Mark Zuckerberg testified, a.k.a. whined a lot, in front of Congress this week. U.S. Representative Katie Porter from California, a law professor and graduate of Harvard Law, cross-examined the witness. She asked Mark if he cares about privacy as he claims to do, why is he arguing in federal court that consumers can’t hold Facebook […]
The post Mark Is Responsible. Mark Is Irresponsible. appeared first on Adpulp.
Parents today see picture-perfect families everywhere, especially in social media. Minute Maid’s new brand campaign is encouraging parents to embrace their perfectly imperfect family moments and show how even though it’s not always Instagram-ready, “this is GOOD.” Minute Maid partnered with Edison Research to commission the “This is Good Parenting Survey” to better understand how […]
The post Minute Maid Questions What Good Is, Decides, “this is GOOD” appeared first on Adpulp.
Sean Parker, Facebook’s first President, gave an interesting talk recently, where he reveals the thinking behind the machine. The problem the Facebookers sought to solve: How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible? The “solution” they ended up inventing: “It’s a social-validation feedback loop … exactly the kind of […]
The post Smarten Up; Facebook and Your Mobile Phone Make You Dumb appeared first on Adpulp.
“We need a digital economy where our data and our attention is not for sale to the highest bidding authoritarian or demagogue.” -Zeynep Tufekci What has the digital ad man wrought when the same algorithms companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon use to get you to click on ads are also used to organize your […]
The post Digital Advertising’s Frankenstein Is Wreaking Havoc and Damaging Democracy appeared first on Adpulp.
Brands need YouTube content and advertising, but where do they turn to procure this modern form of communications currency? Ad agencies are changing, but few have crossed the bridge from making TV for a passive audience to making video for an active, empowered audience. One way to find a video provider is to discover who […]
The post Holy Tongue Cleaners, Orabrush Team Spins Off appeared first on AdPulp.
As anyone who’s posted something ostensibly insightful on Reddit knows, watching your comment get downvoted into a negative abyss can leave you feeling stung and downright pissed off.
That’s exactly the kind of experience Facebook wanted to avoid when it actively decided not to create a “Dislike” button alongside the iconic thumbs-up Like button that debuted in early 2009.
In an interview with the creator of the Like button, former Facebook CTO Bret Taylor (who these days runs mobile app Quip), TechRadar reports that a Dislike button was often discussed but consistently scrapped because “the negativity of that button has a lot of unfortunate consequences.”
While the Like button was born largely to unclutter feeds riddled with positive one-word comments like “wow” and “cool,” Taylor says, Facebook felt that it was actually better to corner the more negative users into leaving a comment explaining their opinions.
“I have the feeling that if there were to be a ‘Dislike’ button is that you would end up with these really negative social aspects to it,” Taylor says. “If you want to dislike something, you should probably write a comment, because there’s probably a word for what you want to say.”
First and foremost, lawyers are business people. The reason we tend to overlook that fact is that we do not typically refer to law as an industry. Make no mistake about it; law is big business. And lawyers are a part of that business cycle. As such, they need to be just as business savvy […]
The post Marketing Yourself as a Personal Injury Lawyer in the Age of Social Media appeared first on AdPulp.
Pinterest touts its newly unveiled messaging feature in this handsomely shot two-and-a-half minute video from production house Strike Anywhere.
The clip is Apple-esque, as are so many personal-tech ads these days, celebrating Pinterest’s heightened functionality as a means of enhancing everyday life. Using the new messaging system, people engage in pithy yet productive text conversations about pins showing canoes, casseroles and spaceships. This demonstrates Pinterest’s ability to help folks collaboratively plan outings, dinners and work projects. (Of course, it could also create fresh opportunities for advertisers.)
The music track, Kishi Bashi’s “Philosophize in It! Chemicalize With It!” is a fine choice. It’s uplifting and accessible, but doesn’t overpower the spot. It works here, and would work equally well in any number of recent ads for Apple, Samsung or Microsoft. In fact, this spot, while true to Pinterest’s vibe, is a good example of how ads for tech companies increasingly blur the picture, instead of putting their services into sharper focus.
But for Pinterest, building on earlier long-form ads, it represents a noticeable step toward being a major marketer in the social tech arena. Take a look below and see what you think.
The words we use are important. Words convey meaning.
Right now, I am looking for the words to convey how much I love this ass-kicking, fact-kicking session from Gary Vaynerchuk, head of Vayner Media.
In the video, a person asks Vaynerchuk how to meet “relevant people” at South By Southwest. Gary Vee rightly does the questioner and the larger world a great service by breaking down what’s wrong with the thinking that misinformed the question.
“When I hear people categorize others human beings as ‘relevant’ it makes want to vomit on myself,” he says.
Vaynerchuk is a humanist and it takes a humanist with brass balls to endow brands (and the company’s behind them) with the necessary degrees of humanity that will make them palatable to the real life people we sometimes refer to as consumers.
In a new article about sales on Medium, Vaynerchuk notes, “I pay attention to what people do and look for patterns. I think of conversion in an emotional more than an analytical way.”
In other words, sales and business is personal. At all levels, business is an exchange between people. It can be an equitable exchange or something less. When it’s something less, may today’s digitally-empowered consumers have mercy on your brand’s soul.
