Google Ads: Marketers have more influence on brand name key words in the future

If your company runs a business in Europe using Google Ads, then the announcement of Google becomes of interest for you. From 14 September 2010 your company will be able to buy and include brand names in keywords in your Google Ads campaign which have been trademarked by other businesses. These changes are extension to the changes made in the UK and Ireleand in 2008. In the US, this has been possible since 2004.

Many companies use Google Ads in order to drive attention to their websites and increase visibility about their products and services. Up until now, it was a court issue for companies to stop third-party ads from being mentioned alongside the paid keyword results of a trademark name. The problem came up when the French luxury goods company LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton complained that only they have the rights to be able to use and buy such trademark terms in search offerings. The objective behind this cause is obvious: Brands wanted to protect their brand name.

And in the era of the social web, this also becomes an important impact on brands and the influence on their consumers. “Google argues that selling brand names as ad keywords to multiple bidders helps consumers because it allows them to find product reviews, sellers of second-hand goods and other information. It stressed that the new policy would not extend to the actual display text in search findings.” The idea is that users will find more relevant context connected to the brand name. The bad news for brand owners is that a hifi dealer will now be able to use the products brand names in its keywords.

Spot On!
Seeing this movement from a Google perspective it is a clever approach to boost their Google Adwords business. Although Google stressed that the new policy would not extend to the actual display text in search findings. Nevertheless, questions arise if Google has to watch out for Facebook as a competitor in the fight on search revenues. If more and more people are spending more and more time asking for the opinion of their friends (see launch of Google Questions) instead of searching the answer via search machines, the world of advertisers and brand might follow.

So, did your company already move budgets from Google to Facebook?

Social Networks – Are niche communities the future of networks?

More often people are fed up with all that self-referential talk of individuals on social networks. Or, companies which do not understand the idea of an online conversation, including clients and not just broadcasting the old-fashioned marketing and sales way. Just today, I had some people in my Facebook stream and my Twitter updates telling me how the weather was, what their kids had for breakfast, or that their wives don’t understand their affinity to social networks. OK, nice, fair enough… Interesting? No!

And then I hear my wife saying… “Why keeping up the contact to so many people if there is no option to even get actively into 10 per cent of the conversations happening in these online relationships?” True, but you never know when some contact might need you, or vice versa.

Checking Facebook and staying up-to-date on Twitter becomes challenging on a busy day, with kids that are happy to see dad in the evening for some minutes, and long-time friends complaining why they don’t hear anything from you anymore.

So, is there another trend coming up in the future that might go for niche social networks, niche communities? Why? We had that offline for ages. Years ago, people have spend hours in their football club bar after a training session, or went to book readings to enjoy the discussion afterwards, or went to a vernisage in order to “philosophy” about the latest gallery exhibition with someone they don’t know. The reason for doing it was just their share of interest in something, a hobby, a passion, or a kind of affinity. So, are we seeing social networks for art geeks going on virtual gallery tours in the future?

My father was telling me that he uses a Bridge community and plays daily for one or two hours. A friend of mine is a DJ and he spend hours in communities for DJs like My DJ Space or Mix DJ. Some even still (or again?) love vinyl and become members in a community there. These music enthusiasts do nothing more or less than share their interest in being DJs, and obviously loving to mix tapes. The special interest is the centre of their community engagement.

Some years ago, somebody approached me with the idea of an international golfer network (http://www.golffriends.com/welcome/community). As I love playing golf (though don’t have enough time to play often…), there was some interest to become a member, if not more to become more engaged in the business idea. But then, time and the thought of managing many private interest networks -as I have quite some hobbies- next to my business networks and the top networks made me not investing too much time in that vision. Maybe I should have done…

Mothers share their passion for coffee on Cafemom, and if we think about all the Starbucks communities it does not surprise us. Games exchange ideas and thoughts on Raptr, or real social activists use Care2. Even more “nichy” is the passion of men for their moustache that they express online to the public. And others share their interest in Whisky or Wine networks.

So, my question is if niche networks could take a big portion of the market share of global social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, etc.) in the future? Can you see people going away from the self-gloryfying popular networks that the mainstream web user is engaged in? Tell us of niche networks you know and how you see this trend?

The 3 types of social networkers that influence the buying process

It’s been a rumour in the industry for quite a long time now: Facebook and Twitter are becoming indirect shopping platforms and their buttons can boost sales. A recent survey by the research firm Gartner Inc. discovered that most of the users appreciate and take suggestions from their friends through social networking sites before purchasing products. And furthermore, they rely on three types of social networking friends for their purchasing decision process.

