Marketing Pilgrim Published: “Mobile Trends 2011 for the Realist” plus 5 more

Mobile Trends 2011 for the Realist
Twitter’s Promoted Tweets Roll Out; A Make or Break for the Social Network?
LinkedIn Ads Now Out of Beta and More Targeted
Latinos and Teens: Cracking the Social Media Codes
What Do Men Want? Unicast Has the Answer
Seven Superstar CEOs Too Dumb to Work for Google

Mobile Trends 2011 for the Realist

Posted: 26 Jan 2011 07:38 AM PST

You know how we approach research here at Marketing Pilgrim. We look at the title of the report or survey, then we look at the source, then we see the (more often than not) obvious connection to why this 'research' was done. The answer is usually PR versus actually showing or proving anything.

These reports often leaves one scratching their head but on occasion there is something that comes across our desk that refreshing because it is, gulp, realistic.

Objectivity in research is defined for me by the use of words that don't always make every subject sound like an online Utopia where everything is always positive and things are always on the rise. That's not the real world. Research that states for a particular vertical that everything is 'unicorns and rainbows' is marginalized because nothing in this world is all upside. However, you would never guess that from most of the research in the marketplace these days.

That's why I found the Forrester Report called Mobile Trends in 2011 to be a breath of fresh air. It's a report that dares use words like irrelevant and a phrase like 'will generate little revenue' when talking about the latest sacred cow of the hype machine: mobile.

The report gives a great look back at the 2010 year in mobile and Forrester grades itself on last year’s predictions. That's interesting for sure and a good reminder of where we have been in the rapidly evolving mobile space.

What's most interesting is Forrester's take on the future which include statements like the following for 2011

Use of the mobile/social/local combination will explode but will generate little revenue.

Blasphemer! How could anyone even think such a thing?! That section of the report is closed with

…….location-based advertising will not generate meaningful revenues in 2011.

C'mon, Forrester. Now you're just not playing nice! Everything that is being hyped right now is guaranteed to be wildly successful right now because, well, because we need it to be! How dare you consider letting realism seep into this conversation! Forrester did footnote this heretical viewpoint by saying essentially that the future is bright but the present is not going to be the home run that everyone is predicting.

Another realistic view is

The apps versus mobile Internet debate will continue — and remain irrelevant

This statement is really about something that is endemic in the Internet marketing industry. It's this assumption that the degree to which we in the industry use all things digital and cool automatically translates to the rest of the world. Reality check: it does not currently and until the industry recognizes this it will continue to blow smoke up everyone's skirts to the point of sounding silly. The Internet industry is so full of itself at times that it often forgets that an incredibly large percentage of the rest of the world doesn't get what it is saying and, in most cases, could give a crap.

As a result apps, may not rule the day for the less sophisticated. The increased smartphone adoption by the "less app apt" (which Forrester affectionately refers to as the 'dumb' smartphone user) is an important development. The prediction from Forrester is that average number of apps downloaded by these less sophisticated users be smaller than what the industry may be accustomed to. Download less? How dare they!

Needless to say I liked this report vs. the others in the space because it was not afraid to say things that would fly against the industry 'conventional wisdom' which often times has little to do with wisdom and might be better labeled 'conventional promotion'. Of course, these are all predictions so we'll just have to wait until next year for Forrester to grade themselves on calling these trends. Should be interesting for sure.

The report is not a freebie and can be purchased here (Marketing Pilgrim receives no payment from Forrester for reports purchased).

Twitter’s Promoted Tweets Roll Out; A Make or Break for the Social Network?

Posted: 26 Jan 2011 07:27 AM PST

Well, they’ve been a long time coming, but Twitter ads are finally ready to go mainstream…almost!

MediaPost reports that the self-service version of Twitter’s promoted tweets are being rolled out to advertisers–albeit a select few. So far, Clix Marketing’s David Szetela is the only one talking about it and he’s landed Guy Kawasaki as a Twitter ads client.

