No one needs a new survey, study or pundit to tell them how important mobile devices have become to consumers. Just look down the street where everyone from teens to corner-office suits appears sidetracked by communication on the go—texting, talking, thumbs jumping across tiny keyboards in a hurried attempt to reply-all.

This is the audience of the future. And 2010 may just be the year for advertisers to tip the scale in reaching it. The technology powerhouses (i.e. Microsoft, Google, Yahoo! and Apple) are finally diving into mobile advertising in a huge way, recognizing the

approach of critical mass.

None of this is new. The market has been predicting that mobile will explode for years. Somehow, it hasn’t. Not yet, anyway. But that is all about to change—partly because of the dissolution of advertising in traditional media, but mostly because consumers are beginning to demand it.

The “smart” in smart phones is finally proving itself. And the businesses that have the most to gain from this newfound demand will be local, small business advertisers offering what consumers want to buy right now. In our experience, restaurant takeout, florists or home/consumer services such as carpet cleaning, self storage or auto repair are good examples of business categories that are particularly well suited for mobile campaigns.

An improving economy is bringing about a resurgence of small businesses—make that local businesses. Businesses with traditionally shallow advertising pockets, but all the more need for exposure.

High conversion rates, low cost and the ability to target highly local audiences will push mobile advertising into the spotlight this year. We have experimented with a number of mobile ad offerings and while we can’t give out all the secrets, we can say that we’ve had significant success with mobile search and increasing click-to-call ratios with mobile landing page optimization. Some best practices around succeeding with mobile include building campaign architectures and keywords specifically for the mobile user. This may include shorter keyword phrases, acronyms and even slang terms. Marketers should also consider the landing page for mobile campaigns – while iPhones and Droid phones are able to view full HTML pages, at least 85 percent of the market (according to a 2009 comScore study) still use other types of phones where mobile-friendly landing pages are a must for effective viewing.

A recent New York Times article made similar points, noting a prediction from Juniper Research that mobile ad spending worldwide will more than quadruple, to $6 billion, by 2014. Analyst Windsor Holden goes on to say that, while everyone has been hoping for the past five years that mobile advertising will take off, this will actually be the year it finally gets significant traction.

The first rule of business: give customers what they want when they want it. For example, a busy working mom who needs to send a bouquet can easily use her mobile device to find a florist. But her smart phone might go beyond mere directory search to display geo-targeted ads that only show results near her location, and then present a local florist’s phone number that she only has to tap or click to call.

Highly specific targeting, including leveraging aggregated consumer-related information, will also aid in the advent of mass mobile advertising. Much like paid-search ads, that local florist’s ad might appear on the working mom’s smart phone reminding her of a special occasion. Additionally, seeing the florist’s ad on a smart phone allows the working mom to easily store the business’ name and number for future reference, increasing the likelihood of repeat business.

Not only are the conversion rates generally high with mobile ads, the cost of entry is incredibly low compared to traditional local advertising. Mobile advertising campaigns are comparatively easy to set up as well. In fact, there’s an argument to be made that the time for taking full advantage of mobile ad inventory is now, while the costs are artificially low as a result of many advertisers still spending their budgets on PC ads. According to eMarketer, only 1 percent of total U.S. advertising spend is directed towards mobile. Of that 1 percent, the bulk is used for SMS advertising, which generally is harder to make work for local.

With the power of search at their fingertips, consumers have become increasingly dependent on information on the go. Advertisers can capitalize on this trend and offer their potential customers service with convenience via mobile advertising.

–Tom Leung

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Consider that $3 million you just dropped on a 30-second Super Bowl spot a waste of money — unless you’ve got a smart, calculated search-and-social-media strategy behind it.

Last year, the ads from the big game racked up 99.5 million collective online views, according to Visible Measures, which talliesviral-video data; 98.7 million people watched the game on TV, per Nielsen. It’s further proof that while Super Bowl is still valuable because it’s one of the last high-profile, mass-media TV events, it’s maximized with an ongoing online effort.

“Social media provides a longer shelf life for people’s campaigns,” said Anthony Iaffaldano, senior director-strategy and innovation at Reprise Media. “It’s about who’s got a plan in place to take the equity they’re building through all this activity and activate it after the game. Social media becomes more valuable as you continue to engage.”

About 90% of brands had their Super Bowl ads up on YouTube in 2009, estimates a Google executive, although that’s just the bare minimum. A quarter of the brands in the Bowl tapped social networks to try to drive additional comments, ratings and conversation. And more than two-thirds bought paid-search ads against their brands or products.

This year, those figures will be even higher, setting the stage for what might be the most significant study to date on the interplay between paid and earned media. Marketers such as E-Trade are already planning how they’re going to extend their spots online.

