Google Cuts CEO’s Security Budget; Leads to Encounter with Random Old Man

admin    Web Marketing     Budget, CEO’s, Cuts, Encounter, google, Leads, Random, Security

What happens when you cut the security budget for the CEO of the world’s largest search engine?

Random old men come up to you at coffee shops and talk your ear off! Just look!

Huh? What? That’s not some random old guy but Apple CEO Steve Jobs?

Ohhhh!

While some might speculate that the entire meeting was just a planned publicity stunt, I put it to you that it was entirely random and happened because Eric Schmidt had his security budget cut last year.

Schmidt’s personal security cost Google just $244,542 last year–down from $402,562 the year before. With this drop in budget it’s highly plausible that ol’ Eric was enjoying a caramel latte, when some stranger accosted him.

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Infogroup launches social, interactive marketing services (BtoB Magazine)

Rob Mead    Twitter Marketing     include-social, infogroup, marketing-holding, marketing-services, media-monitoring, will-begin

Omaha, Neb.and#8212;Database marketing holding company Infogroup will begin offering a suite of social and interactive marketing services that will include social media monitoring, consulting and data appends.

Read more here:
Infogroup launches social, interactive marketing services (BtoB Magazine)

Secrets of Social Media Buzz Marketing from CMO of Virgin America

admin    Twitter Marketing     America, Buzz, From, marketing, Media, Secrets, Social, Virgin

Last week, I had the opportunity to hear Porter Gail speak about how Virgin America has launched and marketed a new airline with a much smaller budget than their competition. To build their brand and sales, Porter and Virgin America have used a clever combination of inbound marketing tactics like event buzz, cool content and social media interactions.

1. Select Your Target Customer and Grok Them. Knowing that they were launching in only a few cities the first few years, Virgin America knew that they could not win the frequent business traveler who needs a huge network of airports and lots of schedule options. Virgin America decided to focus on a tech savvy and online-centric consumer, which made sense given their hub is in San Francisco and they serve cities like Los Angeles, Boston, New York and Seattle. Virgin America designs their entire customer experience around this consumer, from offering inflight wifi internet service to having touch screen entertainment systems to using channels like YouTube and Twitter to communicate with their audience and even having colored “mood lighting” on planes.
2. Create Buzz Worthy Experiences. Virgin does not have enough money to compete with other larger airlines using outbound marketing (think of all the TV ads you see for air travel), so they rely on their customers to create content and share that content to build their brand. How do they get their customers to create and share content? They give their customers experiences worth talking about. They do everything they can to make the flight experience remarkable – the offer food on demand whenever you want – not just when the cart passes, they have power plugs at your seat for laptops and other devices, and a touch screen entertainment system offering music, TV and movies. Then they let the magic happen and the customers talk about those experiences.
3. Connect, Don’t Market. We’ve talked a lot in our webinars and in this blog about how it is critical in social media marketing to be a valuable resource, not broadcast the benefits of your product. Virgin America lives that to the fullest – they see social media as a communication channel, not a broadcast medium, and they use it as an opportunity to learn and improve about their product and experience, not a channel to pump out their latest specials. Looking at Twitter specifically and using Twitter Grade as a measure of impact, Virgin America gets 100 with 63,000 followers which is a strong presence. However, some of their competition got started earlier and pushed harder, and have achieved even more remarkable results: Southwest gets 100 as well but has over 1 million followers, and similarly JetBlue gets 100 but has 1.6 million followers.
4. Leverage partnerships. When Virgin America launched service to Las Vegas, they did a partnership with the TV show Entourage, and got tons and tons of media exposure for free by cross promoting the show and their airline. And Entourage is a show that has a lot of viewership with their target audience of younger and tech savvy consumers, so the connection made sense. Other examples are a partnership with YouTube where they live streamed from one of their airplanes during a YouTube Live event, and working with Victoria’s Secret to have an in flight fashion show.

What do you think? Are there any lessons from Virgin America that apply to marketing your business?

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Home Improvement Site, ConstructionDeal.com, Announces a Nationwide Twitter Tax Refund Contest (PRWeb)

Melvin Perry    Twitter Marketing     beginning-on-march, construction, contest-hosted, highlight-how, hosted-at-http, make-needed, refund, tax-refunds, Twitter

Home improvement site, ConstructionDeal.com, announces a nationwide Twitter Tax Refund contest. Beginning on March 29th, Twitter users can follow ConstructionDeal.com and tweet daily to potentially earn up to $625

The rest is here:
Home Improvement Site, ConstructionDeal.com, Announces a Nationwide Twitter Tax Refund Contest (PRWeb)

Home Improvement Site, ConstructionDeal.com, Announces a Nationwide Twitter Tax Refund Contest (PRWeb via Yahoo! News)

Georg Rauh    Twitter Marketing     beginning-on-march, construction, contest-hosted, highlight-how, hosted-at-http, make-needed, refund, tax-refunds, Twitter

Home improvement site, ConstructionDeal.com, announces a nationwide Twitter Tax Refund contest. Beginning on March 29th, Twitter users can follow ConstructionDeal.com and tweet daily to potentially earn up to $625.

