rECessioN ResiStant

According to Josh Bernoff the author of Groundswell; the current recession the world is suffering has not yet affected the interactive market and will probably not affect it at all, that’s because he instead found that there’s a strong desire of marketers to continue investing in social applications.

In fact Josh Bernoff research report result showed that actually more than half of interactive marketers will increase their social technology spending for the 6 months.

You know, for common users is not hard to notice that interactive categories as social networking, blogging and user-generated content are still growing at high rates, we just need to take a look to the new updates on sites as Facebook or others like Twitter.

Finally he explains that one of the main reasons of the increase rate in investments regardless of the recession time is because in a bad economy, social media marketing is one of the most cost effective marketing strategies to implement, like a viral application, you only need to pay once and then it spreads free.

Groundswell: Recession Resistant

(Still in Progress)

onliNE CommuNity

First of all to understand what an online community refers lets define what a community means. A community is a relationship between individuals that share the same interests and objectives as they work together to achieve that. An online community is exactly that but instead of being face to face, the user works in media communications such as internet.

An online community can contain a huge amount of members from all over the world; this may be a big challenge as members may have different backgrounds and cultural differences but it can be a great benefit as well.

The benefit recalls in something called the Transfer of Value Triangle which it refers that every member in the community, users and administrators share their knowledge and information with the other members of the community. Information can be shared from User to User, User to Administrator or Administrator to User, as we can see in the picture below:

In conclusion, online communities can be now consider the future of communication, as its capacities and uses are increasing drastically, it is becoming more common to see developers like Playstation or Nintendo creating online community worlds so impressive that you can feel you have more stuff to do online that offline, anyway I still prefer the old face to face way. haha

The "7 C's" of the cUstOmer InterfaCe

A customer Interface refers to the way information and services are presented to the customer, this customer interface must contain many characteristics in order to be consider as a good online application or in this case, a good web page. But there are 7 of this characteristics which defines the Customer Interface.

This 7 C's are :

• Context: This refers to the site's layout and design. Is what you get as a first impression.
  

• Commerce: This refers to the site's capabilities to enable commercial transactions. This can be seen in sites as ebay, clothes brands, retailer online shops, etc.
  

• Connection: This means if the page is linked to other sites. For example; i've been working on a project of a company called Offsetters, on its site you can get linked to some airline companies as they work as a partnership. This is very useful as you increase the chances to be recognize in the market.
  

• Communication: This measures if the way site enables different types of communication, whether is between site to user or 2 way communication.

• Customization: This means to how much the site allows the user to personalize the site, as Social sites like Facebook, MySpace or Hi5 where the customization options are huge.

• Community: Is about user to user communication, and how they can interact, this is a very important aspect of any customer interface as it can increase the value of the company.

• Content: Is about the visual part of the page, the colors, sounds, video,etc, is about making it appealing for the user, this is very important on a site because even you have a great product or marketing advertisement, if the content is badt hen you wont have success in your campaign.

Here is one example we saw on class of how "e-bay" applies the 7C's:

GOOGLE AdworDs AuTOMatic MatCh "GOOD oR bad"

Last year Google introduced a new program for AdWords advertisers called "Automatic Match." This program promised advertisers an effortless way to expand their presence online by letting Google automatically add keywords to their AdWords campaigns.

In other words Automatic Matching will help your ads reach targeted traffic missed by your keyword lists. It works by analyzing the content of the landing pages, ads, and keywords in your ad group and shows your ads on search queries relevant to this information.

This program can be really helpful for advertisers but however is not perfect at all, there’s good and bad stuff about this program so lets mention those so you can take a better decision in case you want to use it.

Good part:

First, is an easy way to expand traffic as Google will look on additional keywords on order to use your unspent budget without you being involved. So with this it means that you don’t have to review or approve your keywords; they will automatically appear in your account in a separate section.

Second, using Automatic Match Google as a keyword research tool will add keywords you may have overlooked, in other words this program act as a source of new keywords. If you run a search query report from Google AdWords you will get important information but with this program you will get some hidden queries.

Finally, Automatic Match works acts as a lateral thinking, this program identifies those categories that you might not think or consider, these keywords outside the box could represent missed opportunities and possible expansion ideas.

Bad part:

When you first launch this program, the on is set as default so many people is not aware of it so it can be a problem. To turn it off you must edit your campaign settings.

Also as it is an automated tool, there is no human behind that can think for common sense so you might receive unfocused keywords.

Is Automatic Match Right for You?

Well, Automatic Match is a great tool but considering its functions and orientation it may be better for content sites rather than for e commerce sites. Also another recommendation about this or any new program you use is that first test it and see how it works , don’t use it blindly, monitor what keywords bring clicks and if you don’t think you’re getting good results, play it safe and turn it off.

If you want to get more information about Google Adwords, then visit the official page https://adwords.google.com/

ViraL MarKetinG

One very important and useful technique i've learned on my E-Marketing class is the term: “Viral marketing”. This concept in simple words describes any way or strategy that would make individuals to pass on a marketing message to others. This words i've put in bold are the main concept of a viral strategy and the reason why as it name says, it indeed refers to viruses; but don't be scared!. It refers to a virus because by passing a mesage to others it creates the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence so that each time there's more and more people following your idea.

