Corporate Eye

...compare, compete, excel

Archives for December 2011

Google+ vs. Facebook: Which Brand Will Win in 2012 and Beyond?

In 2011, the battle between Google and Facebook really picked up. Google+ just might be the tool that Google needs to compete with Facebook and its 800 million users. Or is it?

Before we go any further, remember that Google+ is new, and there is certainly much more to come for the social network owned by the biggest and most powerful search engine in the world.

Google’s goal is to integrate all of its products so consumers have no need to use products from any other company to complete their online activities. Therefore, it’s safe to assume that Google+ is the next step in Google’s larger strategic paln, and the site will likely become a central focus from which all Google applications and products can be used. Google wants to use personal data and online behavior to connect consumers more deeply to the entire suite of Google products making people Google-dependent.

And of course, there’s all that social data that can be extracted from Google+ user behaviors. Those social signals will undoubtedly play a part in Google search results in the future as Google’s +1 button already seems to be doing in some search engine optimization tests. For brands and businesses, the new Direct Connect search tool for Google+ brand pages is just one more way that the Google social networking site is playing a roll in search results.

On the other hand, Facebook’s goal to date has been extremely focused. The site’s mission to create the world’s open social graph with features and tools that make it easy for people to connect with friends and acquaintances, has expanded to include new opportunities. However, the core goal has remained the same.

Of course, monetization has become a priority, and with the speculated 2012 IPO, it can be presumed that Facebook will change a bit in the coming years in order to continually deliver increased shareholder value. Facebook’s goal will undoubtedly evolve, but it’s unlikely that the core focus of using personal data and activities to open advertising opportunities will shift significantly in the future.

What do you think 2012 holds for the Google+ vs. Facebook battle? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: Flickr

Twitter Positions as the Friendly Brand with Latest Redesign

Time for a new #newtwitter. Last week, Twitter unveiled another “new Twitter” with a goal to make the site simpler and less intimidating to casual users and advertisers. The new design positions Twitter as a friendly brand and is expected to connect the widespread awareness of Twitter to greater engagement on the site.

This new version of Twitter divides the site into four areas when you log into your account:

  • Home: Includes tweets from everyone you follow on Twitter.
  • Connect: Interact with other users and search for users.
  • Discover: Search for tweets using hashtags and see personalized news recommendations.
  • Me: View your own Twitter profile.

To regular Twitter users, these new sections aren’t really groundbreaking. The information has always been easily accessible, but Twitter’s leaders believe the new design makes these sections even easier to find with fewer clicks.

Of course, it’s assumed that many of these changes are also intended to boost advertising opportunities and interest. On the same note, Twitter has launched brand pages, which are available to a few brands right now, but are expected to roll out to everyone in the future. Twitter won’t charge for brand pages. Instead, the monetization focus will stay on its advertising offerings.

And that leads us to the most significant change that debuted with this most recent Twitter redesign. Now, images and other media that are included within a tweet open directly within each individual tweet (on the side of a user’s screen) rather than in a separate web browser tab or window. This is great news for users and huge news for advertisers. Suddenly, the 140-character limit is gone, because advertisers can include media, such as videos and images, with their promoted tweets. There is no doubt that many advertisers will be very interested in this new feature.

What do you think of the latest Twitter redesign? Is Twitter delivering on its attempt to be the friendly brand? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Google Announces New Search and Display Tablet Ads

Sales of iPads and other tablet devices are skyrocketing, and Google has launched new search and display ad formats designed specifically for the tablet audience and media experience (they’re actually available for all smartphones and tablets for iOS and Android).

The new tablet ads are still in beta, but Google claims to have already gotten a huge response from advertisers who are extremely interested in these tablet-specific ad formats.

The new ad formats were developed in response to Google’s consumer research that identified how consumers want to engage with mobile ads on tablet and smartphone devices. They want those ads to be more interactive and touch screen-friendly.

Rich Media Designs for Mobile is the name of the new Google display ad offerings. As explained today on the Google blog:

“These new rich media templates will make it easy for advertisers to create rich media ads for tablets using existing assets (photos, logos, etc.) and then implement them across platforms (mobile, tablet and desktop).  Advertisers can use these templates in a number of ways, including to interact with a specific product, feature a collection of products or promote foot traffic to a specific store location.”

Check out the video below to see some of the new display ad templates, which allow consumers to swipe through image slideshows, view 360-degree product images, and more.


Media Ads is the name of the new Google search ad offerings. These ads will enable consumers to view video directly in an ad on a search results page. For example, a consumer can watch a video game or movie trailer in a full screen overlay without leaving Google.com. The image below gives you an idea of how these ads will look.

It’s safe to assume that these new search and display ads for smartphones and tablets are just the tip of the iceberg of what Google has planned for mobile advertising offerings in the future. Consumers are becoming more mobile every day, and it makes sense for Google to invest heavily into enhanced tablet and smartphone advertising options.

I’m looking forward to seeing both of these new Google mobile ad formats come out of beta. What do you think of Google Rich Media Designs for Mobile and Media Ads? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: Google

BlackBerry’s Trademark Search Lesson and the Fall of the BBX Brand Name

In October, Research in Motion announced a new operating system called BBX, which was touted as the launch that would save the BlackBerry brand. On December 6th, BlackBerry replaced the BBX name with BlackBerry 10.

