Indianapolis Social Media Marketing | Indianapolis Internet Marketing

Obama Marketing

2008-11-14T16:18:26-05:00

I've been thinking of the Obama campaign a lot over the last few days. Here's my take on the campaign from a brand strategy stand point. I've read lots of posts on lessons learned and posts that deconstruct the campaign down to a tactical level. I'm interested in your thoughts on what you liked and what you didn't like. Bring it on.

Creativity and design matters The logo has forever changed the approach to political branding. The campaign logo can be compared to any top consumer brand. Its evocative and has built in talking points. Not only that but it is memorable and customizable to various groups without diluting the core intent.

Convergence is key
The campaign used a combination of traditional, online and mobile media such as ads on TV, print ads, ads on online vehicles like facebook, mobile/SMS advertising, opt-in SMS communications, a mobile app for iPhones, email with a variety of senders and content, online videos, infomercials/TV ads that lasted 30 minutes on major networks, phone calls, oor hangers, door-to-door visits by volunteers. The vehicles all pushed people towards the website and the online community.

Messaging matters
Consistency is key. The message was always the same - to inform you of Obama's position on a variety of issues, evoke involvement with the campaign - and in a positive manner. The objectives were awareness (getting the word out), lead generation and fulfillment (volunteers and fundraising). Not to mention Obama drawing on "great political brands of the past" (Kennedy, Clinton, MLK, and even Perot).

People need anchor points
The marketing seemed to be anchored by personalization, video messages, and of course, events. The video message ran the gamut from computer cams to music videos.

Pre and post marketing helps solidify your position
I can't help thinking of the books as great pre-marketing and the thank you emails that continued after the win (and the continued focus on the audience in the acceptance speech).

Thinking big
Who would have thought that spending time and money in Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado and New Mexico could make a difference? Goes against the grain of traditional political marketing strategy of the past. And the numbers show that outspending still helps. The Obama campaign has only been outspent in the last 9 months by AT&T.

Emotional involvement
The emotional involvement of the Obama campaign seemed to convert more evangelists for the brand.

- Duncan Alney Facebook | Twitter | Naymz

Is Social Media The New Election Bellwether?

2008-11-10T09:28:34-05:00

Wikipedia describes a bellwether as any entity in a given arena that serves to create or influence trends or to predict future happenings. In the United States, Missouri is often referred to as a bellwether because it has produced the same national outcome in every presidential election since 1904 - except in 1956 and our most recent 2008 election. But what about social media? Could Myspace, Facebook or Twitter become the new election bellwethers? As the graphs below will show, each of these sites displayed more supporters for Barack Obama before his win in last week's election.

Facebook:

Myspace:

Twitter:

Could social media sites become the next election bellwethers? Or are they skewed towards the young and the liberal? What do you think?

- Chad Richards facebook | twitter | linkedin

Top Performance Metrics for Search Engine Marketing

2008-11-07T18:39:49-05:00

In response to a growing number of requests from some of you for information regarding metrics for Search Engine Marketing, I think this might be a decent primer.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is all about getting more visitors from search engines to websites. SEM includes strategies and tactics like PPC/Pay Per Click (Google AdWords, Yahoo Search "Precision Match" and more), Contextually Targeted Text Ads (Google's AdSense or Yahoo's Content Match programs), Paid Inclusion (directories, shopping comparison sites) and of course (drum roll) Search Engine Optimization (coding appropriately, copy writing optimization, navigation, linking and more).
According to a Search Engine Marketing Professional Professional Organization (SEMPO) survey of SEM agencies and advertisers (Dec 2007 - Jan 2008), respondents were asked, "What metrics do you track / measure / generally pay attention to gauge the success of Search Engine Marketing programs?" From among 882 respondents comprised of 341 advertisers and 541 agencies, the top metrics were:

Metric                   Total % Advertiser %Agencies
Increased Traffic    76% 70%             80%
Conversion rate    76% 65%             83%
Click-through rate 70% 65%             73%

Other metrics on people's minds included: return on investment, cost per click, cost per action, cost of generating sales offline, total number of online sales, overall revenue increase, return on adspend, rank of link on search engine, boss' satisfaction, and brand impact.