And while the buzz of the game’s commercials will provide a healthy dose of PR value, most of the big winners from past years alsorelied on paid-media support. Visible Measures said paid promotion more than doubled the reach of a Super Bowl ad on the web. In that regard, brands in the game have come a long way. In 2005, only 21% bothered buying paid search around Super Bowl ads; last year that figure more than tripled to 65%, according to Reprise Media, which creates an annual Super Bowl scorecard rating advertisers’ online efforts.

So it’s no surprise the online-video-sharing sites are building major programs around the Super Bowl, hoping to capitalize off the dollars marketers will be putting against the game. YouTube is again promoting its Ad Blitz, and Break.com has created an entire editorial channel around the event, complete with its own custom content it can sell.

“One thing marketers are struggling with is ‘Do we put [the ad] up on our site and try to drive people there?’ or ‘Do we put the content on other sites?’” said Andrew Budkofsky, senior VP-sales and partnerships at Break.com. “It depends on the marketer and its goals — if you’re running a specific promotion you might send people to your site and that’s why we do the custom content — so we can speak to a promotion and do editorial plugs. We can create custom content in a video.”

Here are lessons from Super Bowl’s past to make sure you make the most of the big game.

CAPITALIZE ON PREGAME BUZZ

According to Google, searches for “Super Bowl commercials” start rising about a week before the game at a rate of 10% to 20% a day leading up to the game. (They peaked the day after the Bowl.) Meanwhile, Visible Measures reports pre- and post-game buzz can account for more than 50% of a campaign’s reach.

E-Trade is the poster child for a smart pre-game strategy; last year it released outtakes from its talking toddler campaign several days ahead of time. It took over the YouTube home page the Thursday before the game to promote the spots.

E-Trade also bought search terms on YouTube as well as on the main engines and set up a Facebook and Twitter account. Today, the E-Trade baby is still yammering away to its 3,000-plus Twitter followers. (A recent gem: “Can someone give me the 411 for the tooth fairy? Are milk teeth a commodity? If not, mine are staying in my mouth.”) No surprise, it’s back in the game again this year and already working on its online push.

BUILD VIRALITY INTO YOUR CREATIVE

Doritos has epitomized this for the past two years, running contests to see who could create the big game spot. The strategy capitalizes on the fact that friends and families of the finalists spread the word around the web since votes help determine the winner.

GoDaddy falls into this category as well. While its ads appeal to the lowest common denominator, the narrative it’s built around them generates interest. Several weeks before the 2008 game, CEO Bob Parsons started moaning that early versions of the ad were too racy for network TV — but not too racy for GoDaddy.com. In 2009 the ads were approved in advance, but viewers got to vote on which ones they wanted to see in the game. Visible Measures also advises leaving room for social interpretation — will the ad be spoofed? Is there something for viewers to discuss?

BUY SMART SEARCH TERMS

Cars.com recognized competition for search terms such as “Super Bowl ads” would be stiff, so it also bought terms related to its incredibly detailed ad about a genius named David Abernathy. Among its more obscure paid-search terms were “Gompers,” the name of Abernathy’s pet rabbit, and “Aristotle,” his guinea pig.

Smart search is also about recognizing what people are likely not searching for the day after your ad airs. “People searching for Super Bowl ads may not be directly interested in peripheral marketing campaigns,” said Jerry Canning, finance industry director at Google.

THINK REAL-TIME

Gone are the days when a CMO can enjoy an uninterrupted game in the network’s luxury box. Today smart marketers will be talking on Twitter, tweaking search campaigns and leaving no rock unturned in their quest to drive impressions. Like E-Trade’s baby, the star of H&R Block’s spot, Tax Guy Murray, turned up on Twitter and actively reached out to people talking about the ad or taxes — during the game. “My prediction is this year you’ll have armies of marketers fanning the flames of their ads on Twitter,” said Pete Blackshaw, exec VP, Nielsen Digital Strategic Services. “‘Did you like it? Check out this link. Thanks so much for the high five.’ Marketers are getting smarter about taking the earliest signals, even from early PR events, and parlaying those into something that would increase odds.”

Real-time thinking also applies to media buying. Search is a near-immediate channel and marketers can monitor the conversation and help that inform their buying. You might also consider holding money back so you can make short-notice buys on the sites where the campaign is getting the most traction.

DON’T FORGET THE CALL TO ACTION

Denny’s had one of the most-talked-about promotions — a free Grand Slam breakfast — but forgot to offer up a URL or other direction where people could get more information. According to Reprise Media’s Scorecard, the marketer’s website crashed right after the ad aired and was down for the rest of the game.

And if you’re going to do some sort of call to action — or buy paid media or search — make sure the landing page fits. In other words, don’t do what Pixar did last year. According to Reprise, it had a call to action and a URL with previews — something the other films in the game lacked. But, it wrote “in spite of this, the actual site was not integrated at all with the Super Bowl ad and there were no paid search ads to help direct confused searchers to the ‘right’ page.”

