Words like twitter, tweet and follower become more and more integrated in our language. The word ‘twitteren’ was even chosen as the word of 2009 in the Netherlands. Tweets appear in newspapers, and twitter is used for politics and marketing too. However, twitter is not often used for marketing. Research shows that only forty-two companies of the ‘big’ companies in the Netherlands make use of twitter. Why does only the minority of the companies use twitter, while Twitter is still growing?
They do, or they don’t
One reason companies do not use twitter, is that a lot of companies are researching what their opportunities are with this new media. They want to use twitter in a right and appropriate way.
Some companies already know what the desires of the customers are. Marketing is about fulfilling the customer desires. If there is a desire of customers to find answers or information on twitter, the company will provide these online.
First of all, despite of the fact companies have a twitter account or not, people are talking about their brand. It is a good idea to create a twitter account, to prevent abuse of your brand name. Twitter is a free ‘country’ and you do not have to identify to create an account.
Furthermore, it is important for businesses to be online. They will know when positive or negative information will appear online and they can try to control this information. In the case of negative information they can’t prevent this, but can limit damage by taking action. Twitter is the perfect place to start a discussion about your brand or product.
Good twitter use
Compared to other (social) media, twitter is free and easy to use. The minority of the businesses has realised that it is important to be online. UPC started a webcare team in 2006 who is responsible for twitter and other social media. If customers are online, UPC will be online too. Twitter is used for answering questions and arranging complaints. The customers accept the presence of UPC on twitter, because they give personal and fast answers. ING uses twitter for daily problems and questions too, but for ING is twitter the biggest communication channel of the webcare team. Research of this team showed their target group can be found on twitter. De Postcode Loterij (Dutch Lottery, where you can win large amounts of money) uses twitter to answer questions, but also to communicate with lottery winners. When the winner of the ‘kanjer’ (a lot of money) is announced, the ‘postcode loterij’ gets more followers every moment.
Remarkable is the fact that these companies use Twitter next to their normal marketing program, instead for commercial activities. That there will be a lot of unexplored opportunities for twitter, will be clear now. Companies should continue researching their chances and keep looking for new possibilities. Some people say twitter is temporary, while others learn more and more about this new media and call themselves twitter experts. We do not know what the future will bring us, but for now I will use twitter and should recommend businesses to do this too.
Source: Tijdschrift voor marketing
woensdag 19 mei 2010
maandag 17 mei 2010
Haul Queens
Okay if you have read any of my blogs, you know about all the possibilities of the Internet. I have talked a lot about internet and companies, but last Saturday I read an interesting article about a haul on YouTube. A what? A haul on YouTube, you haven’t heard of it?
Showing your purchases
Telling about your newest purchases and showing this to the whole world by placing the movie on YouTube. Especially young girls really use this possibility by showing their new clothes and make up, as if they are telling about it to a friend. Other girls tell about their experiences with certain products. These girls started their own YouTube channel and tried to get as much followers and views as possible. When I read about these new trend I could not imagine it was a big deal. Some of these girls have more than a million views of one video and thousands of followers.
Marketing?
Make up and clothes companies must have noticed these development. When we are talking about a lot of numbers, they are starting to think of marketing strategies. A few girls receive free products to experiment and of course tell about it online. You still think you would not want to be a haul queen? I can tell you about two sisters from America. Blair and Elle Fowler started their own YouTube channel for fun are now called Haul Queens and have their own agent. They really have an influence on potential shoppers. After they have praised a Guess watch, the website of Guess was crashed. A perfect combination of shopping and technology. Something that according to psychologist are features of the generation Y (born somewhere between 1970 and 2000).
Dark side
Unfortunately some companies offers these girls money for a positive review on YouTube. This damages the sincerity and honesty, but it is hard to control what’s true. Offering girls free clothes is questionable too. What started as a fun idea, has became a new marketing tool.
I am wondering why these videos are often viewed. Teenage girls telling other girls about new clothes and make up. It seems a bit superficial… Although, a lot of people nowadays write or tell about what they like. Blogs and movies about strange hobbies can be found all over het internet. Why wouldn’t these girls tell us about what they like? Maybe I have to start a YouTube channel, I might earn some money ;-) What do you think?