- Duncan Alney Facebook | Twitter | Naymz

Top 20 Social Media and Internet Marketing Tweeters

2008-11-06T14:40:17-05:00

I’ve compiled a list of my Top 20 social media and internet marketing tweeters. There are so many amazing people on Twitter and it was difficult to come up with such a small list , but I have found these 20 to be the most consistent in providing valuable insights into the social media sphere - not surprising since most are industry leaders. Here they are (in no particular order):

@danzarrella
Dan Zarrella is a social & viral marketing scientist
Boston, MA

@Marc_Meyer
Mark Meyer is a Director of Interactive Marketing and social media evangelist
Naples, FL

@problogger
Darren Rowse is a blogger and author
Melbourne, Australia

@mediaphyter
Jennifer Leggio is a ZDNet social media blogger
San Jose, CA

@garyvee
Gary Vaynerchuk is a social media guru and founder of wine library tv
New York City

@charleneli
Charlene Li is a thought leader and co-author of Groundswell
San Mateo, CA

@mashable
Pete Cashmore is CEO at Mashable, a popular online social networking blog
San Francisco & Scotland

@JasonFalls
Jason Falls is director of social media for Doe-Anderson
Louisville, KY

@mitchjoel
Mitch Joel is president of Twist Image and podcaster of Six Pixels of Separation
Montreal, Quebec

@guykawasaki
Guy Kawasaki is a blogger, speaker, author and online magazine editor at Alltop
Palo Alto, CA

@jowyang
Jeremiah Owyang is a senior analyst of social computing at Forrester Research
Silicon Valley

@chrisbrogan
Chris Brogan is VP of Strategy at CrossTech Media and co-founder of PodCamp
Boston, MA

@davedelaney
Dave Delaney is a social media strategist and new media specialist
Nashville, TN

@ScottMonty
Scott Monty is head of social media at Ford
Dearborn, MI

@rohitbhargava
Rohit Bhargava is a blogger and author of Personality Not Included
Washington DC

@TDefren
Todd Defren is a blogger and principal at SHIFT Communications
Boston & San Francisco

@juliaroy
Julia Roy is a senior agent at Undercurrent, a social interactive thinktank
New York City

@AmandaMooney
Amanda Mooney is a media strategist at Edelman Digital
Chicago, IL

@cc_chapman
C.C. Chapman is a new media maven, podcaster, and public speaker
Boston, MA

@marshallk
Marshall Kirkpatrick is lead blogger at ReadWriteWeb
Portland, OR

Who do YOU like to follow? Who would you recommend and add to this list? Yourself perhaps? Let me know so the list can grow. Happy tweeting!

- Chad Richards (@chadrichards)

Objective-Oriented Strategy: Duncan's Strategy Rant

2008-11-05T18:20:37-05:00

Amidst all the online buzz and opinions, the importance of strategy continues to bubble to the top of the boiling pot. While there are several business approaches - whether its B2B or B2B - the commonality in the approach is in the development of strategy that support business and marketing objectives. Awareness, lead generation and loyalty all require different sets of strategies. Certainly there are common threads, but each approach is focused on generating a unique set of behaviors.

Social media strategy, email, blogging, SEO, and so on ad infinitum must all support specific objectives or desired outcomes. Using a combination of traditional and online marketing to help accomplish overall objectives can generate great results. The approach I recommend is simple. (A) Identify your marketing objectives (for example: greater awareness to drive web traffic) (B) Plan a campaign that uses both traditional and online marketing (for example: obtrusive ads on cars and social media - specifically social networks to drive people to the website) (C) Measure the conversations and responses. (D) Make adjustments.

Think Apple's approach - TV ads, online ads on facebook, print ads in the NY Times, emails and more - all leading you to the apple store or website or to the iTunes store.

I got so worked up about this - we went out in our famous alley and got some video clips of me ranting for you to watch:

- Duncan Alney Facebook | Twitter | Naymz

Election Day Video Fun on YouTube

2008-11-04T16:33:24-05:00

As part of being social on election day, we've uploaded a video featuring my post-voting excitement this morning. I came to the US 20 years ago and I finally voted in my first presidential election. It's a happy day and a tremendous feeling of pride and involvement in the future of this country. The video is posted at http://www.youtube.com/videoyourvote which is being produced in conjunction with PBS (the best videos will be included in a report on PBS). To watch the video you can drill down to Indianapolis and click the red dot. Or you can view it here! Either way, I had a great voting experience - in and out in 20 minutes.

