Archive for July, 2010

Twitter to Launch New Advertising Opportunities

Ads to start running with @earlybird account
Twitter @earlybird is an official Twitter account where Twitter partners with selected advertisers to retweet offers specifically for the Twitter community. The @earlybird account allows advertisers to choose the terms of offers and have those promotions retweeted on the @earlybird account by Twitter. Businesses already utilizing Twitter for promotions within their own account can find added value and exposure by using the @earlybird account. Advertisers pay a fee to have their tweets retweeted through @earlybird.

Big brands such as Coca-Cola have utilized the services and reported success with exposure and retention rate. Disney has also signed up for the program, offering a two-for-one ticket promotion for The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Twitter is expecting more companies to utilize the program, including Groupon and other daily deal online announcements.

Obviously, the power of the @earlybird account lies with the followers on Twitter. Currently there are 46,000 followers of the account, with expectations of user following to grow. Twitter is in testing phase of the @earlybird account, but it is expected to open the account openly by 2011, including to smaller companies. Of course, the second power of the interface is for some of the 46,000 current followers to retweet the message within their own accounts, creating a further web of interaction.

WhyteSpyder’s Opinion
We see potential for this type of campaign, especially for bigger brand companies that have current or immediate promotions. As long as companies can see that the followers of the account will be looking for exclusive deals, the spread of the message should have a favorable impact. The main issue, however, is once again social media seems to be missing the effort of including local and small businesses. Social media users are just as much engaged with their local community as they are with national brands, and they would find just as much interest if Mama Dean’s Soul Food Kitchen in Fayetteville, Arkansas, was offering a special discount to these users. The problem, as we recognize, is facilitating the tweets to local users of interest.

We do hope, for Twitter’s sake, that the effort will provide a good revenue stream. We think do think there is an opportunity with this campaign, we would just like to see equal effort initially to include small and local businesses. We see how focusing on big brands can bring in immediate revenue in large sums, but the fear is that once a company experiences this type of commitment to large accounts, the focus will be exclusively on the large accounts. The problem here is that once another medium arises to compete with Twitter (possibly Groupon), Twitter will contain less power and will then have to redirect their efforts to further engage more followers. It just seems that having a two-fold marketing plan that includes small and local businesses along with national brands would avoid such barriers in the future.

2010
07/15
CATEGORY
Marketing
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1 comment

New Online Advertising is Coming!

Internet Video Advertising to Better Online Marketing
Google and other online advertising companies are seeking to initiate a new type of digital advertising on Web pages. Known as an interactive video ad format, the video ads will appear on any section of a Web page and will help promote products and other videos. The attempt is to better engage page viewers and to help boost overall online advertising revenue across all sectors. There are no specific details about the format, but we should all be on the lookout for this innovation as it is expected to really benefit advertisers.

2010
07/13
CATEGORY
Marketing
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iPad Apps and Big Brands

Kraft Foods launches iPad app on Friday, July 9, 2010
Kraft Foods is entered the iPad application market on Friday, July 9, 2010 with its first iPad application Big Fork, Little Fork. In hopes of filling the need for 37 million web searches for family and kids food, the Big Fork, Little Fork iPad application will attempt to educate young parents and kids about healthy eating.

The new iPad app is following the success from the iPhone app iFood Assistant by Kraft Foods. Big Fork, Little Fork, available for $1.99 through mobile and Web channels, will include content from famous chefs and will have updates to content periodically. Also included in the new iPad app are videos, games, tutorials, and recipes, all with a central focus of healthy eating.

WhyteSpyder’s opinion
Given the fact that the iPad has just hit the market, it may be a little too risky for such a big name brand to attempt such a marketing campaign. Sure, we could incur that since the iPad is attractive particularly to young users that kids may in fact purchase the app thus Kraft gaining some exposure. However, will the kids really be engaged in the app for an extended period of time. Obviously, since the app was purchased, there will be some period of convicted engagement, but the content matter doesn’t seem to provide the level of hype needed for long-term exposure. The app itself appears fairly intimidating, with a vast array of information provided within a broad collection of graphical folders. So, for the busy parent, who really only have enough time to search for recipes online, what would entice them to become familiar with an application to simply find some recipes.

The iPad and other mobile markets are definitely providing new opportunities for businesses, small and large. However, we feel, as in this particular case, that the big players continue to miss the mark. Owning a small presence within the mobile market doesn’t seem very effective, and the market push for application presence is really fad-like. The solution: possibly consider advertising in the mobile market versus spending money on full applications with little overall success. This seems more appropriate to have ads appear in popular apps that are actually being utilized by the engaged demographics. Have the ads pointing to a Website that is ready to convert and that can expand on information desired by visitors.

Of course, we’re sure that big brands have plenty of resources and have conducted studies that provide hopeful data of interacting with missing markets. But let’s get real here. It all comes back to the simple fact of “do I care?”. Do kids care? About eating healthy? About learning new foods? No. Do parents care? Yes, but do they have the iPad now and will they actually use the app when it’s 5 PM and they’re rushing to find a new recipe? Do they most often cook fast, eat out, or eat leftovers? Yes. Just doesn’t seem overall effective in our opinion, but we could be wrong. Is it cool? Sure. But is it valuable? We’ll leave that up to you.

