Yahoo, It’s Not Me. It’s You.

Last month, Yahoo announced the slogan for its new advertising blitz (perhaps hoping to replicate Bing’s blip of search share success): “It’s You!” On September 28, they premiered the first TV commercial for that campaign.

In our totally nonscientific comments section, people were 2:1 against the ad, either because it didn’t sell Yahoo’s products or because the commercial sucks. Personally, I cringe every time I see it—and I’m not alone. As MediaPost reports, YouGov’s BrandIndex “found Yahoo’s buzz score had tumbled from 35.4 on Sept. 22 to 25.5 as of Monday.”

YouGov measures buzz by asking respondents “Have you heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, was it positive or negative?” The precipitous drop over the last three weeks stands in sharp contrast to their upward buzz trend, running since May.

Like many of our commenters, BrandIndex SVP Ted Marzilli said he thought the first commercial visually impressive, but not so good at conveying what’s new and improved about Yahoo. “There just seems to be a bit of disconnect between consumers and the campaign,” he said.

Yahoo, on the other hands, says they’re in this for the long haul (so obviously consumer reactions don’t count). In a statement, they said, “We view our brand revitalization efforts as more of a marathon, not a sprint, so we’re focused on the long-term trends of Yahoo!’s audience size and user engagement metrics.” Meanwhile, Alexa shows a slight downward trend for Yahoo over the last few weeks (here’s a grain of salt).

As MediaPost says, the survey is based on “interviews of 5,000 people each weekday from a representative U.S. population sample of 1 million. A score can range from 100 to -100, and is compiled by subtracting negative feedback from positive. A zero score means equal positive and negative feedback.”

What do you think? Should Yahoo be worried about these early indicators? Or do you think they’re seeing enough positive signs internally that they can ignore the rest of us?

Social Media Ad Spend on the Rise

The headline alone should not be a surprise to anyone who is in the marketing, and particularly the Internet marketing, space because despite the economy social media is on the rise. The number of users and the amount of time spent on various social media sites has seen the ‘hockey stick’ kind of growth that most only dream of. So in our wonderful modern world, where there are people there will be ad spend. Nielsen tells us that this trend is taking hold as reported by ClickZ

Consumer activity on social networking and blogging sites accounted for 17 percent of all time on the Internet in August 2009, up from 6 percent a year ago, Nielsen estimates. At the same time, it believes ad spending on social networking and blogging sites grew 119 percent, from an estimated $49 million in August 2008 to $108 million last month. Expressed as a percentage of total U.S. online ad spend, ad expenditures on social networking sites climbed from 7 percent in August 2008 to 15 percent last month.

Impressive to say the least. So will this continue? Better yet, just how accurate is the data? ClickZ warns appropriately

Nielsen’s precise spending figures should be taken with a grain of salt. Media value estimated by Nielsen and other firms is based on rate card pricing and does not necessarily reflect true media costs.

So the big winner thus far has been Facebook. While they do not give specific US user numbers Nielsen pegs their US user base at 103 million in August of 2009 which is a marked increase over the estimated 38 million in August of 2008. Of course, in order to meet the aggressive revenue numbers that Facebook has floated this year (jumping from an estimated $240 million at the start of the year to $550 million just a few months later) there needs to be this kind of growth.

All of this comes as some good news in a year that has seen things from bad to worse while making people wonder is there any end in sight?

According to Nielsen, while several industries decreased their overall online ad spend year-over-year in August — including travel, business-to-business, automotive, software, financial services, and telecommunications — spending on the top social network sites increased across the board.

The entertainment industry led in growing its online ad dollars, increasing ad spending on social networking sites by 812 percent. Travel advertisers increased their ad spend on those sites by 364 percent.

Jon Gibs, VP of media analytics at Nielsen Online feels that while advertisers have been skittish about social media for their spending they have overcome that fear. I have to wonder if they are not just going to where the people are which doesn’t make this kind of ad spend mentality much different than the TV spending of the past. Of course, with social media advertising being relatively cheap compared to the other options that doesn’t hurt either. However, just because a lot of people use social media it doesn’t tell anything about how they respond to advertising within the space. Are advertisers just acting like sheep who happen to find some comfort in a shepherd like social media when all else in their world seems to well ……. suck? Hopefully advertisers are still approaching this medium with a healthy dose of skepticism as to performance since that’s where the rubber truly meets the road for any advertising, right?

So what are your thoughts on this one? Just because the people are there does it automatically imply that advertising success (you know those pesky sales, revenue and conversion thingies) is going to occur? Is social media the panacea that advertisers so desperately need right now or is it just another advertising fad that will black hole large budgets just long enough for people to see that maybe there are places where people just want to meet and not be sold something? I don’t have any answers but I suspect that there are some readers that believe they do so let’s hear’em.

