Pack Your Social Media with Plenty of Muscle

Retailers have an extra reason to raise their glasses in celebration this New Years. According to the stats, 2011 brought you a pretty juicy holiday season. How good was it? Try a 15% jump over last year’s seasonal take. Congratulations! You responded to the tough economic times with all the right moves -- special promotions, longer store hours, free shipping, and heightened social media support. And you were amply rewarded.

But don’t expect the momentum to continue on its own. Things just don’t work that way in the real world. You’ve got to keep stroking the fires. And in the contemporary marketplace, that includes packing your social media efforts with plenty of muscle. Here are five ways to keep it vigorous and strong.

Build Your Community – Seek out new customers, bring strays back into the fold, show plenty of gratitude to existing customers, and encourage everyone to join your social community. There’s no better way to get to know the likes and dislikes of the people interested in your products and services.

Boost the Buzz – Conduct surveys to inspire buyers to shower your products with praise and spread the word across the social media landscape.

Measure the Results – Analyze the numbers to determine the effectiveness of your social media efforts. Equally important, study the impact of your competitors’ social media efforts – and hopefully learn something.

Innovate – Earmark a chunk of funds for the testing of new ideas, technologies, and programs that will take your social media to a whole new level. You could be the one who strikes gold. Others certainly have.

Develop New Metrics – Things are expected to heat up in the social media sphere in 2012. Companies hoping to reap the rewards will need to create solid measurement tools to analyze and track the impact of their social media strategies.

Do you have any comments or questions about social media, or about any other marketing topics? Feel free to send them our way. You can connect with the Young Company team at 949-376-8404 #205 or byoung@youngcompany.com. And be sure to follow us for the latest industry news and tips.

From all of us at Young Company – Happy New Year! Let’s make 2012 a fantastic one!

Why Does Santa Always Wear Red?

While Coca-Cola has had a subtle, pervasive influence on our culture, it has definitely shaped the way we think of Santa. Prior to the advertising illustrations created by Haddon Sunblom illustrations in the 1930s, the Christmas saint had been variously illustrated wearing blue, yellow, green, or red. After the soft drink ads, Santa would forever more be a huge, fat, relentless happy man with a broad belt and black hip boots- and he would wear Coca-Cola red. Coca-Cola commissioned artist Sunblom to create a marketable Santa that would fit Coca-Cola’s advertising campaigns to get more people to drink soda in the colder months. Not only did this campaign work, but it etched one of the most important and popular icons in American, and possibly human, history.

There are three basic criteria for an effective brand strategy:

1. People should like it.

2. It should sell something.

3. It should last a long time.

Coca-Cola’s version of Santa is definitely a home run.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Time Travel to the Next Year in Digital Marketing

It’s time to do a little time traveling. Not too far. Just a quick side trip into ‘012. After all, it’s just around the corner. And the New Year is sure to bring more blistering changes sweeping through the world of digital marketing. All of which means marketers should be ready to react and adapt. Here’s what the future holds.

Tablet Mania – More and more consumers will be purchasing the ultra-portable devices. Developers will support this demand by creating hundreds of new web-based tablet applications.

Heightened Scrutiny – Finance departments will be taking longer and harder looks at cost efficiency. Marketers will echo this tougher stance by insisting that media plans are fully optimized.

Upward Mobility – Consumers increasingly will use mobile devices as information and communication channels. Advertisers will re-imagine their websites to accommodate the mobile frenzy.

Increased Sociability – Marketers will roll out a full spectrum of social media programs that measure consumer involvement with greater precision.

Political Involvement – Because 2012 is an election year, candidates will harness the power of digital resources to aid their campaigns. President Obama’s skillful use of social media sent a clear signal to the political world. Expect his opponents, as well as other political hopefuls, to be digitally prepared this time around.

Do you have any comments or questions about digital marketing, or about any other marketing topics? Feel free to send them our way. You can connect with The Young Company team at 949-376-8404 #205 or byoung@youngcompany.com. And be sure to follow us for the latest industry news and tips.

Is Targeted Advertising the Next Ruler of the Web?

Online marketers have a whole new bag of tricks designed to connect with consumers. Unlike content advertising, the connection is based on consumer characteristics and determined by sophisticated algorithms. Known as targeted advertising, the phenomenon is spreading through the net at a blistering speed thanks to the surge in ad tech companies. Does this mean targeted advertising soon will be ruling the web?

A recent Business Insider’s Ignition Conference focused on this timely issue in a big way. The consensus from a panel of experts was crystal clear -- targeted and content advertising each hold important positions on the contemporary marketing landscape.

Ted Phillips, CEO of marketing technology company M6D, emphasized the importance of content. In his opinion, optimal targeted advertising is carried out within the context of a consumer audience. He added that many targeting algorithms disregard the context piece, much to the detriment of marketers. Ideally, advertisers should combine both content and targeted approaches. The audience unanimously affirmed this viewpoint.

Brian O’Kelley, co-founder and CEO of AppNexus, stressed that content and targeted advertising are not diametrically opposed. “I think the term 'targeted advertising' is inane,” he said. “It doesn’t mean anything. All advertising is targeted.”

All of which sheds light on what is really needed -- a stronger interaction between the ad tech and creative camps. True, a few barriers still remain to be broken. But once the two sides join forces, the collaboration is sure to take online marketing to a whole new level.

Do you have any comments or questions about online marketing, or about any other marketing topics? Feel free to send them our way. You can connect with The Young Company team at 949-376-8404 #205 or byoung@youngcompany.com. And be sure to follow us for the latest industry news and tips.

Get Social With the New Media Landlords

Is it time to reassess the use of the term ‘social’ in social media? Quite possibly, especially when you consider how decisions currently are made. In the contemporary climate, both consumers and business people increasingly rely on information provided by others. The purpose of the information, of course, is to facilitate more effective decision-making. That’s a definite social interaction. Yet nobody has ever coined the term ‘social info sharing’.

The reality is that all media which shares information and invites a response is in effect social. Ironically, the vast majority of marketers claim to be utilizing social media to enhance their efforts. But a staggering 65% - 95% of service requests via sites such as Facebook and Twitter fail to get responses from these same marketers. That, my friends, is not particularly sociable. Nor is it business-smart.

Turning a deaf ear to consumers obviously isn’t the way to go, at least not if you have intentions of thriving in a competitive marketplace. Designing an effective response mechanism is the only way to give your brand a fighting chance in the contemporary environment.

The key to all this is adopting an entirely new perspective. Remember, for about three-quarters of a century, marketers owned all media channels through the power of advertising. But thanks to the Web, ownership has shifted. Consumers now own a hefty slice of media territory. All of which means marketers are well-advised to listen and respond to the needs of these new media landlords.

This brings me back to my original question – does the term ‘social’ really belong in social media? Perhaps it makes more sense simply to cut the term completely out of the picture. The reality is that everyone is connected. As a result, marketers no longer can expect success simply by intruding their messages on masses of consumers. The only way to connect with these new media owners is to connect with them in a meaningful way. In other words, to truly socialize.