Sebastien Provencher introduced the EADP audience in Mallorca, Spain, to the concept of conversational commerce. Praized Media's latest product, Needium, mines local Tweets to uncover intent whether it is intentional or unintentional. Provencher offered the example of a series of…
The EADP conference in Mallorca was treated to the insights and good humor of Yellow Pages Group Canada's Matthieu Houle and the company's very funny ad campaign. Mobile, Houle said, gives directories the appeal local advertisers are looking for. His…
Mentions, reviews, blog comments, tweets, posts and now check-ins. It's enough digital noise to lead local business owners to throw their hands up in despair. As Internet fragmentation accelerates, a host of reputation management providers have carved out an important…
Groupon has moved closer to CEO Andrew Mason’s vision of being a “city guide” via “GrouponLive,” a new events source featuring various Live Nation events. “The Live Email,” featuring last minute discounts, is being sent out to Ticketmaster’s regular opt-in…
CityGrid Media has released a study it conducted via research firm Harris Interactive that suggests people are more likely to "like" a local business than write a review as a way of expressing their approval of the service they received.…
New York Magazine is set to start sending out New York Deals, a weekly deals email that will consist of 15,000 opt-in recipients at launch. The deals email, which will be accompanied by a New York Deals website, takes its…
BIA/Kelsey projects that total U.S. social advertising revenues will surge from $2.1 billion in 2010 to $8.3 billion in 2015, growing at a 31.6 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR). Driven by Facebook, social networks will command a majority share…
Facebook today launched its Deals product as an "alpha" in five markets: San Francisco, San Diego, Dallas, Austin and Atlanta. The effort plays up Facebook's social connectivity, making it simple to "like" and share deals, and promote throughout the site.…
Facebook Head of Groups Justin Shaffer told attendees at Where 2.0 that one of Facebook’s goals is to develop the largest database of “interesting” places. The collection of places has “really been the focus" of his division for the past…
When hyperlocal zeroes in on local marketplaces, it makes a lot more sense to me. Witness ShopBuffalo, an attractive new marketplace from The Buffalo News launched as a companion to Buffalo.com. The site has partnered with ShopCity and Hero, a…
Instant deals designed for mobile consumers on the go look like the next big extension in the deals space. LivingSocial told AllThings D that it is offering instant $1 “Walk In” deals for lunch in its headquarters city of Washington,…
As it turns out, the daily deals landscape is more sophisticated than many first thought. New contours are emerging, each replete with opportunity and threat. Bluntly branding the space as "the next big thing" or a "can't-miss opportunity" lacks the…
Retail inventory has been revving up as a new, highly mobile-oriented tool for retailers to highlight stock on hand and steer consumers to store locations. It is an important lead-generating feature on new shopping portals, such as FindnSave. Research by…
This week I sat down with Matthew Goldman of ATTi to explore how executives can better manage their companies’ reputations while Mike was busy moderating a panel at Mediabistro’s Socialize conference on developing real-world products at the intersection of mobile and social. Mike also told us Facebook reported reaching 250 million mobile active subscribers.
Jed told us about Travidia’s Find-n-Save app, which helps publishers promote local social deals.
Here’s what we uncovered this week in socialsphere:
How to Get Started With Social Media
Where do I start? That’s the most asked question by marketers at small-and-mid-size businesses when first considering creating social media campaigns in Facebook, Twitter and similar social sites, according to Anne Field. So, she gets advice from three experts: Rhea Drysdale, Lee Odden and Wendy King.
Are You a Q&A Expert?
This is the first in a series of interviews we will be doing with executives focused on Social Local Media
While much has been made of how social media is changing consumer behavior, advertisers are struggling to keep up with and make sense of this shiny new toy. Matthew Goldman is the executive director of product management for subscription ad products at ATT Interactive (parent of YellowPages.com). Goldman is ATTi’s point man on social strategies for its advertisers.
What Products Are You Responsible For?
I am responsible for Consumer & Advertiser Products including IYP products, YP 360, websites, mobile websites and social media products.
