Marketing Pilgrim Published: “Twitter’s Biz Stone Tells Fortune to Kiss Their @ss” plus 3 more

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Twitter’s Biz Stone Tells Fortune to Kiss Their @ss
Two Interesting Numbers from Google’s Earnings Report
Walking Dead Ad Next to Funeral Parlor: Brilliant or Oops?
As Twitter Slips, Potential Competitors Close In

Twitter’s Biz Stone Tells Fortune to Kiss Their @ss

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 06:24 AM PDT

One of the irrefutable rules of reputation management is that, in the absence of any official statement by a company, rumor and conjecture will rule your reputation.

Apparently Twitter co-founder Biz Stone subscribes to this philosphy because after Fortune wrote an article about the “Trouble@Twitter”, Stone has come out fighting.

First, Stone undermines Fortune’s credibility with some examples of its previous sensationalistic writing:

Here are some examples of how this works. After mostly positive coverage of Facebook, Fortune finally published an article in April of 2009 titled, “Is Facebook Losing Its Glow?” However, later that year they published, “What Backlash? Facebook Is Growing Like Mad.” Google received similar treatment. In July 2010 Fortune published, “Google, The Search Party Is Over.” Later that year, they published, “Google Continues To Gain Search Marketshare.”

Then, we see his act of defiance:

Twitter is an important company and it’s under scrutiny from journalists—this is exactly how it’s supposed to work. Now it’s our job to prove the reporters wrong so they can write an article later about how we have made dramatic progress.

Lastly, we learn that Twitter is ready to go on the offensive:

For a long time, we refused to hire a communications group and now that we have one, I’m having fun teasing them about this Fortune article but the truth is, we’re long overdue to be knocked down by the press.

From that last statement, I read two subtle statements from Stone.

We’re sick and tired of the media owning the Twitter story.
My communications team made me tone-down the language I used in this post, because I really wanted to tell Fortune to kiss my @ss!

Two Interesting Numbers from Google’s Earnings Report

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 04:55 AM PDT

Historically, posts about Google's earnings call has received little to no interest from our readers. Less people read the posts. I suspect that is because people want to use Google rather than know how much they are making. Oh and unless said they lost money it's assumed that Google is fine even if 'The Street' gets jittery.

Two numbers, however, stuck out for me from the call aside from the $2.3 billion in quarterly profited reported.

First was the rise in operating expenses from $1.84 billion one year ago to $2.84 billion this quarter. Much of that jump is being attributed to the rising cost of keeping employees around and hiring new ones.

From the Wall Street Journal

Sales and marketing costs spiked 69% to over $1 billion as Google spent to build its local-ad business and to promote its Chrome browser.

Google made a 10% across-the-board salary increase, which is driving up expenses this year. The company has also been shelling out money to keep some top product managers from jumping ship to hot start-ups such as Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. Google added 1,916 employees since January, bringing its total work force to 26,316.

They must be including all those $100 of free clicks as part of the cost of the marketing for Google because I don't see it otherwise. This could be an indication as well as to just how costly it will be to get the word out about local at the local level as its Google Places experiments to push the product in cities like Portland, OR, Charlotte, NC, Austin, TX, Las Vegas, NV and others. Otherwise, though I still don't see Google as a marketing juggernaut.

The other number that jumped off the page (just about quickly as Larry Page came on the earnings and left after just 2 minutes) is the amount of cash that Google has which has reached just under $37 billion. That's a lot of money folks and I have only one suggestion on how to spend a small portion of it to help Google become a threat again rather than a big search marketing cash cow which is really what it is right now.

Take a billion or two and rather than look to buy a Groupon or a Twitter invest in building a world-class, state of the art and undeniably awesome support structure. I have said this on a million occasions but now it is more evident than ever. Google will make plenty of money off the tech savvy types of the world and as that number grows and eventually becomes the majority of people they will do well.

In the interim, however, there is a 15-20 year period where there will still be people who want to get more from Google but just don't have the tech chops to do so. These people need help from other people, not forums, FAQ's and videos. This large market segment could be the difference in Google being dominant until the population shifts to majority of tech savvy folks.

Sure the ongoing costs of maintaining this kind of super support team is a drag on profits but if more people are using Google more effectively there will be more revenue. There will also be more Google customers which may spend more than they ever imagined because they have pent up demand that comes from years of not being able to utilize Google to its fullest benefit.