Here is the original post:
Home Improvement Site, ConstructionDeal.com, Announces a Nationwide Twitter Tax Refund Contest (PRWeb via Yahoo! News)

NYC Marketing Inc., Announces a New Program That Gets Companies on a Budget Noticed (PRWeb via Yahoo! News)

Lynn Terry    Twitter Marketing     announce-the-launch, its-affiliate, Launch, marketing, nyc, Opportunity

NYC Marketing Inc.

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NYC Marketing Inc., Announces a New Program That Gets Companies on a Budget Noticed (PRWeb via Yahoo! News)

Nestle Finding That Social Media’s Not So Sweet

admin    Web Marketing     Finding, Media’s, Nestle, Social, Sweet

You really have to careful these days if you are doing any kind of business that can be remotely connected to something that will set off a guerilla social media attack by what I’ll call the ’socialnistas’. This is the social media user that is looking for a fight, looking for a way to “make a difference” even if that difference comes at the expense of many others.

Nestle has stepped in the social media muck as of late with its association with a company that supplies palm oil to the Swiss chocolate giant. So much for being neutral, huh? The Wall Street Journal tells us more

For nearly two weeks, environmental activists have been using social media to wage war against Nestlé over its purchases of palm oil for use in KitKat candy bars and other products, catching the Swiss food giant off guard.

Protesters have posted a negative video on YouTube, deluged Nestlé’s Facebook page and peppered Twitter with claims that Nestlé is contributing to destruction of Indonesia’s rain forest, potentially exacerbating global warming and endangering orangutans. The allegations stem from Nestlé’s purchases of palm-oil from an Indonesian company that Greenpeace International says has cleared rain forest to establish palm plantations.

Mind you, the amount of palm oil purchased by Nestle from this company was only 1.25% of all the palm oil purchased by the company. That doesn’t matter to the folks behind the campaign to bring Nestle to its knees.

So what is Nestle taking away from all of this? Some serious lessons in social media, at the very least. It appears as if the company cannot get a social media word in edge wise and is taking its lumps in the process.

Nestlé says it is pressuring its providers to scrutinize their supply chains to keep that from happening, but it has had trouble making itself heard above the din. The difficulty with social media, says Nestlé spokeswoman Nina Backes, is “to show that we are listening, which we obviously are, while not getting involved in a shouting match.”

Activist groups have long used Web sites, grass-roots email campaigns and videos to publicize their causes. But the attack on Nestlé is part of a new wave of digitally savvy protests, marketing experts say.

“This is the place where major corporations are very vulnerable,” says Daniel Kessler, press officer at Greenpeace.

Nestle has been getting slammed on their Facebook page as well. At one point recently the company announced that anyone posting on the site with a logo that looked like the KitKat logo that read Killers (this was from a video that had gone viral which was produced in protest of Nestle’s practice) would have their post deleted. Well, Nestle found that the technique was one way to get new ‘fans’. Unfortunately as the number of Facebook fans on the page went up to 95,000 most of the newcomers were anti-Nestle. Let’s just say that Nestle’s Facebook page is not a Nestle lovefest these days. If you would like to see some social media vitriol check it out.

Late last week, Ms. Backes says, Nestlé resumed posting information on Facebook to tell consumers about its palm-oil sourcing practices. She says it is too soon to judge whether sales of KitKats or other Nestlé products have been affected by the protests.

“Like all companies, we are learning about how best to use social media, particularly with such complex issues,” Ms. Backes says. “What we take out of this is that you have to engage.”

So what are we witnessing here? Is it the dawn of the power of social media or can we be seeing it used as a bully pit as well? Nestle may have made a mistake in the eyes of many but if they are not allowed to make amends in the social media space because they can’t rise above the noise is that actually a good thing? Who wins in a situation like this one?

What do you think Nestle should do next? What about Greenpeace? If they can’t hear Nestle crying uncle are they really bringing about change or are they just piling on at this point? Some wonder if Nestle should shut down their social media efforts, especially Facebook, and start over. Some experts chime in

Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst at Altimeter Group, a digital-media consulting firm, says that would close off all lines of communication. Ian Schafer, CEO of digital-marketing firm Deep Focus, sees it differently. “The damage has been so done, it might not be a bad idea to shut down the page and start over,” Mr. Schafer says. “It is tough to turn that negativity around.”

Your thoughts?

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Court Case Serves as a Good Reminder as to the Perils of Marketing Through Text Messages (CircleID)

Albert Decruz    Twitter Marketing     animated-film, brought-on-behalf, class-action, dismiss-case, illinois, not-surprising, other-cases, sms, spam-marketing

A court in Illinois rejected a motion to dismiss case filed by defendants in a class action brought on behalf of plaintiffs who received SMS spam marketing for an animated film called “Robots”. The court’s ruling is not surprising, given the other cases which have come to a similar conclusion.