How Does ATTi Think About Social Media Regarding Its Advertisers?
Social needs to be interwoven into everything. Three years ago there was hardly any focus on social within the organization, and perhaps in the industry. Now it’s everywhere and we’ve bought into that.
We are providing the basics. For example, when we build a website for an advertiser it will have FB like button and Twitter feeds. If you add video there are video sharing tools and virtual tours. In addition you can add a Facebook Fan page to your site.
What Are You Doing for Reputation Monitoring?
In August 2010 we rolled out our Online Presence Manager, which allows a business to review its reviews from a variety of review sites. We are private labeling Marchex’s platform and integrating it with ATT’s single sign-on. Any ATT customer who buys any ad product, including a bold listing in the book, is provided with ability to sign up for a free/lite version. The lite version limits the number of trends you can track and provides a monthly email summary of activity. For businesses that don’t get a lot of reviews, this is a good way to start. The paid version is about $30/month and includes unlimited history and alerts and competitor comparison view, so you can see how the guy across the street is doing. We are seeing pretty strong take rates and now have over 10,000 customers, many of which are paid.
ATTi’s Online Presence Manager Reviews Dashboard
A panel I moderated at Mediabistro's Socialize conference in NYC espoused the virtues of innovating mobile products with realities of the technology in mind. Similar to a theme at last week's ILM East conference, this includes developing features at the intersection of…
Even as preprint circulars continue to account for a hefty chunk of newspaper revenues, the race to migrate these FSIs onto digital platforms that provide compelling shopping experiences and command premium CPMs is revving up. Associated Press will soon…
Facebook announced today that it has turned the corner on 250 million active mobile users. This is a big leap from the 100 million it announced about a year ago. At that time, it had 400 million total users. So when…
Google launched +1 today, basically its answer to Facebook’s Like button. When you click on a “+1″ icon displayed on a URL, it shows up in Google search results when you are signed in. And if you have social connections within the Google empire (e.g., Gmail contacts) you will see which of your connections has +1’d the URL. While I am digesting the possibilities I thought it might be helpful to summarize some initial reads on the +1:
Meet +1: Google’s Answer To The Facebook Like Button – Danny Sullivan
Google did say that if someone does a +1 on a web page, then that will show up to others who find that page in search results. That’s going to be a huge bribe, in my view, for getting wide adoption of these buttons on web sites.
Now Google Social Search will gain +1 recommendations, content that people are explicitly recommending using Google’s +1 buttons. Google Social Search remains, but in addition to the first two items below, it now gains a third feature:
Show content created by those in your social network
Show content shared by those in your social network
Show content recommended by those in your Google +1 network
Social search signals, including the new +1 recommendations, will also continue to influence the first two things below plus power the new, third option:Influence the ranking of results, causing you to see things others might not, based on your social connections
Influence the look of results, showing names of those in your social network who created, shared or now recommend a link
Influence the look of results, showing an aggregate number of +1s from all people, not just your social network, for some links
What’s +1 mean for Facebook? A very good chance that Facebook’s seeming monopoly on how people “like” pages will be over.
I just stumbled onto a post (thanks Twitter!) from 2009 by Ross Mayfield, Co-Founder of SocialText, called The Social C.R.M. Iceberg. It’s a long piece but Mayfield’s insights and anecdotes about how social engagement is empowering organizations is worth the time for any of you who are pondering your company’s social strategies.
Some excerpts to whet your appetite:
Greg Oxton from the Consortium for Service Innovation (CSI) shared with me a model for understanding how engaged enterprises really are:
- 1% of customer conversations are assimilated as organizational knowledge
- 9% of customer conversations touch the organization, but no learning occurs
- 90% of customer conversations never touch the organization
But before you leap into reinventing your processes for transformative value, step back. You can’t collaborate with your customers before you learn to collaborate with your employees. In the spectrum of risk taking, its best to deploy from the inside-out.
In larger organizations such as Intel, if you measure it, you will find people spending a day a week searching for people and information. This isn’t just a search problem, its a sharing problem.
Have you ever asked a question on Twitter?