One very good example of Viral Marketing is the classic “Hotmail.com” which is one of the first free Web based e-mail services. The viral strategy they followed is simple:

They just catch a few customers at the beginning as they offered free service, so in order to explode a viral campaign, they just attached a "Hotmail free suscription link" to every email their customers send so as all the time people was passing the marketing message to others, then at the end everyone get into the service and so on it has become the most popular email service in a couple of years.

Another important thing to know about viral techniques ithat i've learned on Emarketing Class is that brands can also harness viral marketing techniques to enhance their performance. And by using these techniques they can generate new interest and extend to a larger audience which will generate more demand, making the communication more authentic.

Finally, accept this fact, some viral marketing strategies work better than others, and few work as well as the simple Hotmail.com strategy. But however if you manage to launch a good viral message, customers will be speaking in your behalf and your message will be spreading like a virus.

Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1l3rJmLU2s and watch another example of how a brand can use a viral marketing technique.

gOogLe to "TeSt SuRfers ToleRaNce"

Google is taking a few more strides on the online advertising tightrope attempting to balance advertiser interests against the potential of irritating the Web surfers they hope to reach. Its latest experiment involves expandable ads, in other words, small ads that enlarge when interested users click on them.

Commonly an expandable ad comes like a small display ad that expands into a much larger ad which covers much of the Web content; this of course is annoying for users.

So in this case, what Google says is that there would be a safeguard against such annoyances. The new ads won't enlarge with a simple mouse over; instead, a user has to actually click on the ad to expand it. So it takes a second click to actually get to the advertiser's landing page. This is a very good new for users as we won’t have to leave our current Web pages unless we want to, also is a good advantage for advertisers as they wont have to pay extra costs if the ad doesn’t work.

Google also explained that earnings will be based on whether advertisers use the cost per click or cost per impression model. In cost per click advertiser generate earnings when a user visits the advertiser’s landing page, not just by clicking the ad to be expanded.

Finally the new ad format would probably work more efficient for products that can be sold visually rather than products like insurance or tax services; this new ad format is more design for things like movie trailers or video games.

fAcEbOOk RediSiGN

Faced with competition from the microblogging site Twitter and a burning desire to make lots of money off of its social networking platform, Facebook is redesigning its user home pages.

The new Facebook site will add several interesting new features to users intended to provide more information and in real time. In other words, any changes you make will be updated instantly in your friends’ home pages which are now called profiles. Another important feature is that users will have more control over what they and their friends can see, this will add friend list filters, and application filters. Another minor features that will be added includes a change to the Facebook inquiry "What are you doing right now?" to "What's on your mind?" and the elimination of the 5,000friend limit so you can now sign up an unlimited number of friends.

This update in Facebook will also be seen in the design as well, as it would be cleaner than ever. Content will be split up in a 3 column format which will give a little more orderly hierarchy structure to all the information you want to quickly get and also the ad section will be grouped by the type of content users most care about .

These changes in Facebook will also have several pluses for marketers as Facebook wishes to increase the number of ads by many. As Brandon Evans, managing partner of strategy and services for Mr. Youth said, "marketers are being included in users' social graphs just as their friends are, as well as being able to publish information to their subscribers' home pages."

The potential downside to that, he said, is that brands will need to accelerate their comfort level with consumer chatter about their products. Some brands are already swinging the doors wide open, of course. However, "they all will need to do this in the next few years, and brands who want to actively participate on Facebook will need to get comfortable more quickly."

So at the end this update of bringing more personalized, timely information will mean a higher competitive advantage as competition for Facebook rise up and the target market is increasing rapidly.

fAcEbOOk: Making wrong decissions?

Facebook, by some measurements the most popular social network with 175 million active users worldwide, is one of the fastest-growing and best-known sites on the Internet today.

The company, founded in 2004 by a Harvard sophomore, Mark Zuckerberg, began life catering first to Harvard students and then to all high school and college students. It has since evolved into a broadly popular online destination used by both teenagers and adults of all ages.

Well, yesterday I found a very interesting and in some way scary new about this popular page, it said that in February 2009, when Facebook updated its terms, it deleted a provision that said users could remove their content at any time, at which time the license would expire. Further, it added new language that said Facebook would retain users’ content and licenses after an account was terminated. Originally defending the changes, Mr Zuckerberg had said it was to better reflect how people used the site. He argue that the changes were made to ensure that if a user deleted his or her account any comments or messages he or she had left on a friend's Facebook page would not also disappear.

So I think that Facebook should be very careful with these new terms because is following a path that can lead to a disaster, as they can lose people’s trust in that network. As Simon Davis of Privacy International mentioned, the company is doing wrong for allowing commercial and legal concerns to override its commitment to users, saying: "It appears to be going down the same road as Google. Its halo is starting to slip."

In conclusion I think at the end Facebook will reconsider going through this dangerous path and modify its terms once more by committing to a privacy policy that would allow users to delete all data from its systems once more.