Read more from the original source:
Court Case Serves as a Good Reminder as to the Perils of Marketing Through Text Messages (CircleID)

FTC Asked to Look Into Google Buzz

admin    Web Marketing     Asked, Buzz, google, Into, Look

Poor Google. Just when you think they are out of the woods with all the Google Buzz privacy stuff they get thrown right back into the lion’s den. So who is the most recent fly in Google’s ointment? The US House of Representatives. They have asked the FTC to take a “look-see” at Google Buzz and privacy.

Mashable reports

An assortment of cross-party lawmakers from the U.S. House of Representatives has officially asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the launch of Google Buzz for potentially breaching consumer privacy.

Trouble was brewing early on for Google over its launch of Buzz, with privacy advocates quick to file a class action complaint in San Jose federal court last month.

Now PC World reports that six Democrats have joined five Republicans from the House of Energy and Commerce Committee in petitioning the FTC to look into Google’s handling of the launch, which they say exposed Gmail users’ private information to outsiders.

Google must be getting used to this by now. There is barely anything that Google is going to do that won’t rile some politicians looking to keep their names in the press. Of course, the FTC is already more than a little curious about Google’s approach to privacy as evidenced by the exiting commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour’s remarks earlier in the month.

PCWorld continues with

The lawmakers asked the FTC to get answers to four questions from Google, including whether the company will revise its Gmail privacy policy to obtain consent from consumers for sharing their information. The lawmakers also want to know if Google was using the personal information collected through Buzz to deliver targeted advertising.

The representatives also questioned how Google’s planned acquisition of mobile advertising vendor AdMob will affect consumer privacy.

What are your thoughts on Google Buzz and privacy after the initial concerns were put to rest? Is there need for the government to be asking Google about its business practices? Maybe the government should be thanking Google since they seem to be one of the few companies hiring people rather than laying them off these days. Wasn’t Washington supposed to be concentrating on that pesky economy thing anyway?

Here’s something that might be fun. Let’s try to predict what the next Google activity will be that will be ‘probed’ by the folks in Washington. What do you think Washington should do to Google next? This is fun isn’t it?

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The Original Inbound Marketing Rockstars: The Grateful Dead

admin    Twitter Marketing     Dead, Grateful, Inbound, marketing, Original, Rockstars

Inbound and social media marketing strategies are much older than most people think. They didn’t just appear in recent years. Companies like Dell, Pepsi and other major brands are now adopting strategies and practices that have existed for decades. In fact, inbound marketing existed well before the days of the internet. The internet has merely served as a catalyst to support its growth, scale and reduce cost of entry.

If inbound marketing has been around for decades, who is an example of a pre-internet pioneer? How about the Grateful Dead?

You may not realize it from the music industry of today, but in the 1960s the Grateful Dead pioneered many social media and inbound marketing concepts that businesses in all industries use today on the web.

How did a group of musicians from San Francisco transform marketing and become social media pioneers?

The Dead made a series of important choices to separate themselves from everyone in their industry, making difficult and unpopular decisions such as allowing fans to tape concerts and creating special tickets and access for fans. 

The Dead Marketing Funnel

Chris Anderson wrote an entire book
about an an emerging economy based on a “free” pricing model. The concept of the freemium model is to give away valuable information for free to attract a larger base of prospective customers with a percentage of them willing to pay for a premium product or service. This approach is at the core of inbound marketing and describes the evolving marketing funnel for many businesses today.

The Dead pioneered this approach. They allowed concert attendees to tape shows and distribute them to other fans for free, and it worked. The Dead, one of the most iconic and successful rock bands of its era, achieved elite success with only one top 10 song, which didn’t come until the 1980s.

They succeeded by building a word-of-mouth network of fans powered by free music. The Dead understood that it was about the experience that the music provided instead of strictly the music itself.

Fast forward to today. Successful inbound marketers have a content strategy and marketing funnel that is similar to that of the Dead. Companies who have achieved successful results have shifted focus away from products and features and have created a demand at the top of the funnel through a content strategy that puts the problems and needs of customers ahead of constant interruption caused by outbound marketing.

What Can Your Business Learn From the Grateful Dead?

Free is only one of many concepts that will be discussed by HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan and marketing author and speaker David Meerman Scott in their upcoming webinar: “Inbound Marketing Lessons From The Grateful Dead.” Check out this video from Halligan and Scott as they provide a preview of the webinar:

Photo Credit: WallyG

Live Webinar: Marketing Lessons From The Grateful Dead

Join fellow deadheads, HubSpot CEO, Brian Halligan and acclaimed author, David Meerman Scott for marketing takeaways from the Grateful Dead! Date and time: Thursday, April 1, 2010 at 1:00pm ET  Reserve your spot now!

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