2010
07/13
CATEGORY
News
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30 comments

Facebook Still Seeking More Advertising Revenue

Can Facebook survive its complicated ambition as advertising giant
If you are a Facebook user, one of the 500 million current users, then you have probably noticed the new type of advertising on the right-hand side of your profile page. Nestled among the traditional Facebook ads that you are used to exists a similar style of ad, but with a little twist. The “twist” is the population of friends that you know who have “liked” the ad or the product within the ad. These type of ads are known as “social-context” ads, since it attempts to engage viewers with higher results due to a digital referral from friends.

As any business owner understands, the best advertising is a referral from a friend. This proven concept is exactly what Facebook is trying to push toward advertisers, especially big brand advertisers. They hope that because your friend likes the ad, and you notice that he or she likes the ad, that you will be inclined to immediately trust the “llike”, and you will “like” the ad or product as well.

Of course, like much of what Facebook attempts to do within their social platform, Facebook seems to be riding the fence on how users feel about their privacy. Although users agree (in detailed writing which most people never read) that Facebook has the right to let friends know what they “like”, many users still feel this is an invasion of their privacy. As we all know, that when money is involved, the money usually wins (at least initially), so it’s probably safe to say that Facebook has no intentions of remitting the new “social-context” ads any time soon, especially since users have the ability to set preferences with their “likes” within the settings of their account.

But this discussion of “social-context” ads are really for the big brand players, as the price tag for such a “social-context” ad on the homepage of the site start around $100,000. While their are less costly advertising options such as the cost-per-click advertising model, Facebook is obviously in a big push to prove the new ad style’s effectiveness.

The potential for Facebook’s success with the new ad platform, and for all its advertising platforms currently or in the future, hinge on multiple barriers. First, many advertisers are concerned with the foundational purpose of Facebook which is connecting with friends. When you are on Facebook, you are there to connect, not shop or browse for products. Another barrierer is competition. Competitive forces like Yahoo and Google, who still largely surpass the advertising revenue of Facebook, are more than likely not going anywhere anytime soon. And, their advertising revenue’s are expected to increase, despite Facebook’s attractive growth rate. Finally, many advertisers are concerned with relationship side of Facebook’s advertising department, saying that in the past relationships have been weak or even non-existing.

Our opinion at WhyteSpyder: Well, we can’t predict the future, but we can take a llittle advice from the past with other social giants like MySpace. Facebook, just as MySpace did and failed, seems to continue movement toward more noise and side purposes other than its original intent which got them to where they are today. Social media in general has always had issues on how to generate revenue. But, that’s the point, rights. Many people joined social media sites for a particular purpose, which was to connect to others and to connect for free. The reason for success could be the reason for ultimate demise, as social media platforms become more eager to change business models for higher profits and alienate their core audience. Facebook’s power lies in its ability to share easily. As many users have noticed, Facebook’s platform continues to become more complex, and reasons for that may be for future ambitions to capitalize. And, as users become more aware of Facebook’s purpose and more lost within its platform, the more users will decline to participate. We don’t believe this will happen overnight, or maybe even ever with Facebook, but it won’t be a surprise and unfortunately Facebook may not be missed terribly, as with all aspects of the Web, there is always another giant growing online.

2010
07/08
CATEGORY
News
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7 comments

Arkansas Website Design Company

Web designers in Arkansas
WhyteSpyder, Inc. is an Arkansas based Website design company located in Fayetteville, AR. With over 15 years of combined experience with Website design, E-commerce, Website analytics, pay per click advertising campaigns, and search engine optimization, WhyteSpyder can provide Website services that can tackle about any online objective. WhyteSpyder is a full service Website design firm in Arkansas and is available at any time to discuss your Website needs.

Please contact Eric Howerton, director of sales for WhyteSpyder, Inc. at 479-200-9342 or at ehowerton@whytespyder.com to discuss your Website project. Please visit our Arkansas Website designer site at www.WhyteSpyder.com for more information about our services.

2010
07/02
CATEGORY
Uncategorized
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8 comments

Apple iAd and Google AdMob

AdMob vs. iAd War Gossip

Apple Inc. hinted weeks ago that advertising networks such as Google Adsense and AdMob may not be allowed on the Apple mobile products iPhone and iPad. Also, Apple changed the rules for development of applications in App Store for Apple iOS 4 operating system (the new operating system for the iPhone and iPad devices). Both of these actions by Apple led many people to believe that Apple would prohibit ad companies and ad networks from collecting data usage from apps. The rumored ad restrictions from Apple were greatly feared due to the fact that Apple was to soon launch its mobile advertising network iAds. Many felt that the new restrictions were in effort to benefit and monopolize iAds.

Despite fears, Apple loosened its restrictions in June for app advertising, however, it still included a clause stating that advertising service providers owned by a developer of mobile phones and mobile operating systems could not qualifying. Many felt this was an obvious and direct restriction toward Google, which raised concerns in the mobile advertising community. However, many apps have been approved for the new OS 4 that include Google’s mobile ad system AdMob. The restrictions in the application guidelines are still present, but apparently are not being enforced upon Google mobile advertising systems. Some experts feel that Apple is laying low from enforcing the restrictions toward Apple to avoid antitrust suggestions while the Federal Trade Commission is presently doing an informal inquiry into Apple. Although the restrictions are not enforced on Google, it has still made an impact as many application developers have utilized iAds in order to prevent future pitfalls with Google AdMob for their applications.

2010
07/02
CATEGORY
News
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13 comments