As part of the roll out, we’re starting to learn a few more details of how they work…

…Twitter’s self-serve platform requires the advertiser to enter a name, and date and time to run the campaign. It also asks for “interests” and “search keywords,” as well as a maximum bid and daily budget…the backend technology crawls tweets and user bios looking for the frequency of repeated words. The platform determines where to insert tweets in the user’s timeline, but it’s not clear if the algorithm takes into account Twitter followers. Nor is it understood how Twitter will rank the Promoted Tweets in Twitter streams.

What’s not confirmed is whether Twitter will score the ads based on how often they are clicked, RT’d, etc, though many suspect this will be the case. Otherwise, you’d end up with a system that’s easily gamed.

Right now, advertisers must commit to a 3-month campaign–presumably so Twitter can collect enough information about any changes that may be needed–and they can select from different types of ad payment options.

This really is Twitter’s revenue tipping point. Remember before Google has AdWords? Sure it was popular, but it wasn’t making any money. It wasn’t until Google figured out how to monetize its search results, that the company saw an explosion in growth.

The same’s about to happen for Twitter. It’s no wonder that the company has taken almost a year to roll out self service ads. Twitter’s entire future rests on the success of this program.

Next stop? A $4 billion valuation and a couple hundred million in revenue! Then? My bet would be an IPO in 2012.

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LinkedIn Ads Now Out of Beta and More Targeted

Posted: 26 Jan 2011 06:08 AM PST

LinkedIn has finally taken the beta tag off of their self-serve ad platform. The beta tag has been in place since 2008. So rather than looking like Google in keeping a beta tag on an offering until it rusted the time has come for LinkedIn Ads to be 'official'. Of course, the talk of a first quarter IPO can help a company to 'clean up shop' a bit as well but who's counting.

As reported by MediaPost

LinkedIn Wednesday formally launched its pay-per-click, self-serve ad system after being in beta since 2008. Rebranded as LinkedIn Ads, the text-advertising service formerly known as DirectAds mainly expands audience targeting options to include job title, LinkedIn groups and companies. Previously, the platform offered several targeting choices such as age, gender, geography, job function and seniority.

Below is a good look at the options for targeting ads that can be utilized.

LinkedIn is in a very unique position because its audience defines itself very specifically on purpose and leaves little room for guessing who someone can potentially be based on title, location etc, etc. To take advantage of this information that is given freely and readily by LinkedIn users advertisers can target ads for up to 100 job titles and the drill down potential is very interesting indeed.

With the new options, the company aims to capitalize on the wealth of professional and work-related data it has from its 90 million members. “We’re really focused on helping advertisers reach exactly the audience they’re looking for,” said Jack Chou, senior product manager at LinkedIn. “No one else has the type of professional data we have and the ability to marry that with the type of targeting capability we offer.”

One concern is whether this targeting will be too much' for some users who will not like the fine tuning that could single them out. While I think this is an issue in the real world I suspect it won't be as much so in a 'closed' environment like LinkedIn. Most people who use LinkedIn are very open with information and open to suggestion. As a result, seeing a targeted ad based on information that you show to most people anyway there should be little push back. Heck, if there is anywhere on the Internet where fine-tuned targeting makes sense it's here.

LinkedIn is being smart, however, and doing a CYA in their approach to the potential concerns of a likely loud few about being too targeted.

Advertisers may welcome deeper targeting, but what about users? If an ad hits too close to home, could that be jarring for members? Chou said the company’s ad service uses only non-personally identifiable information for targeting purposes. He also said that if a targeted campaign has too narrowly tailored an audience, LinkedIn won’t allow it to run. He did not say what that threshold was, however. “It’s certainly a way for us to make sure that no single piece of targeted data is personally identifiable with the new targeting features,” he said.

So how do you use LinkedIn? Is it important to you and your social networking efforts? Could your company benefit from being able to zero in on very specific professionals? Does this kind of targeting capability creep you out or is it just another day at the online office?

Give us your thoughts in the comment section today. We would love to hear from you.

Latinos and Teens: Cracking the Social Media Codes

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 05:23 PM PST

If I say “Pudding!” to my closest friends, they’ll crack up laughing because they know exactly what I mean. It’s an in-joke, a kind of secret language that defines us as a group. Widen that circle to my fandom friends and we truly have a language all our own. A language we use so commonly that we often forget that outsiders can’t figure out what we’re talking about. Then again, maybe that’s part of why we developed the language in the first place, so we can talk in front of the whole world but only those clued-in will know the truth.

