create more downloads? You do the math make the call.
Ask.com Introduces ‘Search for the Cure’
What’s a great way for a search engine that struggles to be mentioned with the top search providers in the marketplace to get some traffic? Do something for someone else. That’s exactly what Ask.com is doing with its ‘Search or the Cure’ campaign which is designed to raise one million dollars to Susan G. Komen for the Cure group who raises money for breast cancer research.
From the pure humanity side this is a pretty cool idea. It allows people to simply take an action to contribute rather than asking them for money. Of course, there are opportunities to donate but it’s a fundraising organization after all and the cause is something that everyone can get behind. In this case, asking for a donation seems very appropriate.
The contribution begins with the Ask.com audience. In order to contribute, simply complete tasks such as adding the Komen theme to your Ask.com homepage and then answer breast cancer-related questions during the month of October. You can, of course, use Ask.com to search for the right answer. Ask.com will donate 50 cents for every person that adds the skin and answers the questions correctly.
In all honesty, I am not a big donation person mainly because everyone is looking for money and it just seems easier to say no to everyone rather than do something that may actually be the right thing to do. I tried out this process, though, and it was so easy that I can see the brilliance in it for the Komen organization and Ask.com itself. Here’s some more about how the organization benefits
“One of our greatest opportunities in the fight to end breast cancer lies with the many people who tell us they want to support Susan G. Komen for the Cure but don’t have the time or money to contribute,” said Hala Moddelmog, chief executive officer of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. “Ask.com has created an easy, engaging, and cost-free way for consumers to get involved and generate funding that is crucial to breast cancer research and education. We are thrilled that Ask.com has joined our cause with such an innovative program. We’re urging everyone to Search for the Cure by switching to Ask.com.”
Now for the business side. This is a natural win/win for Ask.com. Will it be something that takes it from number ‘lower than third’ in the search engine race? Not likely. I will say, though, that I have already taken an action, felt like I contributed and am motivated to at least visit and answer questions as often as I remember to do so.
Will this mean I have ‘switched’ to Ask.com for my search needs? Once again, not likely, but I will be at Ask.com more than if this wasn’t in place. As a result I may use it more and, in all honesty, give it a real try. I suspect most people who even know about the engine haven’t even explored it deep enough to make a good decision on its merits and demerits.
So kudos to Ask.com for coming up with a creative way to drive traffic to their search engine. People will rally around a cause and they will put aside habits to help people especially if it is easy and doesn’t make them pull out their wallet. Many will bemoan the fact that people may only be attracted to this because it is free. I would argue that this kind of program is brilliant in that it can get a person like me to take an action that will produce a donation of some sort and help someone that I was not considering when I woke up this morning. Oh and another thing I wasn’t considering doing today was going to Ask.com but now I did.
Twitter Hires More Exec Firepower
Twitter is really trying to become the company that everyone has it pegged to be, or at least it seems that way by their hiring tactics as of late. While the media daily predicts the emergence / unfettered growth / imminent doom of the micro-blogging service daily (are you sick of it yet?) Twitter goes about its merry way showing signs of brilliance (rapid growth) and signs of “WTF?!” (outages).
The latest attempt to move to the next level, according to TechCrunch, is the hiring of Feedburner co-founder and CEO Dick Costolo as the new COO of Twitter. Costolo left Google in July after spending enough time with Feedburner’s new owners to watch them drop the ball. What makes this hire significant (aside from Costolo being an early investor in Twitter) according to TC’s Michael Arrington is
Costolo, who is also an early Twitter investor, is someone who has actual experience building scalable infrastructures, which Twitter sorely needs. The company hasn’t launched any new features in recent memory, and continues to have regular downtime. In fact, Twitter’s inability to build features and keep the service live is a serious competitive disadvantage. Costolo can presumably fix all that.
So here we are living out another day in the never ending soap opera of hope and flame-outs that is Twitter. From the confusion of “How does thing work for business?” to the predictions that the service is woefully undervalued and underhyped and all stops in between, everyone wants in on the Twitter phenomenon. Fortunately, it looks like Twitter is taking notice as well by hiring the likes of Costolo. They recently hired Google’s top legal ace as well.
So Twitter is still busy in the background trying to get the right people on the bus. Stay tuned as something is likely to change or be predicted in the next 15 seconds or so that will keep everyone busy for another short period of time.
Twitter Conferences Are In
As part of the Internet marketing industry have you done the conference circuit? Have you been to SES, SMX (put cardinal direction here), Adtech, PubCon etc, etc? On a yearly basis how many of these trips can you justify or get away with? Well, with shrinking budgets everywhere now you have to add the new spate of Twitter conferences to your hit list of things you absolutely have to do to get out of the office learn more about the industry.
TechCrunch tells us of the growing list of conferences that are starting to sprout up as a result of the use of (or confusion around the use of) Twitter for business purposes.
It looks like the trend of Twitter conferences is growing, with more events popping up around the country. As we’ve said in the past and will continue to say, there are tremendous opportunities for businesses, brands, non-profits and individuals to use Twitter as a tool for customer support, fund raising, brand management, advertising, job search and much more.
I have not attended one but I can imagine they must be pretty quiet because everyone is likely to be talking to everyone but those right in front of them. I gotta tell ya that when someone tweets that they are talking to someone I wonder if they are even listening to them or concentrating on their 140 characters of brilliance they are allowing the rest of their audience to ingest.
Of course, if you attended the 140 Character Conference in New York in June the venue itself (which was literally underground) forced Twitterheads to actually listen to others since there was practically no connectivity for the attendees.
Twitter is so fascinating in that it appears that so many folks are finding ways to monetize the service without the service monetizing itself. At least with Google (which face it, is why most of these conferences exist in the first place) makes money and knows that these conferences will only help it make more.
So if you are tired of the usual shows and you need more opportunities to ‘network’ then think about these:
- TWTRCN 09 DC- for non profits and government types. October 22 in Washington, DC.
- 140 Twitter Conference / LA – Endorsed by Biz Stone. Need we say more? September in Los Angeles (for those who didn’t get the LA part of the title).
- 140 Characters Twitter Conference – Jeff Pulver’s deal goes west coast on October 27th in Los Angeles.
- Cool Twitter Conferences- Apparently this is a traveling road show that has stops scheduled in Boston and San Francisco.
So don’t miss your chance to blow off work get out and learn more about Twitter and the future of communications. Hotel bars in the areas of these meetings can’t wait to serve you!
