February 25th, 2009 by Arie
Original Article by David Nelles
Mirror, mirror on the wall, which one is the priciest blog of all? We’ve known now about the market value of the Top Blogs in Germany, but again the big U.S blogs set the benchmarks with their corresponding financial values. The 247wallst.com analysts have been determining the value of big U.S blogs at regular intervals. Douglas A. McIntyre provides insight on key figures used in the values calculation as followed:
To determine value, 24/7 Wall St. looked at unique visitor and pageviews information from several public sources including Alexa, Quantcast, Compete, and comScore. These services are often criticized for estimating website traffic too low and we have taken that into account to the extent possible. We also looked at audience measurements provided by the blogs themselves when it seemed credible. Our estimated CPMs for ads are based on the current display and text ad environment, the quality of ads at each blog, and the number of ads that it runs on the average pages. The CPM value assigned to each blog is based on all of the ads it runs on its typical pages. To determine margins, 24/7 looked at headcount when available, and estimated costs of operating and maintaining websites. More complex content platforms where assigned higher monthly costs. Current audience growth rates were taken into account. A site which has traffic doubling year-over-year was given a higher multiple than one which is losing traffic. Because not all blogs make money, multiples of revenue and operating income were used to assess value.
The results of the analysis are very impressive:
1. Gawker Properties — $170 million.
2. Huffington Post — $90 million.
3. The Drudge Report — $48 million.
4. Perez Hilton — $32 million.
5. Sugar, Inc — $27 million.
6. TechCrunch — $25 million.
7. MacRumors — $21 million.
8. SeekingAlpha — $11 million.
9. GigaOm — $9.5 million.
10. Politico — $8.7 million.
11. SmashingMagazine — $7.7 million.
12. SearchEngineLand — $4.5 million.
13. Boing Boing — $3.6 million.
14. ReadWriteWeb — $3.4 million.
15. SB Nation — $2.7 million.
16. Destructoid — $2.5 million.
17. Mashable — $2.5 million.
18. Alley Insider sites — $2.25 million.
19. /film — $2.1 million.
20. The Superficial Network — $2 million
21. Neatorama — $1.5 million.
22. Daily Kos — $2 million.
23. Talking Points Memo — $1.2 million.
24. VentureBeat — $1 million.
25. Wowowow.com — $1 million.
February 25th, 2009 by Arie
Original Article by David Nelles
What kind of myths in the context of social media marketing are actually NOT out there? Starting with the notion that social media marketing is for free, up to lack of measurability in this area. Often, one hears from marketers about the use of social media for the company’s benefits, which fit into the myths. I’ve summarized the Top 4 Myths in the area of social media marketing:
Myth #1: Social Media Marketing is cheap, if not free.
True is, social media tools are in most cases free for users. One can set up a free Wordpress Weblog, sign up for Twiter Account, and use Digg for social bookmarking or create a group in Facebook. However, it is essential for companies in social media to interact and get into dialogs with their customers in these free platforms. Meaning, companies must create a proper concept to begin with, and then integrate this concept into the existing company’s communications strategy. Thus, these efforts are tied to time and money. For example, a big advertising campaign in social media can cost up to six figures.
Myth #2: Social Media Marketing guarantees instant success.
Yes, it’s true; sometimes one can achieve huge marketing success in social media within the shortest period. One needs only one thing: Luck. Basically, time factor counts the most in the area of social media, since a sustainable and authentic dialog with consumers does not happen overnight. Marketers should not expect an immediate success of social media activities: corporate Twitter with more than 1000 followers or corporate weblog shows 15,000 unique users daily.
Myth #3: We do it best in-house.
If names like Robert Scoble or Jeremiah Oywang belong to circle of employees, then this argument could be justified. Otherwise such intern social media experts are really hard to come by in German big companies – of course with few exceptions. Thus, German companies do rely on support from external specialists for the concept and implementation of social media activities. Until companies enclose the first Heads of Social Media, like Scott Monty, as connector between marketing and company’s communication, more time would certainly be required.
Myth #4: Success in Social Media Marketing is not measurable.
If one takes the classical parameters of online marketing as scale, then this myth is reality. The success measurement of performance based marketing strategy doesn’t fit in the area of social media. But this doesn’t automatically mean that the success of social media is therefore immeasurable. A successful marketing in the realm of user generated media lies not in leads and sales, but in brand awareness and brand reputation. Meaning, the performance success of social media can be seen in conversation’s participation in weblogs, forums, communities and Twitter about brands as well as the tonality of statements.
February 24th, 2009 by Arie
Original Article by David Nelles
There are lot of ways for companies to represent themselves in social media, or rather how this media could be used to the advantage of the companies. Here are some examples in Germany: the Customer Community 60 years of VW, the employee’s Daimlerblog or the Customer Weblog Two For Fashion from Otto. Ford Germany tweets, Tchibo applies Crowdsourcing and BMW uses amongst others its own YouTube Channel. Hence, in Germany companies do exercise a quite broad application of social media platforms.