I say all of this knowing full well that Google will probably never invest in a structure like this. It flies against their automation at all costs mentality. Honestly, though, I really believe that Google needs to do something different or there could be trouble. It's good to have direction and a mission but to do it at the expense of other great opportunities that require something other than servers and bytes and bits is short sighted.

But, hey, what do I know? Be nice when you answer that. So what are your thoughts on what Google should do with that mountain of cash? Reduce the deficit? Something philanthropic? Nothing at all? Have company outings with pools full of money so they can swim in it?

Let us know!

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Walking Dead Ad Next to Funeral Parlor: Brilliant or Oops?

Posted: 14 Apr 2011 02:27 PM PDT

AMC’s series “The Walking Dead” is making quite a splash in the UK but for all the wrong reasons. A billboard, advertising the zombie-themed series appeared next to a funeral home and people are not happy.

(Photo: North News)

A ClearChannel spokesman said that it was an “unfortunate juxtaposition.” He apologized and said the sign would be removed. The funeralcare owner expressed his displeasure saying that when the space was leased, he was assured that nothing “inappropriate” would be featured there.

It’s unlikely that anyone at ClearChannel made the connection between the sign placement and the next-door neighbor. If they did, then it was a person with a wicked sense of humor who signed off on it. Or maybe it was an advertising genius. Obviously, the people who put up the sign weren’t concerned or maybe they simply didn’t walk around to the other side of the building.

But let’s pretend that ClearChannel knew exactly what it was doing. Was it a smart move? They’ve certainly gotten more than their share of press out of the situation. Some people thought it was in poor taste, but some found it funny (cough *Groupon Super Bowl ad* cough).

Given that “The Walking Dead” appeals to a trendy audience with a love of all things gruesome, would you take the chance and put up the sign next to a funeral home or a cemetery? And do you think this was a brilliant marketing move or a major oops?

As Twitter Slips, Potential Competitors Close In

Posted: 14 Apr 2011 01:10 PM PDT

It’s no secret that Twitter has more registered users than actual users. There are stats that say that almost half of the accounts are no longer active. Stats that show how 90% of the Tweets come from 25% of the people and that Twitter’s growth has begun to level off. Add to that, all the internal squabbling and a recent move to block third-party developers and Twitter’s star isn’t shining quite as bright as it used to.

Why? And what now? Fortune has the “why” covered. They’ve just published an extensive article that looks at the history of the company and the roadblocks they’ve faced. If you want all the gory details, it’s a good read.

Here’s what caught my eye;

To be fair, Twitter’s founders didn’t set out to build the next Facebook: Consumers turned it into a social phenomenon and kept signing on to see what it was about. Dorsey, Stone, and Williams started the service as an experimental side project; it was never designed to accommodate the 200 million–plus registered accounts worldwide it now hosts.

Okay, but now it’s big so it’s fight or flight time. Personally, I usually choose the later, not the former, but that’s just me. Twitter, despite the correlation, isn’t in flight mode. They’ve come back with an updated dashboard. They’ve improved functionality and they’ve firmed up their advertising component. What more do people want?

What they want, is for Twitter to be something it’s not. It’s not made for conversation. It’s not made for long statements. It’s a bulletin board big enough for the whole world to see. It’s about telling the world what you’re watching right now, what you ate for breakfast and who ticked you off, big time. That’s what it is and that’s what it does.

Then we have UberMedia, makers of one of the lesser third-party Twitter interface apps. Rumor has it they’re finalizing a deal to buy TweetDeck which would put them in a very sweet place. TweetDeck and other similar apps are designed to make up for Twitter’s natural shortcomings. They let you look at multiple accounts easily (can you believe some people have more than one account!) and they allow you to post longer messages.

CNN says that UberMedia isn’t interested in being an attachment anymore, so they’re going to launch their own micro-blogging service. By the end of the article, they backpedal saying that the launch is a “backup plan” to save them if Twitter decides to cut off all third-party apps. Yeah, sure.

If anyone is going to be able to compete with Twitter it’s the people behind either TweetDeck or HootSuite. What they need to do is find a way to make a micro-blogging platform that is more about threaded conversations and less about the one-shot shout-out. That would be a viable model that could give Twitter a run for its money.

Can anyone compete with Twitter at this point? Or maybe the question is, should anyone even bother to try?

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