Web Business by Ken Burbary

Time to measure consumer engagement

This is an entertaining parody, by Microsoft none the less, that illustrates the problems between advertisers and consumers today.

Internet marketers – what works and what doesn’t

I came across interesting data on AdRants: and MarketingSherpa that is based on a survey given to marketers who attended AD:Tech in 2007.

The survey questions internet marketers about how effective various online marketing methods are, namely what works, what doesn’t, etc…

Here’s a breakdown of the results, complete with charts. We’ll give you a quick play-by-play.

ROI winners:

o SEO
o Email marketing from house lists
o Behavioral targeting
o Paid search (according to 34 percent of those surveyed, down from 49 percent in ’06)

Lowest ROI generators:

o Rich media
o Banner ads
o Pop-ups and pop-unders — awarded the “worst Web ad of 2007″: No marketer said it provided a significant ROI

Budget Plans:

o Pay-per-click (PPC) and behavioral ads get a bigger cut of marketing budgets

New Tricks for the Old Dog:

o Viral marketing
o Advertising on mobile phones
o Online video sites
o Virtual worlds

The data was based on 421 responses from ‘net marketers that attended ad:tech in ’07.

Social media thoughts of the day

To be an effective community professional, you need to walk the talk and use the tools

Google is not a search engine, it’s a reputation tracker

Sean scored high on search engine results for Microsoft Support after a bad story was on Digg.com

Admits there are many buzzwords, yet many forget to look at the bigger picture

Rather than focusing on the Techcrunch/Scoble “Shiny Diamond” to develop a social media strategy

The 5 P’s of Social Media: People, Places, Process, Platform, Patterns

Process is potentially the most important P –but often overlooked

There are more smarter people about your product outside of your company

It’s good and horrible news that it’s easy to publish. Many fractures due to lack of strategy.

Google is the enemy of brand loyalty, if I can find the answer to a question not on your corporate property

Most advocates and influencers are not
helping to help a brand, they are helping other users.

“Pay it forward” a good model and metaphor how a community works

Participation:

Impacts to busienss: Customer Service and Support, Sales and Marketing, Innovation and Product Development

You can’t own the message and the audience is going to change it on their own

Word of Mouth has been a key driver why people buy what they buy, now with access to information through social tools greatly impacts this

Engagement is about brand inclusion, making sure people have their voiced involved

We’ve all seen ugly babies but never had one. We’ve strong attraction to our own products. Uses a MS open source as a case study

Beta is not early enough to get your community involved

If you want raving fans, get affinity, talks about Harley Davidson

Influencer Framework in Web 1.0: Envision and develop, test and release, and sell and support

Suggests that social aspect of employees were only in sell and support aspect, not other areas

Sean had an executive champion, Steve Ballmer

Social graph: as a business strategy we should think about it as\

Notes from SAP Salon: Social Media and Online Communities