Marketing Pilgrim Published: “Sponsored: Trackur is Giving Away an Apple iPad 2” plus 3 more

Sponsored: Trackur is Giving Away an Apple iPad 2
Social Network Ad Spend Continues to Rise
Netflix Built it, But They Didn’t Come
Why Don’t People Want Roger Ebert to Make Money?

Sponsored: Trackur is Giving Away an Apple iPad 2

Posted: 18 Jan 2011 06:48 AM PST

Now that we have a bona fide managing editor in place at Marketing Pilgrim, it’s probably time to assume that you don’t already know that I’m the CEO of social media monitoring tool Trackur. Hence, the “sponsored” added to this title, just in case.

Anyway, after much success with our previous Apple iPad giveaways, Trackur has just launched a new contest–this time you could win an Apple iPad 2.

Huh? Say what? I didn’t know that Apple had announced the iPad 2 yet, so how is Trackur giving one away?

Oh c’mon, we all know that Apple will announce the iPad 2 in the very near future, so we’re getting a head start and naming it as the prize for our contest. By entering, you have the chance to be one of the very first owners of the iPad 2. It’s a win-win for all of us!

Entering is a piece of cake! You just need a Trackur account (free or paid) and then tweet the message you’ll find on this page.

Easy, huh?

For full details and contest rules, head over to the Trackur Apple iPad 2 contest page.

Social Network Ad Spend Continues to Rise

Posted: 18 Jan 2011 03:26 AM PST

Facebook may still have its issues (note the recent move to help developers get more data from Facebook users and their rather quick retraction of the effort) but it does generate cash. Of course, no one knows exactly how much because Facebook is supposedly a private company (and Goldman Sachs, those lovable, honest, upright guys of Wall Street intend to keep that way by playing fast and loose with securities laws) but there are people out there willing to guesstimate and then make predictions for the future (what would we do without these predictions?!).

The latest comes directly from eMarketer. US social network ad revenues were very good 2010 with 2011 promising to be a whole lot better.

Of course, Facebook accounts for roughly 65% of this spend according to the study so it's safe to say that if there were no Facebook there would be a lot less hubbub about the industry (or would something else have fulfilled the pent up demand?

Here is eMarketer’s best guess at the year Facebook had and what the future might hold.

Remember how Facebook boldly predicted at one point in their past that they would double revenue projections? Remember how the predicted numbers for 2010 revenue for Facebook just kept rising through out the year? Did Facebook take a lesson from Apple and 'promote' ridiculously low targets so they could look like business a business super hero? Mark Zuckerberg and company twisting the truth? Really? That's just not possible! Face it, with Facebook anything is possible. Oh and by the way, all of this is being done without needing to provide a shred of evidence (except to the chosen few who are made to look like 500 investors by Goldman). Being private has its benefits!

Well, it's no surprise that Facebook sits on top of this growing heap of ad dollars. What will be most interesting in 2011 is not whether they generate serious ad dollars. They will do that. The bigger stories will be if they do anything in their other business dealings with the likes of Goldman Sachs and their continued privacy gaffes that put a whole in this rapidly rising balloon.

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Netflix Built it, But They Didn’t Come

Posted: 17 Jan 2011 01:37 PM PST

With all the hype about social media marketing, it often seems like Facebook is the key to instant success. This week, however, Netflix found out that just building it wasn’t enough to make the people come.

Two years ago, Netflix added a Facebook component to their system that allowed you to easily share your movie choices and reviews with your friends. Okay, that’s not exactly true. From the sound of it, the app wasn’t easy to use and “allowed” was more like “forced,” so Netflix shut it down last week.

Director of Product Management, Tim Willerer explained the reason for the shut down on the company blog. He said:

Very few of you have signed on for this so we're pulling it back today to regroup, which includes testing new concepts, and ultimately finding a more appealing program for all of our members.

The explanation on the Facebook app tells a different story. As you can see from the block at the top of this page, the app lays blame on “unfixable issues” and “less than delightful experiences.” Three cheers to the person who wrote that. It’s honest and sarcastically fun at the same time.

