MediaWhiz In the News | Week of Aug. 20–24, 2012
MediaWhiz’s leaders are continually sought after as resources for opinions, advice and expertise, based on our deep understanding of industry trends, the needs of our customers and the broader marketplace in which we operate.
You Can’t Have Search Anymore Without Blending in Social
Aug. 17, 2012 | Advertising Age (Op-Ed by Adam Riff, SVP of digital strategy)
When it was reported in early May that social advertising had overtaken search, many in the search-marketing industry reacted with disbelief. Some wished to take up a protracted battle with social-media marketers over whose turf reigns supreme.
Sadly, much of the discussion completely missed the point of what this data tell us: the age of the “walled garden” approach to search marketing is over. Let us all rejoice. The search-vs.-social debate is a worthless pursuit. Brands don’t care, nor should marketers.
The future of search marketing will demand a blend of many different digital-marketing components — traditional search, retargeting, display, etc. — that must reach audiences across a wide swath of media, as consumers use many different devices to search for content across multiple platforms and interfaces.
Marketers need to focus on how well they are integrating social within search, and vice versa. It’s not an either-or debate. There are two reasons this is true.
Social Signals. In the old days of search — that is, pre-2012 — many brands and agencies kept their search-marketing campaigns, both organic and paid, separate from social-media campaigns. They feared that mixing the two might alienate the respective audiences of what are sometimes highly distinct customer bases. Read more …
Report: Facebook Marketing: Reaching Consumers in a Changing Environment
Aug. 22, 2012 | eMarketer (Featuring Sr. Director of Social Media Steve Goldner)
“Marketers, advertisers and clients want something that stands out,” said Steve Goldner, head of social media marketing at sister agencies Ryan Partnership and MediaWhiz. “The reality is it still is difficult to get a brand to stand out on Facebook.”
“The challenge is to get Facebook to listen to marketers,” said Ryan Partnership’s Goldner. “You have no chance of talking to an [Facebook] account rep unless you’re at a certain level of spend.”
Analytics. Ryan Partnership’s Goldner noted that brands and marketers want better analytics and the ability to connect Facebook marketing to sales. That will be one area that continues to develop as Facebook finds the right metrics and results to track on the site.
Does Facebook Have a Brand Problem?
Aug. 21, 2012 | iMedia Connection (Op-Ed by Keith Trivitt, director of marketing and communications)
Facebook has been all over the news lately. Unfortunately for the company, much of that news has been of the non-positive, stock-sinking variety. But there is a silver lining: Facebook appears to be finally getting its act together when it comes to brand advertising! At least, that’s what we’re led to believe by the frenetic PR push the company has been on in recent weeks.
The reality, as Digiday’s Brian Morrissey expertly dissected in a recent post, is more nuanced and less rosy for the social network. In that blistering post, Morrissey declared what many digital marketers have long grumbled to themselves: “Facebook’s got a brand problem.”
The post details how, despite some laudatory press about its overhauled ad offerings, marketers aren’t buying the hype that Facebook is trying to portray about its value to advertisers. “More often than not, marketers proclaim to love Facebook, only not for the ads,” Morrissey says. But much of what they love about Facebook is its “earned and owned media” and brand equity-building qualities: the fact that it allows brands a free and enormous platform upon which they can distribute their messages to whomever they’d like. Read more …
Are you ready for a mobile wallet?
Aug. 17, 2012 | MarketWatch / The Wall Street Journal (featuring VP of Business Development Daryl Colwell)
… Plus, the leather wallet has one distinct advantage: It doesn’t require a battery. Even a digital-wallet fanatic is “always going to want some kind of backup,” says Daryl Colwell, a vice president at MediaWhiz, a digital media agency.
If there’s good news for consumers, however, it’s that as retailers embrace mobile commerce they could be offering deals of all sorts as part of the formula, experts say. Think “instant” coupons or other offers, designed to trigger a last-minute purchase.
And just as retailers will offer shoppers a special one-time discount for signing up for an in-house credit card, they could do the same with a mobile-wallet platform.
Mr. Colwell believes it’s this sort of promotion that could ultimately make the mobile wallet a mainstream consumer reality. “As long as there’s a big incentive for shoppers to jump on board, they’re going to jump on board,” he says.
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