Alert Blog Reviews

Maybe you can have too much of a good thing. As the Internet allows advertisers to slice and dice large segments of desirable markets into thinner, more defined slices it also creates something that is much less desirable: smaller profits. How is that you say? How is it possible to make less on my advertising spend when I am advertising directly to the group that most needs or wants my products? Well, it’s simple supply and demand. While you are targeting a much more defined market you are not going to be alone in that quest to advertiser to just the people that will buy. Remember those pesky competitors? They want those people too because their claim is that they are better than you. Now you are going to find a price war that drives up costs for advertising and makes customer acquisition costs rise which in turn hurt the bottom line. So maybe there is too much of a good thing after all. MediaPost tells about a study performed by the MIT School of Management that has looked at this in detail Professor Alessandro Bonatti, working with Yale University economics professor Dirk Bergemann on this research, says “… newspapers have a very limited ability to target audiences… specialized magazines can do better… Google has a very good ability to target who’s browsing each page… (though) online advertising has the potential to drive out traditional advertising, it does not necessarily follow that online advertisers will make more money… ” Bonatti continues, “…as technology keeps improving, more and more web sites can sell very narrow products to very specialized audiences… with lots of people targeting the same audience the profits to be made through specialized advertising become more and more spread out… instead of competing for one large pool… you will have price war in each targeted segment as the slice gets more and more narrow.” Bonatti concludes that, “… the better the technology, the lower the profits for advertisers… “ Not the news that advertisers want to hear but it sure is music to the ears of the niche ad networks that attract these more narrowly defined groups. Advertising price war? We’re in! Woo-hoo! Different verticals are responding more rapidly and it also is dependent on just how far CPM’s fell during this downturn / recession / economic morass. Real estate is seeing an increase in CPM’s jumping 17% from Q2 to Q3 of last year while foodies are driving that category up almost 91% in the same period. Here is a chart from Adify Vertical Gauge for you to gloss over and wonder what it really means. So be careful what you wish for advertisers. Sure it’s great to advertise as close to the buyer as you can but you’re not the only one with that strategy. Let’s hope you are the one with the deeper pockets at least.

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For Ads the More Targeted May Mean Less Profitable

No wonder I have had this feeling lately that I am always full and the waistline is expanding a bit. It’s all this information and data that I am ingesting on a daily basis. Boy, if only limiting my data intake time would make the waistline go away I’d be there in a heartbeat but I digress. We all know that the average person is taking in more information on a daily basis than ever before but just how much is too much? According to the New York Times : The average American consumes about 34 gigabytes of data and information each day — an increase of about 350 percent over nearly three decades according to a report published Wednesday by researchers at the University of California, San Diego . According to calculations in the report, that daily information diet includes about 100,000 words, both those read in print and on the Web as well as those heard on television and the radio. By comparison, Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” contains about 460,000 words. Phew! Sounds like a lot of stuff to stuff in. Now to be fair, this amount of information is not exclusively confined to the online space. The study looks at television, radio, the Web, text messages and video games. Now, I am not an online gamer so that last one has me a little bit confused since that activity often appears to serve the opposite effect of draining someone’s brain so feel free to yell at me and tell me I am wrong. Television (another fine brain extraction tool which has done its damage on me over the years) takes up the first place in time committed daily that creates information overload clocking in at 5 hours a day. Second is radio, which the average American listens to for about 2.2 hours a day. The computer comes in third, at just under two hours a day. Video games take up about an hour, and reading takes up 36 minutes. While the report says that the printed word gets less attention the reality is that people are reading more than ever because of their online habits. Also, there is the phenomenon of much of this activity happening simultaneously as in texting while watching TV. It’s exhausting just thinking about it. As Internet marketers these studies are important because there is just a ridiculous amount of competition for peoples’ attention. The resulting din of data and noise makes it even more important to find a way to get people at a time when THEY are ready to hear your message. The old intrusive selling model is growing less and less effective because people actually control their time more than ever as it relates to media. They engage when they want to engage where they want to engage. It used to be that you take what you get. Those days are gone. So what is your technique to cut through the noise? Is the level of noise going to continue to increase thus making it more daunting to cut through or will there come a time when a person says “I can’t eat another gig!” What’s your take?

