Ad Sales Blog

Are we in a social media advertising bubble?

  Today's issue of Media Week lays out a compelling case making the current enthusiasm for social media sound a lot like the "irrational exuberance" leading up to the dot com bubble crash of 2001.

Consider:

"The fact is, it's a good bet these social networking sites will never figure out a workable business model because there may not be one. On the internet, it's accepted faith that if you build traffic, revenue will follow, typically from advertising.

But it simply may not apply to social networking sites such as MySpace, Twitter and Facebook.

That's for a reason that makes perfect sense on the face of it. Social networking sites are about people communicating with one another and sharing information. It's not a format that's suited for ad messages. In that environment, advertising becomes social interference, in some ways akin to eavesdropping, and it has the potential to backfire.

Why should we know this already? Because of the telephone.

Telephones have been around for more than 100 years, and yet despite numerous attempts, Americans have resisted attempts to put advertising on phones, even when the phone service was offered for free. Note too the rising public protest over telephone marketing, which eventually led to the federal do-not-call program several years ago.

One might argue that over time internet users will give in and accept advertising on their social networking sites. One might also reason that over time hell will indeed freeze over and Canada will indeed run dry. But it is the sort of bet anyone in their right mind would place billions on? No.

There are several lessons to be drawn from this.

One is that where big money in involved--call it greed--our inability to remember lessons of the past can be mind-numbing.

Another is that after all these years, we still don't fully appreciate how different and unique a medium the internet really is. We assume that because advertising works in some environments, it works in all. And it doesn't."

Agree or not, economic bubbles happen. One will happen again.    

Read the article, "Listen for the pop of social media" in today's Media Week

Will there be print media in 10 years?

NO!

Rubert Murdock, News Corp CEO

"Within ten years, I believe nearly all newspapers will be delivered to you digitally, either on your PC or a new—on a development of the Kindle..."

Read the whole interview 

                                                               

NO!

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO

"...within 10 years all traditional content will be digital and yet, Google aside, publishers are failing to generate serious digital revenues."

Read the whole speech

YES!

Readers. Let's not forget the readers.

When asked if newspapers and magazines will exist in 10 years...

(From a survey by The Rosen Group as reported by Mr. Magazine, aka: Samir Husni):  

 “...the vast majority of adult consumers still consider the print editions of these publications indispensable sources of news and entertainment.” In fact the survey found that

Nearly 80 percent of respondents still subscribe to magazines and the vast majority (83 percent) find that daily newspapers are still relevant.
Despite a pronounced move toward online news consumption, respondents still believe news is fit to print. When asked if newspapers and magazines will exist in 10 years, nearly half of those surveyed (45 percent) said yes, while 40 percent remained uncertain."

  Read about more about the study in Mr. Magazine's article, "In PRINT we TRUST… and on the WEB we LOOK"

Free sales training videos on selling through a recession

Josh Gordon, is interviewed by Susanna Pollack, Sr.VP at BBC worldwide.

In a series of three interviews Gordon reveals how to rethink, reorganize, and redevelop persuasion for effective recession selling.  

Part 1(Time 10:46)

A recession is mo or so re than just selling in a slow time of sales, it is a highly strategic time where sellers who understand the patterns can gain advantage.  

Part 2 (Time 10:38)

Reorganizing and refocusing for recession selling

Part 3: (Time 15:46) Persuasion in a time of recession.

See all the training videos

Also, download Josh's award-winning report, "What is Your Recession Sales Strategy"

The series was produced by The Customer Collectiveand is sponsored by Oracle. Free registration for the Customer Collective gets acess to both the videos and white paper. 

Message to publishers: social media is now your business

 The findings of my recent study should give traditional publishers a reason to take another look at social media. The study found that social media is currently used as a general communications tool in public relations and marketing, but is evolving into a major tool of customer engagement.

Research for, "The Coming Change in Social Media Business Applications", found that companies are now looking to social media as a primary way to engage their customers, enabling lead generation, immediate customer contact, and customer interaction.

As content publishers, consider that all ads and sponsorships now sold are for this same goal, customer engagement. If social media becomes a primary way that this happens you need to be a part of it. Luckily, a lot of building social networks is about leveraging focused content, something publishers know a lot about. For publishers who can see this, there is opportunity.

This study is the first to measure a coming shift in how companies will use social media.
There are several factors driving this trend.

First, with more people spending time on online social media sites and companies are realizing a lot of their customers can be found there.

Second, the shift to online communications has made it easier for potential customers to dodge traditional lead generation and sales strategies. Social media can help break the ice.

Finally, a recession is causing every company to rethink its customer engagement strategy.

The report offers a overview of the shift toward uses in social media as well as measurements specific to Twitter and social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn.