Teens have a language all their own and they’re taking it to new heights through social media. According to an article in MediaShift, teens have developed their own form of “social coding” that allows them to be public while still keeping their conversations private. From the type of profile picture you use, to which brands you follow, there’s a hidden message in everything teens say or do.

Peter Swanson, a college-aged intern at ad agency, Engauge, said:

“I know it sounds superficial, but if I see a girl likes three or four brands, I pretty much know who she is — or at least, I can tell if we’re going to click, if we’ve got a chance. If she likes J. Crew, right? Or, like, Old Navy? That says a lot.”

What that means for marketers, is that unlike moms whose loyalty can be bought with a discount code, teens are pickier about who they do and do not follow. It also means that to engage this audience you have to speak their language and that might mean hiring someone from that age-group to translate for you.

The concept of coded social media messages, also plays out in the Latino community, where Twitter hashtags are more than just a form of organization.

Giovanni Rodriguez of ClickZ wrote an interesting article called “Latinos in #Twitterlandia” which looks at hashtags as the modern equivalent of a secret handshake.

For many Twitter diehards today, the hashtag denotes not a thing but a group of people with similar interests. Many Latinos have openly embraced the hashtag for this kind of socialization. . . And while the use of the hashtag at one time may have been confined to a small class of insiders . . . it’s now used to openly invite all comers. You, too, can join a Latino “gang” on Twitter. And you don’t have to be Latino.

So the solution to marketing to either of these groups would appear to be learning their secret language. But is it? Sure it’s good to know as much about your audience as you can, but there’s nothing more embarrassing than wannabe trying to fit in.

The real trick is finding a middle ground, a way to get your message across to a particular group without pretending to be something you’re not. As noted above, you don’t have to Latino to join the conversation, but you do have to be respectful of their beliefs and what they stand for, or you and your product will be the subject of their next “in” joke.

What Do Men Want? Unicast Has the Answer

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 01:04 PM PST

What do men want? It’s a question I ask myself every day and today Unicast came up with the answer! Men don’t want to have fun, they want to know what’s going on in the world. Really? That wouldn’t have been my first guess.

According to What Men Want 2011, 67% of men said they use the internet “primarily for news,” 65% said they use it to connect with family and only 51% said for entertainment. The exception to the rule was in the 18-25 age group, where game play and and watching TV or movies online was the primary focus. In all other age groups, those activities never ranked higher than 63% and dropped as low as 25% in the over 65 group.

To make all of the info easier to process and more relevant to you, the marketer, Unicast was kind enough to put together a nifty chart that shows the demographic “most likely to” in each of eleven categories. Here’s one part of the chart. To see the rest, visit the What Men Want 2011, page.

One interesting note is that men with children were far more likely to be involved in an online activity than men without kids. Maybe because they’re at home more? Or they need the outlet?

When asked about advertising, only 44% of men said they were attracted to deals and discounts. Contrast that with the 82% of women who said deals were number one on their list. Clearly, a few bucks off isn’t going to be enough to convince a man to click. So what does get their attention? Nothing. The only option that came in higher than 29% was “None of the Above.” That included sweepstakes chances, localized information, video, social media sharing — across the board, men were pretty ambivalent when it came to ads.

The lesson here is that if you have a product that sells exclusively to men, find a way to turn your product into news and they’ll read all about it.

Men, what do you think of these results? Fairly accurate or not so much?

Thanks to Cynopsis Digital for the heads-up.

Seven Superstar CEOs Too Dumb to Work for Google

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 12:39 PM PST

It looks like Google is hiring again.

The search giant says 2011 will be its “biggest hiring year in company history” which means it will likely hire more than the 6,000 it added in 2007.

Still, we all know how hard it is to get a job at Google. If you don’t have a PhD, then you may as well look into janitorial positions at the company. Don’t have any kind of degree? Yeah, good luck with that. You won’t get in, but you know what? None of these CEOs would ever qualify for a job at Google either–so you’re in great company.