Showing your purchases
Telling about your newest purchases and showing this to the whole world by placing the movie on YouTube. Especially young girls really use this possibility by showing their new clothes and make up, as if they are telling about it to a friend. Other girls tell about their experiences with certain products. These girls started their own YouTube channel and tried to get as much followers and views as possible. When I read about these new trend I could not imagine it was a big deal. Some of these girls have more than a million views of one video and thousands of followers.
Marketing?
Make up and clothes companies must have noticed these development. When we are talking about a lot of numbers, they are starting to think of marketing strategies. A few girls receive free products to experiment and of course tell about it online. You still think you would not want to be a haul queen? I can tell you about two sisters from America. Blair and Elle Fowler started their own YouTube channel for fun are now called Haul Queens and have their own agent. They really have an influence on potential shoppers. After they have praised a Guess watch, the website of Guess was crashed. A perfect combination of shopping and technology. Something that according to psychologist are features of the generation Y (born somewhere between 1970 and 2000).
Dark side
Unfortunately some companies offers these girls money for a positive review on YouTube. This damages the sincerity and honesty, but it is hard to control what’s true. Offering girls free clothes is questionable too. What started as a fun idea, has became a new marketing tool.
I am wondering why these videos are often viewed. Teenage girls telling other girls about new clothes and make up. It seems a bit superficial… Although, a lot of people nowadays write or tell about what they like. Blogs and movies about strange hobbies can be found all over het internet. Why wouldn’t these girls tell us about what they like? Maybe I have to start a YouTube channel, I might earn some money ;-) What do you think?
donderdag 13 mei 2010
Save people, use social media
Twitter and other social network sites are used for a lot of different reasons. Sharing interesting thoughts or just using it to tell your friends what you had eaten yesterday. A few days ago I read an interesting article where twitter was used for more serious reasons. Using twitter to offer help in times of a disaster.
Testimony
Ory Okolloh invented Ushahidi, which means ‘testimony’ in Swahili. Ushahidi is a new technology which collects the information about the consequences of a disaster, given by regular people, and visualizes this information into a geographical map. Everyone who owns a mobile cell phone, an e-mail address or has access to internet can contribute information.
Purpose
First, it was used after the post-election fallout in Kenia to report violence. Because it was used by many people, they decided there was a need for a platform that could be used by people all over the world. Nowadays, their goal is ‘creating a platform that any person or organization can use to set up their own way to collect and visualize information’.
Haiti
After the earthquake in Haiti thousands of messages were send to provide information about the situation or where injured people could be found. During this disaster most information was send by mobile cell phone, while little people have access to the internet. After the messages were checked to be true, they were integrated in the geographical map. Hulporganisaties could use this information to work efficiently and are really enthusiastic about Ushahidi.
I have talked about a changing internet world and this is another example of the power of social media and the community. Ushahidi gives people the possibility to contribute during a disaster and makes it easier to offer help to victims. It is an example of crowd sourcing. Let the people participate and together they can create something. Maybe social media is not that bad after all…
Testimony
Ory Okolloh invented Ushahidi, which means ‘testimony’ in Swahili. Ushahidi is a new technology which collects the information about the consequences of a disaster, given by regular people, and visualizes this information into a geographical map. Everyone who owns a mobile cell phone, an e-mail address or has access to internet can contribute information.
Purpose
First, it was used after the post-election fallout in Kenia to report violence. Because it was used by many people, they decided there was a need for a platform that could be used by people all over the world. Nowadays, their goal is ‘creating a platform that any person or organization can use to set up their own way to collect and visualize information’.
Haiti
After the earthquake in Haiti thousands of messages were send to provide information about the situation or where injured people could be found. During this disaster most information was send by mobile cell phone, while little people have access to the internet. After the messages were checked to be true, they were integrated in the geographical map. Hulporganisaties could use this information to work efficiently and are really enthusiastic about Ushahidi.