Along the way, I had to good fortune to interview social media gurus Brian Solis, Shel Holtz, Dan Schnabel, Ari Herzog, and Dan McCarthy.

If you are in publishing this is a real opportunity and an extremely important trend to get in front of.

Download the study here

Study: Reduced recession advertising = negative consumer perception

More than 48% of U.S. adults believe that a lack of advertising by a retail store, bank, or auto dealership during a recession indicates the business must be struggling. Likewise, a vast majority perceives businesses that continue to advertise are competitive or committed to doing business.

The latest Ad-ology Research study, “Advertising’s Impact in a Soft Economy,” analyzes consumer perception about businesses that continue to advertise, and those that do not, in the current economy.

The study finds advertising appears to play a key role in consumers’ view of how a business is doing, and by not advertising, businesses may be sending a warning signal to current and potential customers.

“It is critical to advertise in the current economic climate, to maintain long-term positive consumer perception of your brand,” said C. Lee Smith, president and CEO of Ad-ology Research. “Advertising not only assures consumers of a business’ reliability in a soft economy, but it can influence where and what they buy, especially when the ads address concerns about value,” Smith said.

This is a great study to take on our next call to help a potential advertisers see that just because customers are not buying, the are still creating perceptions about the products and services they will eventually buy.

Read about the study

Song of change

Clever, accurate, funny, depressing...

Enjoy!

"Online media is bought on religion or politics"

Susan Bratton’s “DishyMix” podcast came up with up one of the funniest and succinct descriptions of how media gets bought during her interview with media metrics guru, Jim Sterne (photo at left). Sterne is the founder of the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summits where online wizards gather to interpret data from online programs and ad campaigns.

In the world on online ad metrics you would think that the numbers would speak for themselves and there be little room for the human element. Wrong. When Sterne talks about how media decisions get made, metrics and all, the human element is still very much present.  

According to Sterne media is bought on either "religion or politics." According to Sterne, “If it’s religion, your CMO 15 years ago was good at buying television. So television gets all the money ‘cause that’s what he knows. Or, she really was a brilliant “search” marketing person, so search gets the focus. She’s the hammer and everything looks like a nail.”

“Politics is where the corporate search guy is going to get more money because he has known the CMO longer or has more power.”

Sterne summarizes, "You know it’s religion if they say, 'You know I’ve always done it this way and it’s worked for me.' It's politics when they say, 'Gees, we don’t have enough resources and this seems like the best way to go."

Click to listen to or download the DishyMix podcast featuring Jim Sterne here

Media buyers push back on magazine digital replica circulation

MEDIAWEEK reported yesterday  that the recent growth of digital magazine replicas used to extend print magazine circulation is giving fits to many media buyers. 

The growth has sharply increased, according to the article, "In the first half of 2007, 56 consumer titles reported fewer than 500,000 paid digital subscriptions to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. By the end of last year, that number had just about doubled with 110 titles reporting paid digital subs of nearly 1 million, as publishers expanded their appeal to tech-savvy readers."

But some buyers aren't buying

"Scott Daly, executive vp, executive media director, Dentsu America, said he sees “absolutely no value whatsoever” to digital editions and that if he were negotiating with a magazine that sells digital subs as part of its circ, “we would probably discount it, because a digital version of a magazine is not the reason we’d go into a magazine.”

Robin Steinberg, senior vp, director of print investment and activation, MediaVest, said while digital editions hold potential for marketers, more needs to be known about the difference in engagement and take-action levels between readers of print and digital editions. “To serve these copies as part of the rate base without understanding the difference is questionable,”  said Steinberg."

Until we measure the kind of reader experience digital magazines deliver, these problems will persist.

Read the whole article on MEDIAWEEK

Read about the Digital Magazine Ad Engagement Study

Managing the interactive shift...from SNAP

"Managing the interactive shift" was the extremely engaged presentation I co-presented at the SNAP conference last week along with Glenn Cook, American School Board Journal’s editor-in-chief and publishing director. The session was Glenn's idea. I showed up with my typical "too many" slide PowerPoint, but following Glenn's advice I put them aside, and together we talked through a wide variety of issues to an audience that could not seem to stop asking questions. It was a great session! The official conference report showed just how diverse the dialog was.   

Folio reported on the "spirited debate" I had with my co-presenter over the issue of paid content. Glenn was for it. With my current Folio article, "Four Ways to Avoid Paid Content Suicide" fresh in mind, I advised against. Instead, suggesting an "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" alternative; encouraging publishers to become content aggregators themselves, and go on to win the "search" wars for profit.  

I was most heartened when well known industry pundit and blogger Rex Hammock Tweeted from the audience, "Josh Gordon talking about digital magazines in the most coherent, logical and convincing way I've heard."

With all the challenges I faced working on the Digital Magazine Ad Engagement project it was nice to hear.