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You can think of social media as a set of tools that your business center can use for a variety of purposes – customer service, branding, promotion, relationship management, etc. Just as with any toolkit, you’re not going to use every tool every time.

Sometimes the hammer fits, but if you’re trying to measure something the hammer is pretty much useless. Similarly, sometimes a blog will fit perfectly, while other times YouTube might be a more suitable tool.

The barrier for getting started with social media is low; it’s dependent on your involvement level, objectives, and goals. Thefacilitators of the message, our tools, are the key components that make it all work. The sole purpose of these tools is to: create, manage and distribute content, build awareness, drive traffic, connect with our customers and hopefully turn a lead into a prospective sale.

If social media represents a set of tools – what should be in your office business center’s toolkit?

Social Media Statistics

The default tool in any toolbox always starts with Analytics. Knowing where your executive suite company’s existing traffic or lack of traffic it is coming from will yield a goldmine of data that can be strategically utilized.

Google Analytics is the enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Powerful, flexible, and easy-to-use features now let you see and analyze your traffic data in an entirely new way. With Google Analytics, you’re more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives, and create higher converting websites.

Build your blog community with RSS
Give your readership ways to stay up-to-date and informed with your blog, by encouraging them to subscribe to your blog’s RSS feed. FeedBurner, another Google-owned product, is the only game in town for feed management. It will give you statistical data about your feeds content, distribution, and subscribers. Even though the data can be taken with a grain of salt. The real benefit of Feedburner is the ability to offer email and RSS reader subscriptions to readers of your blog. The trend, I find, is shifting more to email subscriptions than RSS subscriptions. Feedburner’s email delivery service works very well and it can be customized rather nicely. If we can’t educate consumers on using RSS readers, we can at least educate them to subscribe via email, something everyone has done at some point.

Social Networking and Social Signage

Professional Networking
LinkedIn is the tool of choice for professional networking. At the very least, if you’re not using the site for employment purposes, fill out a completed work history, resume, and profile. Set your profile to public so that it ranks for your name. LinkedIn allows you to aggregate third party service content such as, blogs and SlideShare presentations into your profile page. Use your profile to showcase your work and talent. Create a group page for your business center and keep in touch with current clients and prospects that way.

Social Networking
Facebook: love it or hate it, it’s here, and it’s the 800-pound guerrilla force to be reckoned with. Use Facebook for professional or personal networking. Be cautious on how you combine the two, because they can very easily spill over onto each other. If you’re going to be doing any marketing on Facebook, set up a public fan page. Facebook is a completely different beast and should be treated as such. There are a ton of bells and whistles that will allow you to customize your Facebook page, in addition to aggregating content from other third party sources.

Social Megaphone
Twitter is a social megaphone. There is no right or wrong way to use Twitter, however due to 140 char limitations it’s best for megaphoning links and information back to your home base. Establishing a Twitter presence is standard protocol nowadays, but ask yourself what you want to get out of Twitter. Your objectives and goals will dictate how you use the service.

Social Profile
Create a Google Profile and control to some extent what information people see about you online. As long as your profile is set to public, it will appear in search results for your name. You can also link all your social profiles. This is outpost number one – spend the time, and optimize it correctly.

Social Curation
Delicious and Diigo are the only two tools for this category. These bookmarking tools have proven that they can scale and have a solid track record. There are pros and cons to both, but they both achieve the same objective: tagging, saving, and storing bookmarks. The nice thing about Diigo is that it can save all new bookmarks automatically to Delicious. This gives you peace of mind knowing your digital data is archived.
Video and Photo Sharing

Thanks to the advent of mobile technology, faster and more accessible broadband and sites that host, broadcast and share consumer generated content, the video revolution is upon us and has been for some time now. Social media, is well, social. Stories get people talking. Create informative videos that are relevant to your messaging and brand, encourage others to share it and to create their own video content. Viral videos are rare and lots of factors determine if something will go viral. If your content is good and worth sharing, people will take notice.

YouTube reigns supreme in this category and rightfully so. YouTube is yet another Google owned property (are you starting to see a common theme here?). YouTube makes it extremely easy to host and stream videos. YouTube videos are easy to embed and are very shareable. Create a branded YouTube channel for your brand and always optimize your title and keywords accordingly. YouTube is a video sharing site at its core, but it’s also a massive search engine.

Pictures are worth a thousand words
Photo sharing sites are in abundance, but the two we recommend are Flickr and Google’s Picasa. Flickr has been around the longest and has lots of social components, specifically a built-in diehard community. Picasa has the same functionality with basic editing capabilities and easy bulk uploading to the web. Both services offer the basics: uploading, tagging, and sharing of photos.