I have talked about a changing internet world and this is another example of the power of social media and the community. Ushahidi gives people the possibility to contribute during a disaster and makes it easier to offer help to victims. It is an example of crowd sourcing. Let the people participate and together they can create something. Maybe social media is not that bad after all…
maandag 10 mei 2010
Sharing your opinion
Internet can be used to do a lot of different things. Playing online games (I told about this in one of my previous blogs), sending e-mails and sharing information and opinions. Sharing your opinion is a big part of the internet. There are a lot of ways to do this. You can use the old fashioned forum, add information to a Wikipedia site, use social network sites like twitter and facebook to give your opinion or express your opinion about an online article on the website. Unfortunately not all websites offer the possibility to express your opinion. When something is missing, some new tool will be invented, namely: Google Sidewiki.
What’s Google Sidewiki?
Google sidewiki is part of the Google tool bar, which can be downloaded on www.google.com/sidewiki . If you have downloaded the tool bar, a panel will appear on the left side of the website you are visiting. You can click on the link ‘Read this article’ (Artikelen lezen). Then a list with reactions of website visitors is shown.
Possibilities
To use this tool you must have a Google-account. This gives you the opportunity to read the reactions of visitors, or indicate your appreciation to the given comment too. Experience of other users of Google Wiki show that it takes a while before your comment will appear.
An advantage, which is a disadvantage too, is the absence of a moderator. Normally on a website or forum there is one person responsible to check the comments to prevent inappropriate reactions to appear. The possibility to use sidewiki takes a risk for website (shop) owners. Negative publicity can easily be added and can have a negative influence on your website (shop). Google knows this problem too and has add the option ‘misbruik melden’ (report abuse) to the tool bar. To read comments written in different languages an option on the google tool bar can be selected. Of course there is a possibility to share your comment by e-mail, facebook or via twitter.
I am really curious how many people will use this tool. Will it only be used by critical readers, who like to express their opinion? Or will it be used by the majority of the website visitors? We will have to wait and see…
What’s Google Sidewiki?
Google sidewiki is part of the Google tool bar, which can be downloaded on www.google.com/sidewiki . If you have downloaded the tool bar, a panel will appear on the left side of the website you are visiting. You can click on the link ‘Read this article’ (Artikelen lezen). Then a list with reactions of website visitors is shown.
Possibilities
To use this tool you must have a Google-account. This gives you the opportunity to read the reactions of visitors, or indicate your appreciation to the given comment too. Experience of other users of Google Wiki show that it takes a while before your comment will appear.
An advantage, which is a disadvantage too, is the absence of a moderator. Normally on a website or forum there is one person responsible to check the comments to prevent inappropriate reactions to appear. The possibility to use sidewiki takes a risk for website (shop) owners. Negative publicity can easily be added and can have a negative influence on your website (shop). Google knows this problem too and has add the option ‘misbruik melden’ (report abuse) to the tool bar. To read comments written in different languages an option on the google tool bar can be selected. Of course there is a possibility to share your comment by e-mail, facebook or via twitter.
I am really curious how many people will use this tool. Will it only be used by critical readers, who like to express their opinion? Or will it be used by the majority of the website visitors? We will have to wait and see…
woensdag 5 mei 2010
Personalized advertising
I already wrote a blog about online relationships with your customer. This blog will illustrate one way of maintaining the relationship with your customer, by using e-mail marketing.
What is e-mail marketing?
E-mail marketing is sending e-mail newsletters to your customers. Companies can inform their customers about the latest news, tell them about special sales actions and try to sell more products. Customers can sign in for this newsletter and can make their own choice which newsletter they will receive.
Personalized marketing
According to the results of the National E-mail marketing Research 2010 (Nationaal E-mailmarketing Onderzoek 2010) only 55% send personalized e-mails to their customers. Every day we receive a lot of brochures about clothes, shoes and other products. Trough this overload we do not read all these brochures. Wouldn’t it be much better if we could receive personal offers? By using e-mail for promoting we could specify the offers for the consumers. Personalized e-mails are the keyword.
Personal and personal
Before I continue I have to explain that there are two different meanings of personalized in the marketing world. First of all, personalized can mean that you add the name of your customer to your newsletter: ‘Hi Piet! We have a nice offer for you’. The other meaning of ‘personalized’ is categorizing your customers on different characteristics. Differentiate for example between new and old customers, but more categorizations can be made. Therefore, the newsletter will be personal and relevant. Someone who has bought a laptop a few weeks ago will not receive another offer for a laptop and old customers can receive extra sales.