If you look at the comments that follow on the blog post, most of them complain about the entire concept of linking Facebook and Netflix. Originally, Netflix had their own in-site friends community which was abandoned, presumably because they thought the Facebook app would take off. Users also didn’t like the fact that each of their updates hit their FB stream with no option to turn all or some of them off. There are complaints about the fact that the app was broken more than it wasn’t. Even bigger are the people who pointed out that the app wasn’t well publicized and so most Netflix users didn’t even know it existed.

Not surprisingly, if you go to the Facebook app itself, you see people bemoaning the loss. The best comment in the bunch:

With all the technology today why aren’t you able to make this work?

Good question. Why couldn’t a powerhouse brand like Netflix make Facebook work? A writer at Technologizer thinks the problem lies in the subject matter.

Cultivating a network of people with similar tastes in music or movies takes a lot of effort, and most people don't have time; . . . and watching a movie or listening to music is often a personal thing, and only folks who are really confident in their tastes will care to share. To put it another way, social networks like Ping or Netflix "Friends" aren't natural. They're a forced conversation that very few people want to have.

As a person who spends a large amount of time talking about TV and movies with my social media friends, I can’t buy this argument. Recommendations are a huge part of social media, so recommending what I just borrowed from Netflix should be a huge draw on Facebook.

I believe this was strictly a case of expecting too much return on too little effort. To make Facebook work, there needs to be a clear connection between Netflix and Facebook that includes the ability to pick and choose which bits of information you want to share. Obviously, the app has to work properly and it must be continuously marketed to users.

To do it right, you have to put in the time, effort and often some money. Once it’s built, it has to be monitored and nurtured. I wonder how many people who work for Netflix actually used the app on a daily basis? Want to bet, not many?

The lesson here is that social marketing isn’t a quick fix. Facebook can be a valuable tool but it won’t do the work for you.

Why Don’t People Want Roger Ebert to Make Money?

Posted: 17 Jan 2011 11:45 AM PST

Roger Ebert, the famed movie critic, has been sending out Tweets with Amazon affiliate links in them. Are you horrified? Apparently many people are and I don’t get it. Here’s the gist of the whole affair.

Two months ago, Ebert signed up for an Amazon affiliate account and began sending out two or three Twitter Tweets a day promoting various products. Generally he points out really good deals on great movies, but has been known to promote other items like coconut water (yuck).

A reporter for ClickZ noticed the Tweets and felt that they needed explaining. ClickZ, I love ya, but why? Even though, as they say in the article, celebrity Twitter endorsements are quite common, the reporter thought this particular event was unusual and wanted to know more. So he wrote an email to Ebert asking about the arrangement. The questions asked, which you can read here along with Ebert’s answers, seem to imply some kind of hidden business relationship between Ebert and Amazon. The reporter also asks about the “financial terms of the deal.”

Terms of the deal? He has an Amazon affiliate account, just like a million other mommy bloggers, DVD and music review sites, and pretty much anyone who runs a website.

And it’s not just ClickZ. A scan of Ebert’s Twitter feed and Twitter search will show that followers are complaining about his new attempt to make a dollar. Why? When you look at the volume of information he provides, these few Tweets can hardly be called spamming. The trouble seems to lie in the fact that he’s seen as a celebrity. If your Aunt Sally sent you a link to a cheap Alfred Hitchcock box set, you’d click it without complaint.

I came up through the affiliate marketing game and I know that people have this innate desire not to click affiliate links. They’ll go out of their way to avoid doing it, going straight to Amazon and typing in the name of the product to keep from giving anyone that fifty cent kickback, as if the money was coming out of their own pockets.

As for Roger Ebert, he says he hopes the affiliate money will help pay for his website expenses. I’m sure there are people who think that this is unnecessary, that a man of his status must be financially stable or rich even, so he doesn’t deserve those extra dollars.

I say, times are tough all over and with newspapers and magazines folding left and right, journalism doesn’t pay what it used to. But even if Ebert were the richest man on the planet, he should still be allowed to take advantage of Amazon’s affiliate program just like the rest of us.

Keep linking Mr. Ebert and I’ll happily click through and buy as a thank you for your many years of providing entertaining movie reviews.