In Conclusion

The number one benefit of social media marketing is gaining the all-important eyeball. It will also generate exposure for your businesses, improving traffic and build new partnerships. Start working on your toolkit today to build your Social Media platform. Just take one step at a time and you will eventually reap the benefits of your efforts.

–Susan Smith

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ny blogger will tell you that as soon as they made their first few posts, the pitches for coverage or product mentions came rolling in. There’s good reason for that — a mention on a few popular blogs provides plenty of benefits including brand visibility and incoming links.
Here at Website Magazine, we get plenty of pitches — from story ideas to products, every day businesses hungry for exposure send us an e-mail or product to try. Some are very effective, while others are relegated to the trash bin faster than they arrived. A proper pitch requires planning and execution.
Know Your AudienceNothing triggers the “delete” button faster than a pitch that begins something like, Dear blogger… On the other hand, using the blogger’s name or the name of the blog usually keeps them reading. This personalization of the message not only engages the reader but shows that you value their time and their blog.
In the same way, do your research and know the blog’s purpose and audience. It takes just a few minutes to read a post or two from the blog, and knowing the subject matter will show in your pitch. Nothing is more frustrating to a blogger than spending valuable time reading a pitch that is completely irrelevant to their audience. This is a common mistake and often results in a “blacklisting” of the person making the pitch — future relevant pitches risk never being seen.
Be SuccinctBloggers value their time. To be most effective, be upfront with your pitch. Tell the blogger what you want and why your product, service or announcement matters to them and their audience. If you haven’t stated your purpose withing the first two or three sentences, chances of exposure drops dramatically. If a blogger is truly interested in what you have to offer, they will take the time to learn more, if needed. After all, if you pique their interest, chances are excellent that their readers will want to know more too.
Offer SomethingBloggers want readers. And one way to ensure repeat visitors and new readers is to give something away. Based on the blog’s audience, offer something of value. It could be an online coupon, free product, free trial or free membership.
Also, tailor the offer to the specific blog via a custom coupon code or similar measure. The blogger wants to give readers the appearance of authority and value — by making your offer “exclusive” to the blog’s readers, they feel validated and the blogger benefits by becoming a valued resource. Also, people like to share inside information, giving your brand and offer a better chance of being shared to a wider audience.
Provide Resources or CreativesResearching and writing blog posts is time-consuming. It can be very frustrating to receive a good pitch, then have to crawl all over the Web looking for images, landing pages or other resources. Make sure your e-mails have everything the blogger needs — links, images, even verbiage.
Ask QuestionsIf you’re having trouble getting the attention of a particular blogger (or any blogs at all), don’t be afraid to ask very direct questions. Find out what type of pitches the blogger wants.
• What type of products are important to his or her audience?• How does the blogger prefer to be contacted?• Are there particular topics of interest that the blogger would like to cover but lacks the resources to?• Do they have an editorial calendar? If not, find out if the blogger writes any regularly-scheduled posts such as year-end wrap-ups or lists, seasonal posts, etc.

Finding the Right Blogs to PitchThere are tens of thousands of active blogs out there — what are the ones you should contact? Start by simply searching your topic with keywords. Use search engines’ custom search options like blog searches, related searches and Google’s Wonder wheel. You will find people posting on your topics and related topics. Search for topics on sites like Digg.com — find those submissions with high vote totals to identify influential blogs. Look on social networks too, for bloggers with high numbers of fans, friends and followers. Also look for popular blogs on blog aggregator sites.
When you find a few blogs to target, check some statistics. One quick and easy way is to use Compete.com to find estimated traffic levels — some blogs are very good at SEO, but might not have a very large following.
By asking questions, you give the blogger the impression that you want to become a resource for them, not just a media hound. It is very possible that you can provide material for the blogger they might not otherwise come in contact with. Think like a partner.

–Mike Phillips

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Hi all. We’re kicking off our new site and blog today and committing to posting twice a week. I’ll be writing every Monday and you can read Matthew’s posts every Friday. Thanks for joining us.

Firstly I’d like to mention the Web 2.0 Expo at Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco from April 22-25, 2008. Looks to be really profound with all the experts there and great training courses. I’ll be hanging out in the Marketing and Community track as well as poking around the expo to see whats new for podcasting and new media.

Here’s an excerpt from the presentation description:

“Find out how Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) along with web analytics are turning online marketing from art into science. See why Facebook, MySpace, Google, and LinkedIn are creating a Social Networking Revolution and helping you make lots and lots of “friends”. Learn how to create buzz with viral marketing, social networks, the social graph, and community evangelism. This track will tell you every

thing you need to know about blogs, social networks, online videos, widgets and other online

marketing tools that make a difference.”

So if you’re in town, stop by and say hi – or check in with us to see what we learned. We’ll probably blog about it so check back.

Ciao.

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