More personal communication, special offers which are relevant for you for at a low-cost price. Furthermore, you can measure the effect of e-mail newsletters. Did people open the e-mail and clicked in the e-mail to go to the website? All of this can be registered and the communication can be more specific and effective.
You will ask yourself, why is there 45% who does not use personalized newsletters? Personal newsletters can be a privacy matter. It is possible customers do not want to receive special offers, because they do not want the company to store data of them. Therefore, customers have to sign in themselves for a newsletter. Furthermore, I like to receive a paper brochure of the offers of Albert Heijn. Some things never change…
More information on: http://www.frankwatching.com/archive/2010/05/04/onderzoek-e-mailmarketing-in-retail-kan-veel-persoonlijker/
What is e-mail marketing?
E-mail marketing is sending e-mail newsletters to your customers. Companies can inform their customers about the latest news, tell them about special sales actions and try to sell more products. Customers can sign in for this newsletter and can make their own choice which newsletter they will receive.
Personalized marketing
According to the results of the National E-mail marketing Research 2010 (Nationaal E-mailmarketing Onderzoek 2010) only 55% send personalized e-mails to their customers. Every day we receive a lot of brochures about clothes, shoes and other products. Trough this overload we do not read all these brochures. Wouldn’t it be much better if we could receive personal offers? By using e-mail for promoting we could specify the offers for the consumers. Personalized e-mails are the keyword.
Personal and personal
Before I continue I have to explain that there are two different meanings of personalized in the marketing world. First of all, personalized can mean that you add the name of your customer to your newsletter: ‘Hi Piet! We have a nice offer for you’. The other meaning of ‘personalized’ is categorizing your customers on different characteristics. Differentiate for example between new and old customers, but more categorizations can be made. Therefore, the newsletter will be personal and relevant. Someone who has bought a laptop a few weeks ago will not receive another offer for a laptop and old customers can receive extra sales.
More personal communication, special offers which are relevant for you for at a low-cost price. Furthermore, you can measure the effect of e-mail newsletters. Did people open the e-mail and clicked in the e-mail to go to the website? All of this can be registered and the communication can be more specific and effective.
You will ask yourself, why is there 45% who does not use personalized newsletters? Personal newsletters can be a privacy matter. It is possible customers do not want to receive special offers, because they do not want the company to store data of them. Therefore, customers have to sign in themselves for a newsletter. Furthermore, I like to receive a paper brochure of the offers of Albert Heijn. Some things never change…
More information on: http://www.frankwatching.com/archive/2010/05/04/onderzoek-e-mailmarketing-in-retail-kan-veel-persoonlijker/
vrijdag 23 april 2010
Once upon a time there were a dwarf, a tree and a green world…
In today’s lecture a questionnaire was held about the question: how green are you? All the students needed to answer questions about a ‘green environment’ voting with their clickers (a small device which registers your answers on a computer). After a few statements like ‘I turn of the lights when I leave the room’, ‘I plant trees and flowers in our neighborhood and ‘I try to make space for wild animals, I realized that most of the students in my class are not really green… We want to behave green, but most of us do not have the time to make a difference.
Egon de Bruin understands this and thought of a way to make people aware of a green environment. He invented the treemagotchi.
The treemagotchi is a digital tree which can be planted online and added to your social network site. Together with a dwarf you have to take care of this tree. Therefore, you need at least two times per month ‘beukennootjes’. These can be earned by accomplishing durable actions, like installing Ecofon, an ink saving letter type for your computer. Extra ‘beukennootjes’ can be earned by special actions, but these will take more effort. With these ‘beukennootjes’ you can buy specials. A swing, a new outfit for your dwarf or a bike. Another possibility is inviting friends. Together with all your friends you can make a wood and contribute to a better world.
Okay, maybe you will think now that this won’t work, but the pilot of last year showed it works. There were 16.000 people how joined the pilot and 80.000 actions were made. The tree was even rewarded with two prizes (de Digitale Pioniers Academie & ASN Bank Wereldprijs). After this experiment, they decided to let the tree enter the real world.
Treemagotchi 2.0, will it be the new trend? Before I can answer this question I have to try it myself. Maybe this makes me a more green person (the test of this morning showed me, I could improve a few things). After planting a tree, dressing the dwarf and letting him swing and jump on the mushroom, I thought it was a really nice idea.