The Gartner study asked nearly 4,000 consumers across 10 key markets. The interesting part is that people in the social networks are taking different positions inside the purchasing process when recommending products to people they are connected with. Gartner identifies three types of people and roups them into three categories: ‘Connectors’, ‘Mavens’ and ‘Salesmen’.

So, how do they differentiate from each other?
The ‘Connectors’ are defined as those who “perform a bridging function between disparate groups of people and enjoy introducing people to each other”. The ‘Mavens’ are “knowledge exchangers or information brokers”, who are experts in particular area and people go to them for advice. But they are not people who wish to convince people to buy certain items; they are more interested in acquiring new knowledge, it said. The ‘Salesmen’ are those, who have “extensive social connections” and the personality trait that persuade people around them to “act on information in highly directed ways”.

“Our survey results showed that one-fifth of the consumer population is composed of Salesmen, Connectors and Mavens. These are three roles that are key influencers in the purchasing activities of 74 per cent of the population.” (…) “Salesmen and Connectors are the most effective social network influencers and the most important groups for targeted marketing based on social network analysis.” Nick Ingelbrecht, Research Director, Gartner

Gartner advises companies based on the findings of its survey to pro-actively engage with these different types of people on social networking sites. Not surprisingly, they define these categories of social media influencers as the “critical, but underutilised, aspect of the marketing process” for the future.

“Companies attempting to use social networks should develop relationships with key customers over a period of time and progressively refine the social network profiles of those individuals.” (…) “Retailers who run small shops have instinctively done this with their best customers for years with the intention that these ‘VIP’ customers will not only buy the new products but recommend them to their friends.” Nick Ingelbrecht, Research Director, Gartner

Spot On!
For me, there is a strange thing about this study. It causes a Deja-vu, I have never had before in my life. Two years ago, I published and explained -in German- in a long post the importance of these three types of people in business networks for business decision makers, and how businesses should focus on them when talking about their social media approaches. And guess what: Two years ago, I came to the same conclusion and refered to the same types of people. In these days, I have read the book “Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell for the second time. And in this book you will find the same categories of people, and you are told to rely on them and work with ‘Connectors’, ‘Mavens’ and ‘Salesmen’.

The main question is now, how to address these social networking influencers? Can you call them up and talk to them directly? Send an email? Invite them for dinner or lunch? What is the best way to start the conversation with them?

News Update – Best of the Day

Every social media expert out there loves talking about The Cluetrain Manifesto and it’s impact on the future of our marketplaces. Now that the Cluetrain is more than 10 years old, I am trying to follow it’s creators in order to see how their views have changed. One of the founders Doc Searls -after Christopher Locke and david Weinberger some weeks ago- was writing last week about the main drivers of the open marketplace transaction, conversation and relationship. “Marketing is now all gaga over “social media” as well, in part because many believe that Cluetrain was all about “social” markets”, he says, and I have to admit sometimes I do see it that way, too. Having agreed with him, I do have to add: Technology changes quickly but it is difficult to change a market situation – no matter if social or open. Why? In the first place, it is driven by human beings. And it takes them a long time to adapt new culture. Haven’t we seen this 10-15 years ago when all this internet hype started? In some way, we seem to be on this learning curve again. Don’t you agree?

There are many valuable Twitter tool lists. Vadim Lavrusik created one of the (in my eyes) best Twitter tools top 20 lists that will help you improve your Twitter experience.

Adbands has become a classic event in the last years. And the commercial which was produced for the event tells us why. No more to say…

My 5 learnings for management from the WorldCup

The FIFA WorldCup is over. The matches are played. Spain is the new World Champion. The team really has deserved to get the Copa del Mundo (…not only because they won against Germany.. ;-)… ). Now that the tournament is over I thought about it and asked myself, what were my management take-aways from the last five weeks…for me.

1. The team is the star. Worldcup 2010 was like Enterprise 2.0: Teams with top stars fail (Rooney, Ronaldo, Ribery, Kaka, etc…), real teamwork wins.

2. A scarf seems to be a team managers fashion guarantee for success. Though, managers who wear a scarf built world-class teams, it’s no guarantee to make a world-class team win the cup (Jogi Löw, Bert van Marwijk, etc.).