People Watch Boatloads of Online Video

Thank you to Carol Bartz of Yahoo for the new ‘boatloads’ theme. What would we do without it? Back to the news. Of course, we know that lots of people watch online video and SearchEngineWatch tells of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project survey conducted in April of this year and the numbers behind the general statement about online video are pretty interesting. As with any research it’s good to know the source and the group studied so here’s the skinny on the research methodology

The report is based on the findings of a daily tracking survey on Americans’ use of the Internet. The results are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research International between March 26 to April 19, 2009, among a sample of 2,253 adults, 18 and older.

Now for some numbers:

• The number of people using video sharing sites has gone from 33% in 2006 to 62% in 2009
• 89 percent of internet users ages 18-29 now say they watch content on video sharing sites, and 36 percent do so on a typical day
• 46 percent of adult internet users are active on social networking sites, which makes the 62% number for video more impressive. How the research defines social networking sites of course impacts this because YouTube can be clumped in there quite readily.
• Evidence of some possible alternative definitions of social networking sites can be found by the statement that 11 percent use status updating sites like Twitter. Normally Twitter is part of social networking but to have it peeled off under the category of “status updating” site is kind of odd. What’s Facebook then a “What’s on your mind?” site vs. a social networking site?

As with any research we need to take it with a grain of salt. Online video consumption will need to be watched based on age more than any other measurement. The 30 and under (specifically 18-29 years old) set registers an 89% of Internet users having used a video sharing site and 36% doing so daily. My response is for these folks to maybe exercise their bodies as well as their eyes but that’s just me.

So what are your video habits? Do you have to see the latest stupid human trick on YouTube or else your day is not complete? Do you turn to video for product information regularly? While it’s interesting to know the total numbers what is more informative is the specific types of video consumed on these sites and how Internet marketers can take advantage of these habits. Tell us your deepest, darkest online video habits but please keep it in the realm of ‘family viewing’. No one really wants to know everything you watch online .

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Will the Wall Street Journal Take a Real Shot at Social Media?

As I like to do when a post involves some ‘creative thinking’ I am warning you on this one. TechCrunch is ‘reporting’ the Wall Street Journal’s possible attempt at creating a social community (WSJ Connnect) that could compete with the LinkedIn set. I realize that outside of the Microsoft-Yahoo nuptials there has been little to discuss in the online marketing space as of late. With that in mind, since the TechCrunch piece includes the following it seems that it has to be taken with a grain of salt.

WSJ Connect is still in the planning/conceptual stages, says one source, but there is “strong interest” to move the project forward. Importantly, it would leverage the WSJ brand but would be a separate property and unencumbered by the need for a paid subscription to the newspaper.

In the planning stages with a strong interest could be applied to the idea of just about anything in any company. That being said, the supposed “LinkedIn Killer” would be a replacement for the WSJ Community which is part of the current WSJ site. I am a fairly regular reader of the Wall Street Journal and I am a site subscriber. Those two pieces of data make the fact that I didn’t even know that the current WSJ Community even existed pretty poignant. Now that I have gone to the site to look for it specifically, I see the link but I must have developed “community blindness” or something like it.

News Corp., as a whole, is not known for their ability to capitalize on the social media space. They own MySpace and we all know how that has flourished under its guidance. They do own a company called Slingshot Labs which will be tasked with building this WSJ Connect product if it indeed does see the light of day so they will not develop this in house as they did with the WSJ Community effort.

So rather than wonder what might happen based on ex-MySpace employees seeking some mention on TechCrunch, let’s ask a few questions of you, the MP reader. Would there be any interest in this type of community for you personally? If this idea actually came to fruition and was launched, who would you see as the demographic? What can a social networking community do to set it itself apart and possibly lure away some of the 15 million visitors that LinkedIn gets monthly? Is there room for more “straight business” social communities?

These are the kinds of questions that News Corp. and the WSJ need to ask themselves before they fully commit. It will be somewhat interesting to see if there is truly an attempt made to get this type of offering off the ground. I have been told that regardless how crowded a market or an industry is there is always room for one more GOOD player. What it truly takes to be good in the social media space, however, may be a barrier to entry that few can overcome at this point in time.

Google Cracking Down on AdWords Scams

You’ve probably seen the “Make Money on Google” ads floating around the Internet these days. (Or maybe not. . . .) The banner ads are one thing (I think most of us know to take them with a grain of salt). But when you see the same scam advertised on Google, even intelligent users might begin to wonder if there’s an association between the two—maybe it’s true.

(Don’t worry, you didn’t miss out. It is a scam.)

Screencap by Barry Schwartz

Though these ads have been appearing for months, Google has finally started to crack down on them. According to Search Engine Roundtable, Google is banning ads with keywords that look related to these AdWords scams. They’re also taking action against the account owners, according to an email to an advertiser posted Google AdWords Help thread:

It’s come to our attention that you have submitted ads that promote Google Money Tree or ads that promote a misrepresented affiliation with Google. Due to multiple complaints from our users and publishers, we’ve made the decision not to accept these ads.

This is a notification that your account has been suspended due to the submission of these ads and your ads will no longer run on Google. Please note that future accounts you open will also be suspended.

Apparently Google started the strict enforcement of this part of the guidelines on July 1.

What do you think? Is this crack down going to help protect more victims of the scams, or is it just Google covering itself?

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