Posts Tagged: Advertising

Web Applications — 1 Comment
9
May 08

TwitterAds – Monetize Twitter

After reading a post about Robert Scoble advertising on Twitter, I had a slight brainwave for a new Twitter application. Something that would allow users to make some money of their Twitter account.

Step 1 – Name & Domain

The idea start of as such, you register a domain like twitterads.com, twittercash.com, tweetads.com, etc. You then name the new service according to the domain name, as is with all Twitter apps.

Step 2 – How It Works

I’ll explain how the application works from a users perspective from their first visit. So, the user comes across your newly created application, because you’ve promoted it well. Here is how the story goes.

Your new visitor needs to become a user before they can start monetizing their Twitter stream. So they create an account using their Twitter username and password. We need these two crucial pieces of information to publish ads into their Twitter stream.

While the account is being created, we check the user’s Twitter account details for 3 important criteria, the amount of followers and tweets they have as well as how many people they are following. All these numbers are put into a tight algorithm to determine which advertisers will be available to the user, it will also determine how many ads they can serve per day.

In order to advertise top brands in your Twitter stream, you need to have a large number of followers and tweets. This shows that you are an influential and authentic Twitter user. If you figures are lower, you will only have access to “average” brands. The higher your figures, the higher your payout per click.

So now the user has successfully registered or logged in and we direct them to the list of advertisers available to them. They will be allowed to select the brands they would like to see served in their Twitter stream. The rest is handled by the system, in terms of how many ads will get served into this user’s Twitter stream per day (user can lower the amount). All the links will contain tracking code in order to track clicks and thereafter payouts.

Step 3: Will It Work?

A very rough idea, with some potential. I could see some people using this, it much like advertising in feeds and on blogs. However, it might be intrusive to some and you might find people stop following people because they have ads in their Twitter stream. If the ads were quality ads, it might be another story. It’s all trial and error. Good luck.

Advertising — 7 Comments
24
Apr 08

Rich Media Banners – Killed Your Readership

I was browsing muti (a social bookmarking website) and I noticed a story that iAfrica has redesigned. I was curious to see the new design, so I clicked through to see it. Once the article about their new design had finished loading, I was presented with the usual banner ads but there was one new advert that completely threw me off the content.

iAfrica - Irritating Banner Ad

Whenever I talk or consult with a client, I stress the fact that banner ads are dead. Now I know this a sad fact, as a lot of online publishers generate the majority of their income from banner ads. I have some faith in a certain type of banner ad, an interactive rich media banner ad, but it’s not that much faith. So let me break it down.

  • Ad Blindness
    Ad blindness can be loosely defined as a condition (or skill) that people have developed over time that subconsciously allows them to ignore advertising. It’s been a hot topic for ages and is becoming increasingly more common among digital natives.
  • Ad Blocking
    Ad blocking tools and techniques that allow people to block advertising from web pages. People can even block your spam attempts at becoming interactive, in the wrong way.
  • Content Interruption
    As you can see with the example above, a lot of publishers insert adverts within content. In this particular example, I am talking about the effects of using rich media banner ads that run across the screen and disrupt the view of the content. Isn’t the content more important than the adverts? People come to your site to view information, not to view adverts.
  • Poor Results
    If you think getting between 10% and 15% click through rate is a success, then I think you need to your definition for success. Instead of wasting the other 85% of your budget on serving wasted ads, you could have invested in marketing to the right people. Facebook might be one of the most trafficed sites in South Africa, but you certainly won’t get the click through rates you hoped for. Digital natives just don’t click on ads anymore.

The demise of banner ads is two fold. Internet marketers aren’t getting the results they used to when using banner ads and publishers aren’t making the same amount of revenue from banner ads that they used to, with the few exceptions. The only way to prolong the existence of the banner ad is to invest more in relevant and contextualized serving of banner ads to the reader. Other than that, I they will die a slow death. New ways of marketing need to be investigated, but more importantly, new revenue models for publishers.

Advertising / Facebook — 4 Comments
26
Nov 07

Facebook Pages – Early Adopting Brands

Yesterday I saw Scott’s tweet about the BMW Facebook page. It was created on the 7th of November and already has 162 fans. It’s not a phenomenal figure, but I am sure with time that number will soon reach into the thousands.

Think of the Facebook page as an interactive billboard. It’s accessible to all Facebook members, all 55+ million of them. The page allows for BMW SA to upload photos and video for all the relative car models. In the real world, a billboard has limited space, but not this one. There is also a discussion board and wall so users can post comments and engage with BMW SA. Although I am not surprised as BMW SA understand the importance of online and social media in their marketing mix.

Facebook Pages - BMW SA

There are other brands who have gotten it right using Facebook groups. However, Facebook pages is relatively new and there are a few other brands worth a mention who are using it. I went looking for some brands and found New Opel Corsa, BizCommunity, Toyota Auris and Nokia.

Presentations — 3 Comments
14
Nov 07

The 4 New P’s of Marketing

This is just a quick presentation I did on the The 4 New p’s of Marketing. It is quite an interesting and in depth topic. It is a topic I will be dedicating much more time towards researching and discussing with people.

The new 4Ps don’t replace the old, traditional 4Ps. The new 4Ps, for me, serve as insight and guidance for crafting Social Media strategies. It’s certainly not my only guideline, however it touches on so many aspects of the social web if one starts exploring and going into depth on each point. Some information for you, use it, don’t use it. It’s up to you.

If you cannot see the presentation, click here (or secondly, here). You can also download the PDF over here.

Marketing — 3 Comments
1
Nov 07

Vuka Scuta – Helmet Hair & Playing In Traffic

I met Esme, the Brand Manager, at Vuka Scuta when I spoke at the Brands Convention a few months ago. She made me aware of their new campaign, Hemlet Hair Is In, which I think is pretty cool. Along with the launch of the campaign they re-designed their site, which looks really good. It’s mostly Flash based, but it does it’s job well.

Vuka Scuta - Helmet Hair Is In

However, what really caught my attention was when she told me they were working on some sort of interactive campaign for Facebook. So, naturally I did some snooping around. All I could find was a profile of some fictional character, or he could be part real. However, I don’t think he would fit in with Facebook’s terms and conditions.

As I continued to investigate I found a group created by this character, I hate traffic. While I can’t say I am blown away by what I found on Facebook, I did stumble upon something really cool. Vuka Scuta ran a guerilla marketing campaign and uploaded the photos to the Facebook group. They played on the fact that traffic is bad in South Africa, as well as the ever increasing petrol price.

Vuka Scuta - Playing In Traffic

I thought the idea was quite a brilliant. I think this was only carried out in Cape Town, but I would love to see it on the N1 in Gauteng between 7 and 9am. Truly classic in my opinion. I have included a video they uploaded on Facebook Video below, enjoy the drive and the Kenny Loggins sound track. Good job.

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