Out-Smarts Marketing Services

Just wanted to quickly follow up on me post a few days ago regarding Microsoft’s attempt to buy Yahoo.  News in today is that Yahoo is rejecting the bid as it “under values the organisation”.  The search engine and Internet advertising industries will remain on tenterhooks to see if Microsoft will up their $45b bid (as expected by analysts) or if a hostile take over is on the cards.  Yahoo’s share price dropped following the disclosure - no surprise there.

The Internet may never be the same again with the announcement today that Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo. In its ongoing battle to thwart Google, the software giant is willing to put out $45 billion dollars for Yahoo, an aquisition that would potentially be the largest in tech history.

With rumours swirling lately of mass layoffs at Yahoo and its declining stock price, the Microsoft offer (which isn’t its first) could be a lifeline or a nail in the coffin of the search engine giant. It would also consolidate further the SEO arena with 2 giant behemoths facing up.

It will be interesting to see what happens but for us punters it can only mean one thing: a viable alternative to Google for on-line advertising. A shake up in Internet advertising can only be good given their monopolistic dominance.

1. Use Twitter to market to you audience (assuming your audience are Twits that is (or should that be Tweets?). It can be used for branding and networking effectively. Dosh dosh lists 17 more Twitter marketing applications and innovative Tweet uses.

2. Participate in the blogosphere. Find blogs pertaining to your industry or your target audience and get commenting. You would be amazed at how this can help spread the word.

3. Find out about new technologies that make it easier for people to do business with you - like Skype - the on-line phone service or that help you present your offering more effectively - like Flickr the photo site -  and make full use of them on your website.

4. Get creative with video clips about your company: make them quirky, funny or alternative and post on YouTube. You never know, this could be the next big meme.

5. If your not comfortable with writing blog comments or posts or are camera shy, why not consider a Podcasting your message. Its much easier than you think.

6. When you find interesting articles, pages or clips, share them with your others in your field. I Stumble but hear that Magnolia and Deli.cio.us are great for this too.

7. Join Facebook, MySpace or Linked In (or all three) and get networking. You know the old adage about a friend of a friend being your friend too: its so much easier to do business with people you’ve been referred to by a friend or colleague.

8. Use Internet advertising technologies such as AdWords or Facebook Social to reach and promote to the right audience.

9. Forums or chat rooms where your audience collaborate are great ways to get involved, join the conversation and establish expertise with a wider audience.

10. Get wiki with it. Join Wikipedia and share your knowledge (but be careful not to be blatantly corporate or your posts will just get deleted) with the global audience.

As you know, here at Out-Smarts we are champions of Internet advertising: in the main because it is more effective at reaching a highly targeted audience, but from an audience perspective Internet Ads can miss the mark or have a counter effect.

Ads are popping up all over Facebook these days and I’ve been interested in getting people’s view on these. In general most people I’ve talked to don’t mind the ads too much, some don’t even seem to notice they are there. However there has been negative comments: one Facebook user told me that a flashing pink ad on the screen was so abusive that he got a cracking headache and had to go and do something else - not likely to click through on that is he? I myself was offended by a series of ads for weight loss products (just because its the New Year and I am woman does not mean I am obsessed by my weight).

So advertisers beware, when creating ads test and try them and think about who your audience truly is and what will appeal to them rather than offending them with nonsense and rather than spread your net as wide as you can, hone in on those who really consitute your niche that way your campaigns are much more likely to succeed after all, the technology is available to let you do this effectively.

Check out these ads from yesteryear compiled by Odee for a good laugh to end the week. Its funny to see just how much attitudes have changed. My favorite: for a better start in life start cola earlier!

If you have kids you’ve no doubt heard about the Webkinz craze that has been sweeping elementary schools. Webkinz are stuffed animals that come with a free one year subscription to the Webkinz web site where kids can play games and interact with their toy on-line. The offering has been hugely successful but Ganz may have overstepped the mark by announcing their intentions to use the site to as an advertising revenue stream.

An article in the New York times last week stirred up the controversy and The Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood quickly activated a viral machine that went into overdrive to ensure that schools were informed. At my children’s school alone every parent was e-mailed with a warning notifying them of Webkinz use of Ads and encouraging parents to “Tell Ganz: Stop Advertising on Webkinz”.

There’s an opportunity here in our Web 2.0 world for Ganz to respond to the criticism in a positive way by outlining the types of ads that will and will not be allowed for example but alas to date the parent’s section of the site still has no reference to the issues. From a parent’s perspective this lack of ownership is disgruntling especially given that many feel they have already been manipulated into buying the toys not to mention letting their kids use an ad free site site that decides to change course. I for one will be closely monitoring my childrens’ Webkinz forays and assessing whether the ads are appropriate. If they aren’t I can foresee a lot of sad faces around here….

Right now there’s so many exciting developments in new media, marketing and on the Internet in general, that its becoming quite a task to decide which makes me the most cheerful. November saw Google announce Open Social and Facebook enter the Internet advertising market with SocialAds, the XO was launched as was Kindle which lead me discover my first reason:

Askville by Amazon is a neat application, you can ask the community any question about any topic and with any luck the community comes up with satisfactory answers. I always have questions so I expect I’ll be using it a lot.

Docstoc - has a wide range of business templates and documents available to share. There’s some debate about the quality of some of the documents therein but the concept is great especially for small businesses.

Zoho - I Stumbled upon this on-line solution aimed at providing everything from word processing and spreadsheets to CRM and project management.

Kijiji- I like Craigslist and use it regularly to good effect so I was pleased to find this Canadian alternative.

I’ve been using Google Adwords for a while now for targeted online promotion of my business and so far so good, I’ve been relatively happy with the results. What I like best about AdWords is the fact that you can get going and test the waters really easily. For as little as $5 per month you can get started with campaigns and tweak to see what works and what doesn’t before expanding your promotions.

Enter Facebook and their business pages. Business pages are great - a free way to raise brand awareness amongst your network and their friends. However, their advertising component whilst being attractive (you can reach out and promote to a highly targeted demographic including age, location, sex, keywords, education, workplace, views and relationship status) isn’t great for those who want to test the waters. Unlike Google, Social Ads have a minimum daily investment of $5 for advertising. Really what you are paying for here is the targeting capabilities and the investment may be worth it. $5 is not a lot you may think but for small to medium sized companies already happy with Adwords it may be prohibitive (especially since the Facebook option is new and the effects of advertising in this forum are untested).

Has your organisation tried Social Ads yet? What response rate are you getting and how do the results compare to your experience with Google Adwords (if you’ve used that)?. Please let me know and so that we can feature your comments in a future Out-Smarts Internet Advertising blog post.

Out-Smarts has a business profile in Facebook and within a day of creating our page we have 7 fans! We’re testing the waters to see how we can use this profile to share our knowledge and expertise; to collaborate with interested parties and to assess if Social Ads is a viable Internet advertising tool. Become a fan and check up on our progress or submit to our discussions - the current one being innovative corporate blog uses.

When I meet with executives in the finance sector and talk about new media adoption I usually get the response that investors are typically old school and like to do business the “traditional” way. I always have to ask about the next generation of investors - those for whom new media adoption is the norm: have these financial organisations considered how they will attract these new investors in the future without using new media?

Steadyhand, a local financial organisation that provides mutual funds does just that. It bucks the trend both in terms of the mutual funds services it provides and its approach to new media adoption which is leading edge to say the least. The company has adopted a blogging policy that encourages all employees to contribute as well as Internet advertising and social marketing strategies that effectively reach and involve their target audience.

Traditional finance companies should take note - this is the way of the future.