The reason for the change was simple. In fact, the problem with the BBX brand name should have been discovered very early in the new branding initiative. A software company in Albuquerque, New Mexico named BBx already owns the trademark for that name.

I typed “BBX” into the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office’s online search tool and found the 15 matches (see the search results in the screenshot below), which includes at least 3 similar live marks in the tech-related industry, including BBx out of New Mexico. It took just 5 seconds to get that info. It’s amazing that BlackBerry invested so much time and undoubtedly, money into the BBX brand launch only to realize after making a public announcement that their use of the name would be contested.

According to The New York Times, BBx didn’t know that BlackBerry was planning to launch a BBX-named operating system until that fateful announcement was made by Research in Motion to an audience of developers at a San Fransisco, California conference in October.

On December 6th, Research in Motion was served a temporary restraining order from BBx and pulled the name. However, it’s unknown how or if Research in Motion will fight the restraining order or just let the name go. With the public switch to the BlackBerry 10 name, it’s probably safe to assume that the BBX name has been forgotten, but you never know.

The lesson to learn from this story is one that I’m actually surprised needs to be repeated, but I’ll say it again — always begin any brand naming effort with a trademark search. Research in Motion didn’t even need to rely on its lawyers to learn that the BBX name would likely be one that wouldn’t qualify for the company to trademark. Other companies working in similar markets already own the name.

Red flags warning Research in Motion of potential problems with the name down the road should have gone up immediately. Now, the company has to go back to the drawing board with the BlackBerry 10 rebranding initiative. That takes time and money, and given Research in Motion’s recent losses to its competitors in the smartphone market, that’s time and money that could surely be used more effectively in other ways.

Image: uspto.gov

Facebook Insights Now Shows Negative Brand Feedback

If your brand has its own Facebook Page, then you should be using Facebook Insights to track analytics related to its performance. In late November, Facebook rolled out a new feature to Facebook Insights that you should begin to include as part of your reputation management efforts. Facebook Insights now tracks negative feedback.

It’s not a perfect tool, but it’s worth reviewing. Just log into your Facebook Page admin account and click on the Facebook Insights link in the top left sidebar. From there, choose an individual post and click the Engaged Users link to see the data that’s currently tracked. You can learn about how many people gave you negative feedback on your post as well as how many people hid your post.

While this information is fairly cursory at this point, it can help you get an idea of what kind of posts are disliked enough that people are actually making the effort to hide them or post negative feedback about them. Look for trends in types of content that are getting the virtual thumbs down from large groups of your followers.

When people make an effort to dislike something, they usually really, really dislike it. Apathy typically results in people simply ignoring a post, but hiding posts or responding negatively are signs of things going wrong that you need to address.

According to a report from AllFacebook.com, Facebook hasn’t rolled this feature out to all Pages yet, so if you log into your brand’s Facebook Page and can’t find it in your Facebook Insights data yet, keep checking. You should see it soon.

In the meantime, keep publishing useful content that is relevant and meaningful to your target audience. With that strategy, you should be better positioned to avoid negative feedback.

What do you think of the new Facebook Insights feature to track negative feedback? Leave a comment and share your thoughts on this new source of data for Facebook Pages.

Image: Flickr

The Future of Email Marketing

A couple of years ago there were predictions that email would die at the hands of Facebook and Twitter. It’s nearly 2012, and email shows no signs of dying anytime soon. In fact, a new infographic from Visible Gains shows exactly how email stacks up against Facebook and Twitter in terms of number of messages, spam, and users’ plans for each in the future.

The infographic shows us that there are approximately 2.9 billion email accounts globally versus 750 million Facebook accounts and 300 million Twitter accounts. Of course, more people have multiple email accounts than Facebook or Twitter accounts.

A similar gap exists in terms of the number of emails sent or updates published on Facebook or Twitter each day. According to the infographic sources, 188 billion email messages are sent each day versus 60 million daily Facebook updates and 140 million daily Twitter updates.

You’re probably wondering how email spam factors into these numbers. The infographic data suggests that 45% of all email is spam but only 18.5% of all email is spam that actually reaches recipients. This number includes graymatter as well such as unwanted email newsletters, alerts, and so on. On the other hand, the infographic shows that 79% of Facebook users believe that spam is a problem and 49% report that they frequently see content in their News Feeds that appears to be suspicious and could be spam.

You can click on the image below to see the full infographic at a larger size.


[Infographic courtesy of Visible Gains]

What can brand managers learn from this infographic? First, email isn’t going anywhere, so it’s premature to consider shifting large portions of your marketing budget away from email. At the same time, there are a lot of email messages sent each day. The infographic shows that an estimated 3.4 million email messages were sent per minute during 2010. Brand managers need to spend more time and effort creating targeted messages and offers and sending those messages to the right audiences.

This applies on Facebook and Twitter, too. The tool is different but the concept is the same. In other words, fundamental marketing theory lives on regardless of the media. The three Ms — market, message, media — still apply. In fact, with the number of messages people see every day, the 3 Ms are more important than ever.

Have you modified your email marketing investments and strategies since Facebook and Twitter debuted? Leave a comment and share your thoughts on the future of email.