This is a good example of using social media. Online communities and games are really popular. I do not know whether it will be the new Farmville (the online game of facebook were you can create your farm online), but the idea is the same. You get rewarded with toys for your dwarf, when you do a lot of green things. It is a fun way of creating awareness about the environment. Inviting friends and placing the tree on your own social network site creates more publicity. The combination of online fun games and real actions are original and smart. On the website they described their idea: ‘In a fun way making a better world together’. It sounds great and you even receive an e-mail to make sure you won’t forget to look after your tree.
Maybe I can try to make a better world by playing this game (or just have some fun). What do you think? I will tell you about my treemagotchi experiences next time. Feel free to leave a comment and tell about your experiences.
By the way if you decide to plant a tree for yourself, I will invite you. This way I can earn some ‘beukennootjes’! ;-)You can visit my tree on: http://www.treemagotchi.nl/
Source: Dagblad de Pers & http://www.treemagotchi.nl
Egon de Bruin understands this and thought of a way to make people aware of a green environment. He invented the treemagotchi.
The treemagotchi is a digital tree which can be planted online and added to your social network site. Together with a dwarf you have to take care of this tree. Therefore, you need at least two times per month ‘beukennootjes’. These can be earned by accomplishing durable actions, like installing Ecofon, an ink saving letter type for your computer. Extra ‘beukennootjes’ can be earned by special actions, but these will take more effort. With these ‘beukennootjes’ you can buy specials. A swing, a new outfit for your dwarf or a bike. Another possibility is inviting friends. Together with all your friends you can make a wood and contribute to a better world.
Okay, maybe you will think now that this won’t work, but the pilot of last year showed it works. There were 16.000 people how joined the pilot and 80.000 actions were made. The tree was even rewarded with two prizes (de Digitale Pioniers Academie & ASN Bank Wereldprijs). After this experiment, they decided to let the tree enter the real world.
Treemagotchi 2.0, will it be the new trend? Before I can answer this question I have to try it myself. Maybe this makes me a more green person (the test of this morning showed me, I could improve a few things). After planting a tree, dressing the dwarf and letting him swing and jump on the mushroom, I thought it was a really nice idea.
This is a good example of using social media. Online communities and games are really popular. I do not know whether it will be the new Farmville (the online game of facebook were you can create your farm online), but the idea is the same. You get rewarded with toys for your dwarf, when you do a lot of green things. It is a fun way of creating awareness about the environment. Inviting friends and placing the tree on your own social network site creates more publicity. The combination of online fun games and real actions are original and smart. On the website they described their idea: ‘In a fun way making a better world together’. It sounds great and you even receive an e-mail to make sure you won’t forget to look after your tree.
Maybe I can try to make a better world by playing this game (or just have some fun). What do you think? I will tell you about my treemagotchi experiences next time. Feel free to leave a comment and tell about your experiences.
By the way if you decide to plant a tree for yourself, I will invite you. This way I can earn some ‘beukennootjes’! ;-)You can visit my tree on: http://www.treemagotchi.nl/
Source: Dagblad de Pers & http://www.treemagotchi.nl
maandag 15 maart 2010
It's all about the money...
Money, money that’s what marketing is about. This time I will talk about a way of online advertising, namely: ‘Google AdWords’. This is how an advertisement of Google AdWords will look like (only the colors will be different)
Most of the people know this name, but how does this way of advertising work? A short overview of the most important things you need to know about Google AdWords. Imagine you are a marketer, who wants to advertise.
A marketer of strawberries makes an advertisement and pays Google only initial costs. He links his ad to certain key words like: strawberry, fruit etcetera. A surfer on the internet, who is looking for ‘strawberries’ on the search engine Google, will find the advertisement of the marketer on the right side of the webpage. If the key word of the search engine links to the keyword of the advertisement, the ad will be shown.
With the start of your marketing campaign you pay the initial costs and afterwards there are three options important: daily budget, bids and quality score
Daily budget
You can chose the budget you want to spend on your advertisement. The daily budget determines how often your ad will be shown and on which height of the advertising list. In other words: the more you pay, the more your ad will be shown. It is an advantage that all sorts of companies can use this method, despite of their marketing budget.