3. Managers need to have the courage to change long-serving systems in favor of integrating young players techniques, visions and ideas (Mexico, Germany, Uruguay, etc.). Nevertheless, the accompany of “old stars” as motivators is a great back-up…

4. Management stand-still is a killer. The market-competition for the “on-paper” leading countries is increasing. Globalization, new training opportunities and new markets offer countries great opportunities to become a challenging competitor for the old market champions (England, France, Italy, Brasil).

5. It’s all about communication, authority needs to be defined anew. There is no right or wrong in leading until the communication is not aligned with the culture and mentality of the players (France, France, France,…).

What are your key-findings, take-aways from a management perspective. Share them with us… And by the way: If it is serious fun you would like to share, just go ahead…

Global Generation Z study: How teens see the digital future

There are not many studies telling us how the teens between 11-18 envision the future. One of the key findings of last year was that they expect access to social networks at work.

But what else is important for the lives of the Gen Z in the digital future? Tomorrow’s business might be affected in two ways: Offline meetings will be replaced with online interaction say 34% of repondents of a new study and travel habits might change. Why travel and work oversees when there is the option to be mobile at home?!

Habbo Hotel, celebrating their 10th anniversary this year, released a new worldwide research amoung 49.000 digital natives who have online more friends than offline – between 100 and 200 in their social networks. And these social networks shape their confidence in a positive way state 64%.

Let’s look at the key findings…

Content should be free…
The study makes clear that 32% of the respondents never pay for money at the moment, and 26% will only pay for content if there is no free content available on the web. How different the markets have developed shows the comparison of the
countries: In Spain and Italy 48% of Gen Z’s claim to never pay for content, in the UK it is only 21%.

Sharing is not popular…
While sharing is one of the main principles of the social web, not more than 23% regularly share content online, and when they share, it is music (54%), games (35%) and images (35%). 39% rarely or never share content.

TV and radio will stay…
The majority of teens cannot imagine a world without good old TV or radio. TV and mobile phone are the device that are most important for Generation Z to live with. Traditional print media (books, newspapers and magazines) will be gone some time in the future think 55%. Just 18% see their existance next to other media.

Digital language transforms to offline…
A third if the reponsing teens (34%) think that online language (SMS and online chat) could be used for offline conversation. In comparison 31% of the Habbo teens responded that they needed to stop using abbreviations outside of the internet.

Spot On!
When it comes to education the Generation Z states that the web has a big impact on their process of learning. 46% see a regular use of virtual worlds replacing traditional methods in school. Especially, when we read that 43% prefer the digital approach and find it easiest to learn from the internet. Nevertheless,it seems that books still have a standing in the learning process: 38% like the combinated learning from print and online. And even 16% chose books as their preferred way of learning. Although I can imagine that the new world might look like the Gen Z tells us, I think business budgets, resources and cultural differences might turn the world slower in their direction than we think. My learnings from the last decade in business…

What is your perception of these results?

Openness and authenticity are the things that drive brands

One of the great things about being a busines blogger is that you have the opportunity to exchange thoughts and views with interesting and successful business people. People you would never get to known in life but then meet them for a drink, for dinner or -which I really appreciate- for lunch. Sometimes you are the initiator and sometimes it is them who do the first step to invest time in networking and in exchanging “brand and business philosophy”.

In the end, it is all about conversation, and conversation is key for building trust.

Last week, I had one of these comfortable meetings when Aedhmar Hynes, CEO at the PR agency Text 100, spent two hours of her busy time with two her nice colleagues and me in Germany in the restaurant lounge Schweiger2. Apart from enjoying a wonderful menue (should have written the review in English), we exchanged our views on the latest development concerning the challenges for brands on the social web in the future.

In order to share some of her valuable and deep knowledge, Aedhmar summarized her view of the impact of social media on brands for us.

The funny thing is that the restaurant definitely won two “fans” for their delicious showroom cooking, received a positive review and it would be interesting to track the offline word-of-mouth buzz the restaurant gets from us. One of the reasons why I asked her later on, what she things about the power of the brand-vangelists (or brand-advocates) and how to leverage those for business.

Just before I recorded these statements, she said “Openness and authenticity are the things that drive brands”, and I could not agree more. Nevertheless, I think brands still have a lot to learn to make this real from a customers point of view.

Would you agree?

Futuristic agency visions – In Memoriam Advertising

Whenever there is an advertising festival, we see a promotion video which shall illustrate the future of the advertising business. Some weeks ago, I wrote about the end of the future of advertising agencies which refers to the FITC in Toronto and envisions what could have happened to the last agency on earth.

