Are brands ignoring moms?
According to M2Moms, a report from the Market to Moms Coalition, 60% of moms feel marketers are ignoring their needs, and 73% feel advertisers don't really understand what it's like to be a mom. The challenge, says the report, is sensing her distinct, timely needs and responding in a way that truly resonates.
U.S. women use blogs and social media for information
Brands interested in reaching women online should know that while social networks offer the most reach, blogs have the most influence.
Publish your blog on Amazon Kindle in 10 easy steps
Amazon has launched a very simple self-publishing tool for the world’s blogger community, to expand the amount of blogs available on Kindle.
Kindle Publishing for Blogs allows bloggers to sign up and submit their feed/s. Amazon will turn your blog feed into a Kindle-ready format. Why wouldn't you?
O2 launches weirdly anonymous ‘Mum-E’ blog
Mobile operator O2 has launched a faceless blog called ‘Mum-E’ to support a £6m family-orientated ad campaign.
I’m baffled as to why the firm has decided to invest a chunk of its marketing budget into what is essentially an anonymous blog. Since when did this sort of thing work?
IAB bows social media metrics
Social media is marketing, not advertising, but it's got to live somewhere, and it's got to be measured. So it's only slightly ironic that the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) would introduce definitions of social media metrics, given social media is the marketing channel that's actual beginning to replace advertising.
In a hefty 12-page document, the IAB's "Social Media Ad Metrics Definitions" (PDF download) slices social media into three subsets, and outlines relevant metrics for each. The major categories are defined as:
Hitwise: Twitter looks like a social network
Yesterday I detailed my experience of trying to use Twitter as a search engine. It wasn't a good experience.
A lot of people have been trying to define and categorize Twitter lately with minimal success. That's probably due to the fact that Twitter is being used by lots of different people for lots of different things; it's hard to fit it in a neat little box.
The 25 most valuable blogs are...
As blogs have gained in prominence as sources of news and information, the value of the most popular blogs has become a subject of much talk.
Some blogs, such as The Huffington Post, have been funded to the tune of millions of dollars by investors who believe that they're the next big media companies.
Glam Monetizes Oscar Widget
Take one publisher, one widget, Twitter, a sponsor, and a dash of censorship, blend well, and...you've got yourself an ad model!
At least. Glam did during last night's Oscar telecast. The company plunked a widget on its home page during the Academy Awards broadcast last night so its users could share their thoughts on the telecast. Aveeno's logo graced the bottom of the app.
But unlike the live Twitter feed gracing our fair homepage, Glam editors made plenty of calls: who was allowed to tweet, as well as redlining inappropriate comments, to make the environment more advertiser-amenable.
According to a report in Venturebeat, Glam intends to continue the experiment, but isn't married to Twitter. Facebook and Friendfeed could supply the user-generated content in future endeavors in a product it has dubbed "gWire".
Glam experimented with the feature during New York's Fashion Week last week to enthusiastic participation. The company says it's creating a pool of freelance contributors it can trust to feed teh stream with less supervision and accordingly, lower editorial overhead.
How newspapers can make good use of Digg
It seems that The Telegraph has been using Digg successfully to drive more traffic to its website, and provides a useful example for other newspaper and blogs to follow.
By encouraging readers to Digg the stories they are reading on the newspaper site, The Telegraph has managed to increase the amount of traffic it receives from the social news site, and is now largest recipient of Digg traffic in the UK.
Site comparison: Number10 v Whitehouse.gov
As soon as President Obama was inaugurated this week, a shiny new version of the whitehouse.gov website was launched, replete with blog and RSS feeds, an indication of the new administration's intent to make full use of the internet.
I've been taking a look at the new White House site, and comparing it with Number10.gov, the Prime Minister's website which is still in beta since it was relaunched in August last year.
Social media: the best and worst of 2009
Email marketing: six steps to improving customer engagement in 2010
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