Disclaimer: this video represents the viewpoint of Duncan Alney and not of Firebelly as a whole.

- Duncan Alney Facebook | Twitter | Naymz

4 Ways To Get Social This Election Day

2008-11-04T11:32:55-05:00

Election Day has always been one of my favorite "holidays." Like a kid on Christmas Eve, I can't sleep the night before as I eagerly anticipate casting my ballot in the morning and watching the returns at night. Social media has made it easier during Election '08 to share thoughts and enthusiasm with people from across the United States and around the world. The presidential candidates have embraced it and so have the voters. Below are 4 ways you can "get social" this Election Day:

Twitter (http://election.twitter.com):

Myspace (www.myspace.com/decision08):

Facebook (www.facebook.com/election08):

Youtube (www.youtube.com/videoyourvote):

Happy voting!

- Chad Richards facebook | twitter | linkedin

Social Media Inspired Halloween Costumes

2008-10-30T17:30:44-04:00

In the spirit of Halloween I thought we would celebrate some social media inspired costumes found online. All it takes is some poster board and a little creativity and you, too, can look like your favorite social media site!

Facebook:

Youtube:

Twitter:

Myspace:

Flickr:

Happy Halloween everyone!

- Chad Richards facebook | twitter | linkedin

The India Online Marketing Report Part 2

2008-10-23T00:29:15-04:00

As many of you already know, I recently visited India to visit family and review the business and marketing landscape in preparation for a potential Firebelly presence. While we've worked with contracting teams in India for several years, this last few months have been the first time that we've seriously considered launching an internet marketing company in the sub-continent.

Here's a few interesting headlines/quotes that I've come across regarding the online space in India and the significant opportunities there.

Our user-base is larger than many national populations - Gulshan Varma, Director Sales Strategy, Yahoo India

Localization is our top priority - Shailesh Rao, Managing Director, Google India

The internet user-base is growing at over 25% year-on-year - Ajit Balakrishnan, Founder and Chief Executive, Rediff India and Rediff USA

One cannot do brand-building by just serving banner ads. One needs to build continuous interactivity, engagement - Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Founder, Naukri

Net is yet to get its place in media plan - Amit Garg, Business Head, Firefly E-venture (online business arm of HT Media)

All part of the rationale for our small nimble company to go multi-national, Firebelly's internet marketing approach makes perfect sense for a presence in India. More to come.

- Duncan Alney Facebook | Twitter | Naymz

Social Media 4 Politics

2008-10-16T11:02:37-04:00

We’ve seen our presidential candidates everywhere lately, not only in the news and on signs in our neighbor’s yards, but also in the social media-sphere on myspace, twitter and the blogs. In this information age it’s easier than ever to stay informed and on top of the issues at hand for the 2008 presidential election.

Now there’s a new social network dedicated solely to politics. It’s called Politics4All and includes campaigns on the local, state and national levels.

Politics4All features:
Emails: receive customized news, event and campaign alerts related to your area.

Campaigns: register volunteers, promote your platform, create media kits, collect endorsements, and instantly share news and information with interested followers, constituents, and voters.

Groups: quickly build a communications and action network around an idea or cause. Whether the purpose is to coordinate activism, support or defeat a bill, change a law, or inform the public, each group has access to the same suite of tools as Campaigns and can use this platform as an online hub for accomplishing its goals.

Online Meetings: real-time group chat, "town hall" discussions, debates, and interviews. Moderated and un-moderated options are available, as well as town hall-style question submission, privacy options, invitations and even a public chat ("peanut gallery") for non-participants.

Blogs: use Politics4All as your platform to post or import an outside blog.

NewsBlaze quotes Branden South, Co-Founder and Vice President of Sales of Politics4All as saying "Politics4All is designed to allow candidates, citizens, and political organizations to collaborate and influence the political landscape, at all levels of government. How many times has a voter entered a voting booth, and cast a ballot for someone he or she knows nothing about?"

What I see as being Politics4All’s greatest strength is that it’s Internet marketing strategy allows you to share information across multiple channels effortlessly. Along these lines, registered politicians & candidates are encouraged to set up profiles on the site in order to display the details of their campaigns and participate in conversations.

Julia Yoder