A Social Media Marketing Campaign Deconstructed
Could an inexpensive social media marketing campaign drive 200,000 people to a SeaWorld theme park? One social media marketer claims just that.
In my latest post at E-consultancy.com, I deconstruct what some tout as a successful social media marketer campaign.
Based upon the available information and scarce Web 2.0 commodities called logic and common sense, I come to a startling conclusion: the emperor still has no clothes.
Fail: AOL Makes $850 Million Bet on Engagement Advertising
Even Google can’t monetize social networks. But that hasn’t stopped AOL from making an $850 million bet on social networks as an advertising platform as it was announced today that AOL has acquired popular social network Bebo. Bebo has approximately 40 million users and is most popular in the UK.
As reported by Allen Stern at CenterNetworks, during AOL’s conference call, questions were asked about advertising and how AOL planned to deal with the fact that most social network users just don’t seem to be interested in the advertising. The response: AOL will use “engagement advertising.”
RIP: Brands? Hardly
Hank Williams recently informed the world of the tragic inevitable passing of the brand. After the Oscars pulled in the lowest number of viewers in 39 years, Hank recognized something that seemed to have eluded everybody else:
I think what it really says is something quite significant about the value and role of brands in modern culture. The Oscar failure is is a reflection of the fact that we are inexorably headed towards a day when brands, as a concept, mean absolutely nothing.
I found it amusing that Hank would use the Oscars as a “case study” for his ill-informed argument given that the causes for the poor ratings are fairly well-accepted:
Note to Tide: Detergent is Detergent
In my recent attack on the absurdity of Forrester Research’s recommendation that marketers spend more money on social media advertising, I noted:
…consumers may love your products, but at the end of the day, toothpaste is toothpaste.
I recently hired a few marketing interns and am having them catalog all of the stupid social media marketing campaigns they can find on services like Facebook. I’m thinking about one day publishing a full-color, glossy coffee table book that serves as a visual compendium of the insanity of some of the social media marketing campaigns.
Social Media Marketers Targeting People Who Don’t Exist?
Continuing my debunking of many of the absurdities promoted by social media marketers, my latest post at E-consultancy.com discusses a recent Fast Company article dealing with the subject of “Influentials,” those desirable individuals whose influential ways supposedly have the power to spark viral word-of-mouth buzz.
Word-of-mouth is one of the cornerstones of the social media marketer’s proposition to brands. Using social media, they’ll get your product and message into the hands of Influentials and the rest is apparently magic. Sounds good, right?
Forrester Research: Blow Your Money on Social Marketing
Given my recent focus on debunking many of the claims about social media marketing and the viability of social networks as strong marketing platforms, I wanted to point readers of The Drama 2.0 Show in the direction of my most recent post on the subject at E-consultancy.
In a recent free “report,” Forrester is advising clients to spend more money on social network advertising, especially as the economy falters. I think this is stupid advice and detail why in my post.
The Social Media Debates: Round 3
After getting “owned” in Round 1 of The Social Media Debates, Alisa Leonard apparently took some time off from her Twitter activities to stage a better fight in Round 2 of our debate. Unfortunately, she’s still a lightweight trying to beat a heavyweight.
On a macro level, Drama’s premise of his “are we going to talk or fuck?” approach to marketing is that he doesn’t buy the value of relationship marketing.
The Social Media Debates: Round 1
Screw the CNN-YouTube debates. I invited the techie girl who loves me to engage in debate regarding social media marketing, a much more important topic than the future of the United States, which doesn’t exist. This debate pits Drama 2.0, a rainmaker who can sell water to a whale, against Alisa Leonard, a “social media junkie” who encourages marketers to participate in some sort of abstract conversation with the “community.”
Alisa kicked off Round 1 of our public lovefest here:
Alisa: Marketers must join the Conversation
Drama: Marketers must Sell
Advertisers Starting to Demand Results?
While going through the closets at my new home away from home, E-consultancy.com, I noticed an interesting post that discusses some recent comments by one of Proctor & Gamble’s marketing executives. Emma Jenkins, Head of Interactive Marketing for the consumer goods conglomerate, made the following comments about online advertising and agencies:
We absolutely do want big ideas, but in the end the creative needs to deliver. Business objectives need to be embraced all the way through the creative agency from the account manager onwards.
Facebook and YouTube to Marketers: Give Us Your Money
Tom Arrix, VP, media sales east at Facebook, and Jamie Byrne, head of client solutions and ad programs for YouTube, participated in a panel discussion on social marketing at Argyle’s CMO Leadership Forum in New York. The PaidContent report on this panel made me smile.
keep looking »ROI and social nets: “Return on investment” is probably the wrong thing to be looking for. Instead, the acronym should stand for “return on involvement,” Arrix said. The usual standard of audience “reach” is too limited when it comes to social media and “things like click-through rates don’t cut it. Return on ‘involvement’ looks at what users are saying about your brand. For example, are users taking your message and sharing it with their friends? Every client we do business with, we tell them, ‘You have to divorce yourself from what you’ve done before.’”
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Drama 2.0 spikes the Web 2.0 kool aid by providing a critical analysis of Web 2.0 startups and the impact of Web 2.0 on the media industry. Other topics are explored when Drama 2.0 has a slight buzz. Read more about the Internet's version of Keyser Söze here.
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