Marketing Pilgrim Published: “Google Integrates Twitter Updates With Location Reviews” plus 3 more

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Google Integrates Twitter Updates With Location Reviews
Bing and Get A Deal
FanTrail App Provides New Marketing Avenues for Musicians
Who Needs a Company Website When You Have Facebook?

Google Integrates Twitter Updates With Location Reviews

Posted: 04 Mar 2011 05:52 AM PST

Google continues to update and improve its Hotpot offering and it almost feels like they are looking to do it under the radar. Of course, I have talked about how Google couldn't market their way out of a wet paper bag (unless you live in Portland, OR) so why this is surprises me makes no sense.

At any rate Google has now integrated the ability to update your Twitter account when you review a location in Hotpot or Google Latitude on an Android device. The Google Hotpot blog (or LatLong blog or Mobile blog – talk about duplicate content!) reports

Whether it's Google Places with Hotpot or Google Latitude, we're working on helping you connect the people you care about with places you love. Now, when you're rating your dinner spot using Google Maps for Android, you can share your review with even more people by posting it to Twitter.

When you rate and review places like restaurants or cafes from Google Places, you can share valuable recommendations with your Hotpot friends and across Google's products – in search results, on google.com/hotpot, and on Place pages. But we wanted you to be able to share your recommendations even more broadly. So today, you can start sharing your ratings and reviews with your followers on Twitter directly from your Android-powered device.

This may fall into the category of "It's about time" but Google has it's own way of doing things and honestly, we mere mortals are not allowed to question it. Here is what a tweet will look like that tells everyone whether your experience is a winner or a loser.

One thing I do like about the Hotpot is the simple interface.

In addition, Google has made changes to its Latitude service by giving users the ability to 'ping' a friend to ask them to check in. So now you can give reviews for your friends and virtually pester them as well.

There are plusses and minuses to all of this isn't there?

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Bing and Get A Deal

Posted: 04 Mar 2011 04:48 AM PST

If you look at the news in the Internet marketing world over the past 24-48 hours you can start to see why sites like Groupon and LivingSocial are going to need to work to stay ahead of a growing mob of daily deal offers.

Heavyweights like the New York Times have joined the group and yesterday yet another large company put its hat in the ring. That company is Microsoft and it has partnered with The Dealmap to power this offering. From one of yesterday's press release:

The Dealmap®, the leading source for people to find and share local and daily deals, today announced that it has signed a commercial distribution agreement with Microsoft's Bing. As part of this strategic collaboration, Microsoft Corp. is using The Dealmap's DealExchange™ platform to publish local and daily deal content to consumers through Bing on the Web and on its mobile properties. Consumers can find local deals on Bing and Bing for mobile today, and The Dealmap and Microsoft will continue integrating local deal content into other relevant areas of the Bing network.

I have recently had conversations with Bing's Director of Search, Stefan Weitz about many different areas regarding Bing's efforts to move up in not only the world of search but the world of the Internet as a whole. Many feel that Microsoft's battle is an uphill one but if you talk to Weitz you can get the feeling that they are committed to the challenge and ready to fight. He told me

It's fun being the underdog. It allows you to not get stuck in what has been done before.

Partnering with a third party like The Dealmap to jump headlong into this crazy deal a day market is one way to do things differently. If it were Google they would have bought The Dealmap and integrated it into the Goog in some fashion. Microsoft takes a different approach though and looks to partner with other already established operations to power many of their online efforts. (More to come in the future on my talks with Weitz).

As for now it's clear that Microsoft has found its partner in this space.

"We chose to work with The Dealmap because they provide a robust technology solution along with high quality and comprehensive coverage of deals," said Andy Chu, director of Bing for Mobile, Microsoft. "With The Dealmap, we're able to bring unique and valuable content to consumers and enhance the Bing search and mobile user experiences."

Also, by making this choice Bing will actually be 'using' Groupon and LivingSocial in a sense. SearchEngineLand reports

The Dealmap immediately provides Bing with "more than 200,000 offers in over 14,000 locales locations across the U.S." It includes daily deals from a number of sources (e.g., Groupon and LivingSocial) as well as a range of more conventional coupons and offers.

So while this latter part of the week has been focused primarily on the daily deals frenzy we still wonder how you feel about this space. We feel that this is an important part of the 'new world order' of the Internet but we find reader interest wanes a bit when talking about deals.

