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August 2008 Archive

The following posts were made in August 2008. You may subscribe to the RSS feed for this archive if you would like to take your time reading through our posts.

Fired for Astroturfing: A Social Media Don't

BY JASON CORMIER

To partially quote from Wikipedia, Astroturfing is when an individual disguises the efforts of a commercial entity as an independent public reaction to a product, service or event. It's an orchestration of overt outreach tactics by covert means.

More to the point, it's something you don't do as a responsible marketer. The thing is, the rules are easily bendable, the tactics are highly tempting and the ethics are typically questioned. After all, what "harm" can it really do? Well, actually a lot -- and I have a fresh and unfortunate story to share with you about it.

Continue Reading...

TAGS: ASTROTURFING • SOCIAL MEDIA • BLOGGER OUTREACH • SOCIAL MARKETING • REPUTATION MANAGEMENT • ASTRO TURF

Posted at 4:55 pm | 4 Comments | Share this blog post

Podcast Interview with HiveLive CEO, John Kembel

BY JASON CORMIER

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Size: 8.9 MB
Length: 09:37

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Show Notes:

Room 214 Co-founder, Jason Cormier, discusses community website platforms with John Kembel, CEO of HiveLive.

We talk about:

1. What a community platform provides

2. Potential trends in community websites (community sites with typical website attributes vs. websites with bolted on community attributes)

3. Challenges with the technology

4. Businesses now focusing beyond the technology, and at the real business value of online communities

Final Note: Thanks to John and Tracey at HiveLive for allowing me to pick up a discussion directly after John's interview with Jeremiah Owyang.

TAGS: COMMUNITY PLATFORMS • SOCIAL NETWORKING SOFTWARE • ONLINE COMMUNITY • SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING SOFTWARE • HIVELIVE • JOHN KEMBEL INTERVIEW • CAPTURE THE CONVERSATION PODCAST

Posted at 5:09 pm | 0 Comments | Share this podcast

PC to Mac - Does Anyone Look Back?

BY JASON CORMIER

Last week, my wife conspired with my business partner to crush my Verizon phone, literally. Her text messages weren't getting through to me. Before long, James had my phone in one hand and a hammer in the other. 

The new iphone was its replacement, happening the same week of giving my Dell to Stepan as part of forcing my use of the new MacBook Pro that had been sitting on my desk unopened for two weeks. BTW, Stepan has his own MacBook Pro, and is only keeping the Dell until somebody here needs a better PC.

Supposedly, I have been thrust into "the brave new world." Each day is getting easier, but there is still pain (enough for me to blog about it here). I'd like to think I'm somebody who embraces change. But as I look at this ultra small type on my new higher screen resolution, and consider how my old cell reception in my house was better than I have now -- I'm not so sure.

I can't help but wonder if anyone who converts from PC to Mac looks back... or more importantly, actually goes back. All comments graciously welcomed.

TAGS: MAC • PC • MACBOOK PRO • IPHONE • 3G • VERIZON

Posted at 7:17 pm | 10 Comments | Share this blog post

3 Reasons Google's Ad Planner Can't Compete With Nielsen/ComScore

BY WENDY HOFSTETTER

Rumors of Google's free media planner have been buzzing around the  interactive community for at least a year. When Google announced the beta version, I immediately signed up to be a beta tester for the product. My initial reaction? It can't compete with Nielsen's @plan or ComScore's Media Metrix. At least not yet.

Most interactive media planners would agree that having a free planning tool would benefit our industry tremendously. Google has already released updates for Ad Planner, so I have hope that they will continue to improve the product to compete with larger, subscription-based tools. Until then, below are three reasons Ad Planner will not put Nielsen or ComScore out of business any time soon.

Why Google Ad Planner Can't Compete

1. Target audience definition is limited.

Media planners love to define niche audiences for their targeted marketing messages. These target definitions usually contain a mix of both demographic and psychographic qualities (such as age and specific purchasing behavior/interests).

Currently, Google's Ad Planner only allows you to define a target based on a very limited number of demographics. Both @plan and Media Metrix allow planners to mix and match hundreds of characteristics to create a targeted audience, and thus a more targeted list of sites. 

2. Sites can only be filtered by inclusion in Google's content network.
When I am planning an online campaign for a client, I am only interested in reviewing sites that accept advertising. Ad planner does not have a good way to filter these sites out of the master list. The current filter does allow you to exclude sites that are not included in their content network, but this filter gets rid of sites that may be a good fit for sponsorship or banner ad placement.

@plan and Media Metrix offer filters that show any site that accepts advertising, whether or not they are included in a specific network. This type of filter is more ideal than sifting through hundreds of site names to determine which ones accept advertising.

3. Site metrics are not target specific.
With the exception of Comp Index, all of the site metrics shown are based on total traffic, not the specific target audience defined in Ad Planner. While Comp Index gives planners a general comparison of which sites have a higher composition of the defined target, I am more interested in the actual percentage of site visitors that meet the target audience I defined.

@plan and Media Metrix both provide these target specific numbers, such as composition. Hopefully by now you get my drift. These two tools provide a more detailed analysis of which sites are best for a specific target audience.

Despite being somewhat disappointed by the initial beta of Google Ad Planner, the tool does provide an easy way for any online marketers to compare traffic for multiple sites. Hopefully, with enough feedback, Google will turn Ad Planner into a more competitive interactive planning tool.

TAGS: GOOGLE • AD PLANNER • MEDIA PLANNING • MEDIA PLANNING TOOLS • MEDIA TOOLS • @PLAN • MEDIA METRIX • NIELSEN • COMSCORE

Posted at 5:18 pm | 5 Comments | Share this blog post