Maverick Digital

Marketing • Social • New Media

When It Comes to Social Media, Stick with the Professionals

The New York Times recently highlighted the blunders of companies who have failed to manage their brands in the social media world.  Haphazardly delegating your "tweets" and "status updates" to interns can be incredibly damaging to a brand and turn customers away.  This is why Business Schools across the globe are now incorporating social media courses in their curriculums.  Schools like the London Business School, Harvard Business School, and Insead are training their students on how to build marketing strategies within social networks.  

The article continues to highlight the importance of industry experience when managing a brand, as many companies interviewing younger graduates assume that their experiences within social media might be enough.  

Do you think these classes will prepare students for brand management in the social media world?  

 

Getting Ready for Mobile Ads

It's inevitable.  More people will be using their mobile devices to capture the power of the internet as time goes on.  The trend is there, and advertisers need to pay attention to this, too.  

Apple is staying ahead of the curve by preparing to announce a mobile advertising platform, likely to be called "iAd".  Google has established itself in the mobile space with its Android mobile operating system, and it's intentions to expand their ad revenues through cell phones.  Both companies have the potential to unleash location-based advertising, introducing a kind of "hypertargeting" never seen before.  

Mobile ad spending is expected to reach $331 million this year and $409 million in 2011.   How do you see the future of mobile advertising?  

Facebook and Twitter Impacts Buying Behaviors

Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies conducted a study that found that fans and followers of certain brands are significantly more likely to buy products and services from those brands.  They are also more likely to recommend that brand to their friends.  The study also showed that people have negative perceptions of brands that lack a social media presence. 

This once again shows the changing ways that consumers are interacting with brands.  People, especially those online, want to engage with their brands.  Additionally, the brand's biggest advocates can play a huge role in how companies engage with their consumers.  

How likely are you to fan or follow a brand you endorse?  

The Future of Computing - A 3-D Interactive Experience

The days of sitting in front of a small screen with a keyboard and mouse will likely be gone in the not-so-distant future.  Oblong Industries has been working on a “Minority Report”-esque system that allows users to interact with the computer via gestures in a 3-D environment.  This can change the way people interact with not only each other via the internet, but also the products that companies bring to market.  Imagine being able to pull up two users profiles on Facebook or Twitter and being able to compare a plethora of data on them; or picture introducing a new product that consumers can handle, pour, manipulate and play with.  A great video of the potential of this gestural interface can be found here.   Microsoft is already exploring this kind of technology in the gaming world through Project Natal.  How do you think this new technology will change the way we use the internet?  

Advertisers Spending More on Digital than Print for the First Time

It was just a matter of time before this finally happened, but advertisers are now spending more of their marketing budgets on digital communications than on print media.

According to Outsell, who surveyed more than 1,000 U.S. advertisers, companies will spend $119.6 billion on online and digital strategies.  This will include everything from SEO, webinars, and website enhancements to leveraging social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.   

While print isn't completely out the door, marketers are finding that a cross-media strategy is the most effective way to increase brand awareness and ROI.  And a heavier hand in the digital arena is needed to stay competitive.  

How do you think companies should spend their digital marketing budgets?  

The Growing Mobile Market and the Importance of MMS

Mashable has written up a short and sweet article debunking the myths of MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service).  The article highlights the largely untapped marketing opportunities that companies can leverage to reach a mass audience. Sports Illustrated experimented with MMS by sending “bonus videos” of their swimsuit edition models with a post-roll slide of sponsor Trojan condoms.  With Americans sending 4.1 billion text messages per day and nearly every phone shipped in the U.S. over the past 2 years coming pre-loaded with MMS capability, companies can easily bring a rich media mobile marketing campaign to millions of handsets at no cost to the consumer.  Do you see yourself using MMS more to share and watch videos, music, and other multi-media experiences?