March 3, 2010

General Larry Pratt appeared on American Idol and for a few short minutes captivated America as he sang Pants on the Ground. Judge Simon Cowell remarked, “I have a horrible feeling that song is going to be a hit” and with that last comment informed Mr. Pratt he dreams of stardom were over. Or were they?  For the next three months the buzz and social media generated from Pants on the Ground made him a star and money along the way.

Big brands have also experienced this type of marketing buzz for Superbowl in-game commercials. This past January the NFL informed a number of companies that they did not meet certain advertising standards, including Mancrunch a same sex dating website. In a recent report by General Sentiment, Mancrunch ranked third overall in earned social media and buzz generating over $600,000 and becoming a media darling along the way.  And without having to spend $3 million to air the commercial.

Top 10 Brands benefiting from social media Superbowl buzz:

Rank

Brand

Benchmark

Percentage Change

1

Doritos

$2,027,506

+329%

2

HOMEAWAY

+$882,324

+994%

3

MANCRUNCH

+$623,356

+>1,000%

4

HONDA

+$8,319,913

+ 83%

5

GO DADDY

+$1,155,122

+122%

6

BRIDGESTONE

+$714,854

+127%

7

SNICKERS

+$538,845

+127%

8

DOCKERS

+$538,845

+239%

9

BUD LIGHT

+$1,159,929

+91.3%

10

FLO TV

+ $374,850

+266%



Learn more about Brand Measurement Strategies and Social Media Buzz by visiting www.allianceinteractive.com or contact Alliance Interactive at 888.222.9056.

February 12, 2010


Social media networks are attracting business professionals worldwide, according to an August 2009 survey by Mxinga and Babson Executive Education. However quantitative
feedback from these professionals is at an astonishingly low number.

“Despite widespread adoption of social media, measurement still lags. Only 16% of those polled said they currently measured ROI for their social media programs. More than four in 10 respondents did not even know whether the social tools they were using had ROI measurement capabilities.”

As marketing budgets feel the strain of the economic downturn expect medium to large companies to begin adopting social media measurement tools as part of their marketing campaigns.

Here’s measurementcamp’s list of free tools:

1.Addictomatic A search engine that aggregates rss feeds into a nice visual dashboard
www.addictomatic.com/
2.Blogpulse Blog search engine with conversation tracker tool
www.blogpulse.com/
3.Boardreader Search forums and message boards
www.boardreader.com
4.Boardtracker Forum search engine offering instant alerts
www.boardtracker.com
5.Buzzmonitor Embeddable widget showing recent instances of your search term
www.buzzm.worldbank.org
6.Compete.com Comparable site metrics for any website
www.compete.com
7.Del.ici.ous Social bookmarking engine. Search by tags and subscribe to feed results
www.delicious.com
8.Facebook lexicon Searches facebook walls for words and phrases
http://www.facebook.com/lexicon/
9.Google alerts Email updates of key search terms
www.google.com/alerts
10.Google insights Compare search volume over time
www.google.com/insights

11.Google trends Compare search term trends
www.google.com/trends
12.Howsociable Gives a social media score for your brand, with email updates of your score.
www.howsociable.com
13.Ice rocket Blog search engine with results rss feed
www.icerocket.com
14.Newsflashr News search engine, presenting results in nice dashboard
www.newsflashr.com
15.Twitter Search for keywords in ‘tweets’.
http://search.twitter.com

Honorable mention- Bit.ly and Cli.gs – analytics for your tiny urls
http://bit.ly/

Learn more about Social Media Measurement Strategies by visiting www.allianceinteractive.com or contact Alliance Interactive at 888.222.9056.


February 11, 2010


What does Apple, Kraft and Hyundai have in common? Someone in their marketing department probably has the Art of War by Sun Tzu tucked away on their shelf. Penned over two thousand years ago it continues to be the single most influential book on military strategy.  Through its popularity many regard his quotes cliché yet the book still provides valuable guidance for the military..  Generals are no strangers to fighting in extremely tough conditions, with limited resources and large expectations. Extracting these core concepts to businesses techniques have been widely applied to business and marketing strategies.

“Avail yourself to any helpful circumstances that give you advantages beyond the ordinary conditions. When such favorable circumstances arise, modify your plans accordingly.”

During the depression Kellogg and Post dominated the market for packaged cereal. Both companies had been around for decades, during the 1920’s Post did the expected thing and cut back on advertising. Kellogg did the opposite and doubled its ad budget, invested heavily in new mediums such as radio and advertising and developed new brands like Rice Krispies.  At the height of the recession Kellogg’s profits had risen by almost thirty percent and continues to be the largest cereal company even today.

1929 – Lazy Boy Recliner launched
1933 – Kraft introduces Miracle Whip
1954 – Texas Instruments launches the transistor
2001 –  Apple launched its iPod
2009 – Hyundai gains takes significant market share

Economic downturns offer cyclical opportunities to attack your competition and take market share from competitors.  Increasing communication with customers provides effective and measureable results especially online. As your army looks to be victorious on for those quarterly results, go grab a copy of Sun Tzu and add to your tactics of intelligence, speed, and attacking the enemy’s weakness.

 Source: Innovating Through Recession http://bit.ly/KMb14

Learn more about affordable marketing strategies by visiting http://allianceinteractive.com/ or contact Alliance Interactive at 888.222.9056.