Attracting visitors to your own website
As marketer you can decide to choose for Click Per Cost (CPC). This means that you only have to pay Google when someone clicks on your ad. This strategy is mostly chosen, when the purpose is attracting visitors to your website. If you chose for CPC, the next step is to chose the amount you will pay Google. You can chose automatic bidding. You set a daily budget and AdWords seeks out the most clicks possible within that budget.
The other pay strategy is manual bidding. This option enables you to specify different bids for different target groups. If you know that certain key words are more profitable, you can pay a bigger amount for these words. The ad will be shown more by certain key words and the position of the ad can be higher.
Quality score
Furthermore, the quality score is important. This indicates how relevant your key word or advertisement are. Therefore Google uses for example the Clicktrough Rate (CTR). It measures the amount of click troughs with a certain key word. The higher your quality score, the lower your costs and the higher your position in the advertising list.
I think using Google AdWords for advertising can be a good way. The advantages: easy, specified to your budget and links to relevant words are useful. For the rest, it is a small advertisement and it won’t be screaming, compared to other advertisements on different websites. Disadvantage is the power of Google. Google decided (based on certain criteria) how many times your ad will be shown. Unfortunately a lot of people, who see the ads on Google, won’t click on them. Therefore to attract visitors to your website, other strategies must be used too. Anyway, there are a lot of possibilities how to use Google AdWords. It isn’t that odd that, according to a post on Molblog, twitter will launch an advertisement system which you can compare with Google AdWords. Will they link key words to twitter accounts or businesses? We have to wait a few more weeks to find out more about: TwitterWords or TwitterAdWords Twitter-to-words? Maybe more information in the next blog…?
Most of the people know this name, but how does this way of advertising work? A short overview of the most important things you need to know about Google AdWords. Imagine you are a marketer, who wants to advertise.
A marketer of strawberries makes an advertisement and pays Google only initial costs. He links his ad to certain key words like: strawberry, fruit etcetera. A surfer on the internet, who is looking for ‘strawberries’ on the search engine Google, will find the advertisement of the marketer on the right side of the webpage. If the key word of the search engine links to the keyword of the advertisement, the ad will be shown.
With the start of your marketing campaign you pay the initial costs and afterwards there are three options important: daily budget, bids and quality score
Daily budget
You can chose the budget you want to spend on your advertisement. The daily budget determines how often your ad will be shown and on which height of the advertising list. In other words: the more you pay, the more your ad will be shown. It is an advantage that all sorts of companies can use this method, despite of their marketing budget.
Attracting visitors to your own website
As marketer you can decide to choose for Click Per Cost (CPC). This means that you only have to pay Google when someone clicks on your ad. This strategy is mostly chosen, when the purpose is attracting visitors to your website. If you chose for CPC, the next step is to chose the amount you will pay Google. You can chose automatic bidding. You set a daily budget and AdWords seeks out the most clicks possible within that budget.
The other pay strategy is manual bidding. This option enables you to specify different bids for different target groups. If you know that certain key words are more profitable, you can pay a bigger amount for these words. The ad will be shown more by certain key words and the position of the ad can be higher.
Quality score
Furthermore, the quality score is important. This indicates how relevant your key word or advertisement are. Therefore Google uses for example the Clicktrough Rate (CTR). It measures the amount of click troughs with a certain key word. The higher your quality score, the lower your costs and the higher your position in the advertising list.
I think using Google AdWords for advertising can be a good way. The advantages: easy, specified to your budget and links to relevant words are useful. For the rest, it is a small advertisement and it won’t be screaming, compared to other advertisements on different websites. Disadvantage is the power of Google. Google decided (based on certain criteria) how many times your ad will be shown. Unfortunately a lot of people, who see the ads on Google, won’t click on them. Therefore to attract visitors to your website, other strategies must be used too. Anyway, there are a lot of possibilities how to use Google AdWords. It isn’t that odd that, according to a post on Molblog, twitter will launch an advertisement system which you can compare with Google AdWords. Will they link key words to twitter accounts or businesses? We have to wait a few more weeks to find out more about: TwitterWords or TwitterAdWords Twitter-to-words? Maybe more information in the next blog…?
Abonneren op:
Posts (Atom)
