Posted December 28th, 2007 by Kristin
On December 13, ad agency Arnold announced the start of “a viral video series which gives the agency’s perspective on current trends, happenings and important issues in the world of advertising.” They call it Arnold On.
It amuses me that they’re calling it a “viral video series.” A viral video is one that is passed along from user to user (usually because it’s funny or really cool). However, it’s immediately apparent how un-viral the Arnold On videos are, without any regard to the content. There is no “send to a friend” or “forward” functionality. You can’t embed the video on your blog or profile page (not that I imagine the demand to do so is high). Users are instead asked to keeping coming back for updates, which for now involves going to www.arnoldworldwide.com and finding Arnold On under the Our Agency section of the nav. Sure… that’s likely to get tons of repeat traffic.
What should they do with Arnold On? For starters, turn it into a video blog. Allow and encourage comments and feedback. Give it a unique url and/or feature it more prominently on the website. Oh, and if they want it to be “viral,” make it easy for users to pass it along. Duh.
Posted December 11th, 2007 by Kristin
Since July I’ve been tracking the top 20 websites in the UK and US via Hitwise. It’s always nice to have some stats in your back pocket when a client asks you what the top social networking sites are. Today, I’m going to hone in on MySpace and Facebook – partially because my beloved coworker, Yianni keeps telling me MySpace is dead.
Let’s start with the US.
In July, MySpace was the #1 ranked site with 6.33% of the market share. Flash forward to November, and MySpace is now ranked #3 with 4.78% of the market share (surpassed by google.com #1 and mail.yahoo.com #2).
In July, Facebook ranked #10 with 1.03% of the market share. November, #9 with .99% of the market share.
MySpace is obviously slipping, yet is still at about four times the market share as Facebook. While the media buzz is all about Facebook these days, its market share has held pretty darn steady for five months now. I’m not seeing any skyrocketing US trend here.
Ok, now the UK.
July, MySpace ranked #8 with 1.28% market share. November, #9 with 1.01%.
Facebook in July was at #10 with .94%. November, #4 with 1.9%. Now that’s a nice little upward arc.
It appears those wacky UKers are more quickly adopting hurling sheep at their friends than us USers. (Why doesn’t that surprise me? Must be all the sheep I see in photos of Europe.)
Regardless Yianni, in the spirit of an obscure Monty Python quote, I can hear MySpace clearly saying, “I’m not dead yet.”
Posted December 11th, 2007 by admin
Over the weekend I had the pleasure of helping Hank Green, founder of EcoGeek.org, put together a Facebook Page for his blog. This was a good learning experience because I got to see the inner workings of the new Facebook Pages. Pages allow for the creation of branded communities within the Facebook network. It is a good tactic for marketers because it effectively leverages the network by combining groups, causes, and people’s interest under one branded experience.
Click on each image below to see how the Facebook Pages work and notes:
The Page from a Viewers Perspective
Ad Campaigns
Admins Overview
The only drawback I can think of is that the pages are not searchable within Facebook. You have to proactively outreach to your audience and/or buy social ads to get a significant amount of fans.
Check out Hank’s YouTube project, “Brotherhood 2.0″. Funny stuff.