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Archives for April 2012

Spotify Turns Facebook Timeline into History of Music

spotify facebook timelineEver since Facebook launched its new Timeline to Facebook Pages, brands have been trying to figure out how to use it to their advantage. The Timeline offers a new view of a brand’s history that Facebook users have yet to completely accept, so brands have to tread carefully.

However, finding the right ways to turn a feature that users don’t instantly accept, understand, or like into something that they love is what brands do best, so it seems like a great opportunity. At least that’s what Spotify saw when it turned its Facebook Page Timeline into an ongoing history of music.

Spotify sees the Facebook Timeline as a perfect story-telling device. Not only can brands tell their own stories using the Facebook Timeline, but people can join in by sharing their own stories, too. What better way to create an emotional connection with consumers and build a brand?

While Spotify’s Timeline is still a work in progress, a quick perusal gives you an idea of what it could become — a one-stop destination for everything and anything related to music history. Right now, Spotify is focusing on adding “huge historical landmarks” to its Facebook Timeline while keeping its Facebook content fresh with current music news. Adding an interactive crowdsourcing element to its Facebook Timeline, Spotify is asking visitors to share dates in music history that they think are significant but still missing from the timeline.

The lesson to learn from Spotify’s Facebook Timeline is simple. As new tools are launched and features are added, don’t just think about all the new content you need to create to build your brand presence. Instead, think about how you can repurpose existing content and couple it with fresh content to build a branded experience that adds value to consumers’ lives. Spotify is doing it by repurposing content from the pages of music history, and you can do it, too. That’s one of the key lessons I discuss in Content Marketing for Dummies, and it applies to both online and offline marketing as well as traditional marketing tactics and new media marketing tactics. Don’t be afraid to get creative!

Tablets and Smartphones Stealing Eyes from TV Ads

Remember when the big problem for television advertisers shifted from consumers leaving the room during commercials to fast forwarding over them when they recorded the programs they watched? Next, the proliferation of DVRs made it easier than ever for people to skip commercials. Now, consumers have added another way to ignore commercials and it’s growing in popularity very quickly — simultaneously using tablet and smartphone devices while watching television.

However, all hope isn’t lost for commercials. In fact, new opportunities are being discovered to engage with consumers in new ways through television ads.

In a Nielsen study of connected device owners in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Germany during the fourth quarter of 2011, it was discovered that the majority of connected device owners are watching television and using their smartphones or tablet devices at the same time. Following are some of the statistics from the study.

United States

  • 88% of tablet owners and 86% of smartphone owners use their devices while watching television at least during a 30-day period.
  • 45% of tablet owners and 41% of smartphone owners use their devices while watching television at least once every day.
  • 26% of tablet owners and 27% of smartphone owners use their devices while watching television several times a day.

United Kingdom

  • 80% of tablet owners and 78% of smartphone owners use their devices while watching television at least once during a 30-day period.
  • 41% of tablet owners and 40% of smartphone owners use their devices while watching television every day.
  • 24% of tablet owners and 24% of smartphone owners use their devices while watching television several times a day.

Germany

  • 71% of tablet owners and 65% of smartphone owners use their devices while watching television at least once during a 30-day period.
  • 28% of tablet owners and 20% of smartphone owners use their devices while watching television every day.
  • 12% of tablet owners and 9% of smartphone owners use their devices while watching television several times a day.

Italy

  • 71% of tablet owners and 66% of smartphone owners use their devices while watching television at least once during a 30-day period.
  • 29% of tablet owners and 30% of smartphone owners use their devices while watching television every day.
  • 15% of tablet owners and 13% of smartphone owners use their devices while watching television several times a day.

Survey respondents in all four countries agreed on one thing — the activity that they do the most on their tablet and smartphone devices while watching television is checking email. This is an activity that they’re likely to do both during commercials and during programs.

Here is where the data gets interesting. Consumers are using their mobile devices while watching television to not only look up information about programs but also to look up information about products advertised on television and search for deals on those products.

Brand marketers should take note of two important findings. First, consumers are looking for product-related information on their mobile devices while watching television and often commercials are catalysts to those searches. If you thought television advertising was dead — think again. It’s more important than ever to integrate your marketing efforts and include online and mobile elements, even in your television ads.

Second, tablet owners are slightly more likely to use their devices while watching television than smartphone owners. It’s worth considering how to integrate mobile elements for specific devices (e.g., tablet vs. smartphone) into your various marketing initiatives, including television ads.

Image: Veronica Belmont

Google Consumer Surveys Add Monetization Options to Websites

Google Consumer Surveys were launched last week, and the media world took notice. Could there be another way to monetize websites other than ads and paywalls? At a time when major news organizations like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal are bringing paywalls back to life, Google wants to make sure the best content is available through its search engine and to all Internet users. That’s where Google Consumer Surveys come into the picture.

The new tool is actually very simple in concept. Advertisers create the surveys. When people visit websites that sign up to publish Google Consumer Surveys, a survey is shown, which people must complete in order to view the page content. Publishers can choose to display surveys on as many pages as they want, and they’re paid $0.05 per completed survey.

For publishers, Google Consumer Surveys enables them to generate revenue from their content. For advertisers, Google Consumer Surveys enables them to affordably gather market research data using self-service tools similar to buying ad space through Google AdWords. While Google expects the new product to be most attractive to small- and mid-size businesses, large brand advertisers and publishers are key targets, too.

Watch the video from Google that explains how Google Consumer Surveys work:

Surveys should be quick. As Google product manager Paul McDonald told Adweek, “We feel like spending six to eight seconds on a survey is a good trade-off compared to watching a 30-second ad.” I think it’s safe to assume most web surfers would agree with that.

However, the problem comes with the accuracy of the data collected through these surveys. Is it also safe to assume that once people get used to these surveys, they’ll just click any response to pass the roadblock and get to the content they want quickly? Google claims to have built some safeguards against this within the survey tool, but the problem is nearly impossible to mitigate completely.

Bottom-line, Google Consumer Surveys offers great opportunities for publisher to monetize their content and for advertisers to gather market intelligence. However, until we learn more about Google’s methods for ensuring results are reliable, those advertisers need to use the data collected through these surveys for exploratory and directional purposes only.

What do you think of Google Consumer Surveys? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Three golden rules of employee engagement

One of my great interests is how western capitalism (as focused through broad based consumerism) impacts those cultures and economies which don’t necessarily share such values.

This inevitably ends up as being a discussion about human and indigenous rights.  How the Bushmen are pushed off their mineral rich land, for instance, or how Apple’s i- revolution appears to have been underpinned by regular suicides.

I firmly believe that if western consumers knew of such tragedies they would think again about buying the goods they take for granted.  Who wants to know that their mobile phone has perpetuated civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or that the cheap fashion they just bought may have just condemned another child to starvation?

There are many NGOs out there who seek to remedy this deplorable situation, and one of those who have my profound respect is Impactt.

Impactt are currently celebrating 15 years since their foundation.  As part of this they’ve released a report, entitled “Finding the Sweet Spot: Smarter Ethical Trade That Delivers More For All”, and will be hosting their first ever conference on the same subject in May. [Read more…] about Three golden rules of employee engagement