A company in the U.S has discovered another use of platform to its advantage. BestBuy sets out for unsparingly transparency in its new social media strategy. It’s called BestBuy Connect, which is a public social media aggregator for social media activities of the employees. BestBuy Connect summarizes all social media activities of employee’s participation through livestream.
Dawn Bryant explains this particular strategy of BestBuy as followed:
If people outside of this company could really feel the culture and drive that makes this place what it is, we can strengthen our reputation, goodwill, and ultimately grow our talent and grow the company. The beauty of that is that we didn’t need to create anything new, people are doing it and we don’t want to control it, we simply want to make it easier for the rest of the world to find the energy and human-ness”.
From a German perspective, this kind of proposition or rather the notion behind the project is somehow astonishing. In case BestBuy could hold its head high with this particular project, it would definitely be by far the most daring project in the area of social media I’ve ever encountered. What Lee Oden said about this social media initiative:
The objective of Best Buy Connect is to showcase the people, behavior and unedited perspectives/ideas of those who power Best Buy. It humanizes the brand, increases accessibility and fuels transparency. This can affect current and future customer perceptions as well as future employees.
Basically I agree with Lee’s opinion. From a consumer’s point of view there is nothing better than an unedited transparency. Yet, I do have my doubt, whether this kind of directness could be maintained overtime. Although German companies have become increasingly open to social media, this kind of project is still unthinkable. It would probably provide sleepless nights for the majority of company’s executives. Thus, BestBuy tries to minimize the danger in the use of Connect by employees through clearly defined Guidelines:
What You Should Never Disclose:
The Numbers: Non-public financial or operational information. This includes strategies, forecasts and most anything with a dollar-figure attached to it. If it’s not already public information, it’s not your job to make it so.
Promotions: Internal communication regarding drive times, promotional activities or inventory allocations. Including: advance ads, drive time playbooks, holiday strategies and Retail Insider editions.
Personal Information: Never share personal information regarding other employees or customers. See the Customer Information Policies for more information.
Legal Information: Anything to do with a legal issue, legal case, or attorneys.
Anything that belongs to someone else: Let them post their own stuff; you stick to posting your own creations. This includes illegal music sharing, copyrighted publications, and all logos or other images that are trademarked by Best Buy.
Confidential Information: Do not publish, post, or release information that is considered confidential or top secret.
What would happen to the employees, if they do not abide the guidelines:
Get fired (and it’s embarrassing to lose your job for something that’s so easily avoided)
Get Best Buy in legal trouble with customers or investors
Cost us the ability to get and keep customers
It’s a daring project from BestBuy, which I can’t imagine happening for the German market, well at least not at the moment. In Germany, it is already problematic for many companies to run a corporate weblog. Furthermore, this initiative of BestBuy is somehow light years away from the actual German social media reality.
Connect is only an element in the social media strategy of BestBuy. For CEO Brad Anderson, social media is the central factor in the whole company’s communication. BestBuy sets out international benchmark, particularly by its use of social media for the optimization in internal communication of 150.00 employees in over 1150 office branches. Beside employee’s forum and internal wiki, BestBuy has also its own social network.
Brad Anderson and his employees have recognized the company’s added value through social media. Not only that, BestBuy understands the use of social media for external communication or rather for marketing and thus, BestBuy also realizes how social media changes the life of a company. As commented by Peter Hirshberg:
I think Best Buy is a leading indicator what businesses will start to look like in the near future…
Hirschberg’s interview with Anderson in Zeitgeist 08
February 24th, 2009 by Arie
Original Article by David Nelles
Well, it’s nothing new about social media engagement in marketing and PR. Even in the area of CRM as well as election campaign, social media appears to be a very efficient medium. Now social media also provides protection against salmonella contamination. Recently, the FDA used Twitter, Youtube, MySpace and Blogs to call back potential contaminated foods products. The center of this particular recall lies entirely on the American’s eating habits: the peanut butter. Thus, the coverage of this recall was extremely immense. To this date, there were more than 2.100 recalled products. Richard Stapleton, the head of U.S Health and Human Services Department justified the use of social media in this case as followed:
When the [peanut product] recall issue broke, it immediately occurred to us to spread the message through social media, which we feel is a much better way than using traditional media…
By acting so, the U.S authorities are certainly going into the right direction. Social media has the coverage and the velocity to spread this kind of themes in a fast and efficient way for the respective target group. Hence, it has been shown quite often, how fast information travels in social media, be it the U.S Airways Crash Rescue or the fire of CCTV building in Beijing. Social media channels, like Twitter, are faster and they certainly do provide wider coverage in spreading the news than the classical media. Though, this doesn’t automatically mean that the classical media should be excluded in this kind of recall action. Most importantly is actually, that all available possibilities and strong coverage media should be thoroughly used. Furthermore, this includes of course the platforms of user generated media. From this point of view, the application of social media for epidemical containment is definitely useful. Rick Turoczy also shares positive view on using social media tools in this area:
Hopefully, this is just the first step – rapidly disseminating information – of many for incorporating Web 2.0 technologies into these agencies. With continued adoption, one can easily imagine the possible advances in protecting the populous from disease before it happens – like employing technology similar to Google’s flu trends combined with social graph information. And that’s only one example.