Give us your opinion of the online daily deal space. Do you use it? Are you using the idea for your business? Is it here to stay or is it just another passing Internet fad? Do you care when new players enter the market? Are there any other players you are looking to enter the fray or have we reached a saturation point already?

FanTrail App Provides New Marketing Avenues for Musicians

Posted: 03 Mar 2011 03:55 PM PST

For musicians, MySpace used to be the social network of choice, but now that the stands are empty over there, it’s sort of Facebook or nothing. Enter FanTrail, a new smartphone app with some exciting ideas about marketing to fans. Even if you’re not a musician, keep reading because there’s inspiration here for all of us.

FanTrail is a free application that allows a musician to communicate and sell to his fans on a variety of levels. For the fan, the app acts as a digital newsletter providing social media updates (which can all be updated at the same time with one click), a calendar of events and links to the musician’s music on iTunes. If a user buys through the app, the musician gets a percentage of the price over and above the royalty he makes from iTunes.

For the musician, the app gives unprecedented access to the fans in that it’s designed to broadcast a message globally, based on location or even to one fan in particular. Best of all, it handles voice messages which allows the artist to connect to the fans on a much more personal level.

The most unique feature in FanTrail is their love meter which gauges the interest level of every fan who uses the app. The meter rises every time a fan reads a post or buys a tune or checks out a concert. The artist can access this information, along with geographical data, which they can use to reward top influencers. Imagine extending a meet-and-greet offer to the band’s biggest fan in each stop on a concert tour. Maybe that’s only 20 people, but those 20 people will be the best salesmen for the product and it won’t cost a dime. There is no better word-of-mouth marketer than an excited fan.

FanTrail is doing for the music biz what MySpace should have done. They’re using the best of what social media and mobile has to offer to connect with an audience that’s already predisposed to using these kinds of applications. It’s entertaining and it’s functional but best of all, it’s personal and that’s a winning combination.

Right now FanTrail is free and they’ll be making their money from advertising and presumably a percentage of the iTunes sales. You can learn more about the app at their home page. If you’re in the music biz, give it a try and let us know what you think. If music isn’t your business, take a moment to think about how you can personalize communications with your “fans” and how you can reward the most ardent for their support. You know what they say, in the end, the love you take, Is equal to the love you make.

Thanks to the New York Times for the tip.

Who Needs a Company Website When You Have Facebook?

Posted: 03 Mar 2011 11:53 AM PST

If you have a Facebook page with 21 million “likes,” do you really need a company website? Stephen Haines, commercial director of Facebook’s U.K. operation, says no!

Speaking at the Technology for Marketing and Advertising conference in London yesterday, Haines demonstrated the power of Facebook by comparing “likes” to web page views. For example, Starbucks who has 21.1 million likes to 1.8 million site visitors, or Coca-Cola who has 20.5 million likes compared with 270,000 visitors.

CNET, who covered the event, thought there was some merit to the idea.

His idea isn’t totally outrageous. After all, plenty of individuals and companies rely on existing online services rather than building everything from scratch. At the individual level, tools such as Google’s Blogger or Yahoo’s Flickr are easier to set up than a custom-built blog or photo-sharing site. Facebook interactions let companies tap into a wealth of customer information and a communication channel, and there’s no need to coax a user to set up yet another username and password.

But they also acknowledge the other side of the coin, which is that such a trend would make Facebook “a sort of parallel Web inside its own walled garden.”

Kind of feels like that already, doesn’t it?

Facebook does have the ability to pull in an audience. It’s easy to access and the format makes daily communication a breeze. I don’t have stats to back it up, but I’d bet that the number of people who would “like” a company on Facebook is much higher than the number of people who would sign up independently at that same company’s website.

The website vs Facebook page issue is a growing concern for many companies. Does it make sense to buy an ad that drives traffic to your website when Facebook has the active audience? What can a website provide that Facebook can’t? I’ll tell you what, a sense of ownership.

Facebook is a great place to meet and greet with the fans but it’s still Facebook. Having a website is like having an office versus working out of your garage. Even though anyone can build a website, people still see it as a sign of something tangible. It’s the public face of your company and that’s important.

What do you think? Is a company website a waste of virtual space or is it a necessary part of doing business?