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TMI? Americans Take In 34 Gigs of Data A Day

By Peter Robert Casey – Follow him @Peter_R_Casey I’ll be frank. I never intended to leverage my personal Twitter account as a passport to sit courtside at Carnesecca Arena or Madison Square Garden with media credentials . It just happened that way. Thanks to St. John’s University and the progressive vision of Associate AD, Mark Fratto, your Twitter feed can now be considered a legitimate media outlet for covering college basketball, or any sport for that matter. This is only the beginning. Since St. John’s validated Twitter in early August, I’ve corresponded with the executive team of a reputable Division I Conference, multiple NBA team properties, and the NBA League Office. And guess what? They all embrace our favorite microblogging platform, too. Moreover, their peers across all sports, conferences, divisions, and levels are not far behind. My situation may have been undesigned, but press row Twitter access is now open for discussion. Here’s how you can position yourself for an opportunity: Stop, look, and listen. Stop running your keyboard’s mouth and stop taking shortcuts. If you created a separate email account for Twitter notifications that you ignore, stop; merge or monitor your inbox. How do you know who’s following you? Do you really comb your followers list on a regular basis? Get on TweetGrid, subscribe to relevant Twitter lists, and set up TweetBeep alerts to start listening to conversations. Mark Fratto conceived the credentialing idea, but I initiated the conversation. When St. John’s Basketball (STJ_Basketball) joined Twitter in late May of 2009, I was quick to publicly welcome them with an @reply. Who do you think started following me soon after? Focus. On what, you ask? Focus on building trust, relationships, and influence, not followers. Focus on being helpful, and creating practical, value-added content. Focus on one sport or one team, and own it. We can’t be all things to all people, and it doesn’t behoove us to try. You’ve probably heard this expression before: “There’s no ‘and’ in brand. The more specifically you define who you are and what you do, the better chance you’ll have of selling yourself.” This adage holds true on Twitter as well.. If you focus on giving and contributing relentlessly to your niche community, decision makers will take notice. Go off Twitter. As valuable as Twitter is, 140 character messages cannot replace the authority of a well-positioned, content-driven blog, vlog, or podcast. Long form media separates the desirous from the dabblers, and allows a publisher to hone and test their chops. Twitter may be nearing its fourth birthday, but to sports media brass, it might as well be four months old. Having an integrated and influential social media and search engine presence is essential to commanding a press pass. What does your blog or Google say about you? What outlets have you written for? Have you developed an offline relationship with the Media Relations/Marketing/Communications staff at your desired Tweeting destination? Make the ask. If your local college or professional sports team hasn’t approached you yet, it may be time to make the ask; but, only after you’ve listened intensely; established trust and productive relationships; focused on being a valuable and caring member of your Twitter community; shared helpful content and contacts; and built a well-recognized and respected, easy-to-find personal brand across various social channels. Before Twitter lists replace number of followers as the metric for influence, college and pro teams will still look at your follower counts, RTs, and directory-based influence ranks. Where do you stack up? When you’re ready for the pitch, do so privately and don’t burn a bridge if the request is denied. Most media relations departments are still trying to wrap their head around credentialing bloggers, so be patient. What else? I recognize that wide adoption of credentialing Tweeters will take time, but how can we, together, help the cause? Please leave additional advice below. © 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips . Tweet Your Way to Press Row

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Tweet Your Way to Press Row

Everyone has watched Facebook grow in popularity and significance over the past year or so. It almost sneaks up on you just how far reaching the social networking site has become. Claiming over 300 million users is impressive enough but some research is showing that there is data to support the claim that Facebook gets 1 out of every 4 pageviews in the US. Holy crap. That’s saying something. Henry Blodgett at the BusinessInsider Here’s a startling conclusion by Perry Drake of database marketing firm Drake Direct: Facebook accounts for 25% of U.S. online pageviews. Perry’s analysis was prompted by a study showing that the figure in the U.K. is 1 in 7. He pulled some Compete charts and concluded that the number here is 1 in 4. Google, meanwhile, accounts for 1 in 12 pageviews (8%). And Facebook is rapidly closing in on Google in terms of visits and uniques. Ok, so my first question was as always, who is Perry Drake. Drake’s bio over at his blog describes him as a consultant (isn’t everyone?) but also notes In addition to consulting, Perry is an Associate Professor at New York University in the Integrated Marketing Master’s Degree Program. Perry currently teaches various database marketing and web analytics and search optimization classes within the Integrated Master’s degree program and the Digital Marketing program. So while this isn’t Forrester type research I suspect that this gentleman has done stuff like this before and some of the numbers are a bit startling. Not the least of which concerns the number of unique visitors v Google as evidenced by the chart below. While Google holds a lead the trending must make some folks at the Googleplex a little antsy. Now, research is what research is. The numbers as collected by Compete need to be assumed accurate and I don’t know to what degree that can be verified or trusted. What can be considered though is the real impact of Facebook. Everyone likes to talk about Twitter but the sheer numbers of Facebook and its more in depth and personal feel make it, in my opinion, the best of the social media arenas. That is purely a personal opinion so you can agree or disagree all you want. What would be hard to disagree with though is the move that Microsoft made yesterday to try to harness some of this informational firepower . It looks like things are going to get pretty interesting as we move into the age of ‘real time’ search.

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Geesh! Facebook Sure Gets A Lot of Pageviews