Yesterday night, I came across another wonderful commercial which Young & Rubican Argentina produced for the Lapiz de Platino Festival. It is directed to those ad agencies with creative ideas that annoy customers (and consumers) with non-authentic, unrealistic and non-engaging productions that are not-yet or no longer familiar with reality.

It is probably not intended to visualize that advertising does not work anymore. And I can already hear some of the evangelists shout out now. But all evangelists out there should rethink their futuristic web visions. Even the founders of the Cluetrain Manifesto did so. They admitted after 10 years in an interview with Simon Owens that the thesis 74 “”We are immune to advertising. Just forget it” might be wrong.

“Advertising isn’t going to work? Yes, it can. Google is the biggest brand and company going and they’ve made it completely on Internet advertising, and so checkmate.” Christopher Locke

And co-founder Weinberger explains…

“Because though advertising has changed, the kind of advertising that appeals to the lizard part of our brain, that does work.” David Weinberger

The challenge for advertising agencies is to elaborate these parts of our resistant brain. Otherwise they will inhume advertising, forget that companies are still looking to acknowledge social media ROI, and continue to create ads that might seem heavenly – but from those who are no longer with us: In Memoriam Advertising.

Study: Social Networks influence brand participation and engagement

There has been a lot of talks in businesses lately on how much social media and social networks influence consumers’ lives and affects communication, shopping and other activities. The more proof the world has on the fact that this is a valid business reason to take care off, the more companies will reorganize, rethink and restructure their business brand strategy.

A recent US report by ROI Research, released and sponsored by Performics, illustrates the consumers behaviour online and leads to insights for marketeers how brands could profit from the engagement of people in social networks.

The general behavior of the 3,000 U.S. social network user responding shows how much people are engaged in social networks today…

- 80% have an active Facebook account, 23% without an active Facebook account plan to join in the next six months
- 67% have reconnected with people through social networking sites that they never would have otherwise
- 51% say scocial sites are the best way to communicate with friends/family
- 39% of Twitter users respond to other people’s tweets once a week or more
- Over 30% access Facebook and/or Twitter from mobile phone once a day or more

The more important fact for me is the way in which consumers connect with brands in social networks. Brand engagement on social networks cannot be underestimated any longer when we face the following numbers…

- 50% of Facebook users click on Facebook ads to “like” a brand
- 40 % use social sites to connect with brands and products
- 37% learned about a new product or service from a social networking site
- 32% have recommended a product/service/brand to friends via a social networking site
- 32% of Twitter users re-tweet content provided by a company or product

“Social networks have made real and substantial changes in the lives of their users, in part by empowering them to more actively participate with brands and each other,” said Daina Middleton, CEO of Performics. “More than a third of all respondents reported using a search engine to further learn after seeing an ad on a social networking site, for example, and more than a third think social networking sites are good sources of information about companies and products.”

It is interesting to see that companies get good ratings for their Facebook pages and engagement. More than a third said most or all of them were doing a good job. 90% said that at least some of the companies and/or products they are a fan of are doing a good job providing relevant content.

“Users are not only satisfied, they want more, which is a good sign for marketers,” noted Scott Haiges, president of ROI Research. “Respondents expressed a strong desire to get more printable coupons (49%, notifications of sales and special deals (46%), and information about new products (35%) from companies or products on Facebook, and this rings truer in some industries more than others.”

Spot On!
Facebook could become the driving force of social network brand engagement. Personally, I do see Facebook as the social web lab for new advertising and brand engagement formats. Nevertheless, brands should be aware that brand engagement for most users is a “Give-and-Take” game. Especially in times, when brand engagement is rising, companies should try to find out who their brand advocates (see report by Deloitte) are. They could use these as their “unnamed” pre-sales force (word-of-mouth) and try to get in touch with them to establish new products, new services, and finally new business.

Any ideas of how this could be done? Share your thoughts with us…

Facebook – To stay or not to stay?!

Facebook’s new privacy settings are causing their users a lot of headaches. PCWorld has summarized the changes with good links to further information.

The Quit Facebook Day site is probably the “loudest” result from the privacy setting changes.

And some people already think about the perfect social network. Maybe Gink is the answer…?!

And some students in San Francisco made it easy for companies, partners or profs can to find out about status updates of their employees, friends or and what they are saying about their them. They just need to check Openbook…

Maybe Facebook should just think about the intelligent user, his new role inside the conversation model and especially how social networks are supposed to work from a users perspective.

To stay or not to stay? Maybe we just ask all of you Facebook users what you think about the privacy changes. Appreciate your thoughts…

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