Vaynerchuk sees sales (and the taking care of customers that enables it) as art. A sale is something he creates and he believes in masterpieces. To get there, he uses leading questions “to reverse-engineer your needs and provide the insight that I could deliver on.”
At the heart of Gary Vee’s offering, and the reason for his charm and success, we do not find the social media tactic de jour. His message is about the fundamentals and the need for applying them in life and in business. Be a good person/business. Offer to help. And continually serve and grow your relationships.
The post Gary Vee Rocks The Mic, Wins AdPulp’s International Humanitarian Award appeared first on AdPulp.
Do you smell that smell? I believe a degree of odiferous air has been let go from the social media bubble.
According to USA TODAY, LinkedIn reported a 46% rise in first-quarter revenue, to $473.2 million, but a loss of $13.3 million. The news sent LinkedIn shares down 2% in after-hours trading, to $159.02. Its stock, meanwhile, is down about 40% from its all-time high of $257.56 per share in September.
Warwick Business School Professor, Mark Skilton, believes the problem is lack of attention to mobile. “LinkedIn seems to be treating the mobile trend as just another channel but this might prove problematic as members seek consistent multi-device experience.”
That’s one theory. I have a different evaluation. People may be beginning to realize that the never-ending act of promoting oneself in digital channels is tiresome in the extreme.
Twitter Inc., LinkedIn Corp. and Yelp Inc.all have lost more than 20 per cent of their market value this year. Only Facebook, which is up 2.6 per cent, escaped the downward trend.
The Nasdaq Internet Index as a whole is down by almost 20 per cent, hovering close to the threshold for a bear market.
The post LinkedIn Stock Price Down 45% from All Time High Last Fall appeared first on AdPulp.
Can you believe that over one third of the U.S. population has tried using a dating site to find their match? It’s really not all that unbelievable considering how wired we are to the Web. But if you were to rewind, say, a decade or so ago and mention that you were looking for love online, you’d get laughed at.
In a lot of ways, it was “taboo” to search for attraction using the Web. Everyone just assumed that it was too impersonal and that a real match could only be found when you’re face to face. They said it would never last.
I’m one of those outliers.
I happened to have met my girlfriend through a dating site, but it wasn’t just the site that got things started – it also happened to be a mix of social media.
Story Time:
I had just got back from going overseas for a much needed vacation. When I returned, I realized that I pretty much lost all contact with most of my local friends because they had moved out of the area (this was right after everyone was graduating college). It also meant the girls I had once talked to were now steadily going with other guys since I never really pursued a relationship when I was in town.
So I decided to try a dating site with a social angle that would allow me see what was happening in my area but also let me get in touch with people. It worked like a mix of meet ups and dating – we found some local events that we were both interested in and that’s when things really began to click. After a whole lot of hits and misses, I finally found the ‘one’.
We clicked almost immediately and the more we talked the more we realized we were actually part of the same social circles! I was big into going to electronic music shows and it turns out she had been promoting them in the area – what a coincidence right? Even more so knowing that she had been to many of the same shows … I had just never noticed her at the time.
It’s been almost three years now and things are going great.
My story isn’t all that unconventional these days, though. You’re seeing it happen more often than ever before, especially since we have awesome apps like Snapchat. There’s almost zero barrier to connect with someone unlike before when you had to wait it out at a coffee shop or hope you’d get noticed when passing through the office.
Some people say that social media is ruining dating. They say that it puts too much information out there in one go, but let’s be honest: this is information we’d want to know before choosing someone in the first place, right?
Let me break down how things have really changed thanks to social media:
There’s a flip side, of course, like people scripting their “game” or even using it maliciously to get money or bully others, but this happens on the fringe. There are also those fall to temptation due to digging up old flames on sites like Facebook.
But overall online dating and social media has given us a much safer, enjoyable environment to find someone special. It’s far more open than it ever has been. You’re no longer stuck behind a name (or online avatar) chatting late at night in a public chat room or on instant messenger hoping the person on the other side is who they say – it’s all out there in the open!
The Web, with the options like dating sites, and the combination of social media, which can keep things fun and engaging, are a true match made in heaven. Some will need to grind through the matches while for other it’ll just click right away. Ultimately, even if you don’t find that special someone, you’ll still find a great mix of people worth knowing.
The post The Unconventional Attraction: Online Dating & Social Media appeared first on AdPulp.
Heads up SFO. A small city of people are flying in for Dreamforce, the annual user conference put on by Salesforce.com in San Francisco this week.
According to reports, some of the Dreamforce badge wearers will be seeking information on how to incorporate social media marketing and social selling into their practice. Others may be looking for a good party to attend. I hear Green Day is performing at a VIP function. How punk rock is that?
According to USA TODAY’s preview piece on the conference, L’Oreal began using new marketing and analysis tools Salesforce rolled out this year.
The software helps automate the process of discovering the interests of existing customers, then deciding which promotions to send to their social media accounts, via text or video ads.
L’Oreal brand managers used it to sign up thousands of hair salon owners in the U.S., who in turn used it to create thousands of Facebook pages that were peppered with social media ads for shampoos and conditioners.
I am a huge fan of discovering the interests of existing customers. That’s the fuel on which marketing runs. But I will admit to getting hung up a bit with the idea that software will effectively automate the process. I’m not saying software does not work in this capacity, or that this particular software as a service is not needed. Rather, I want to question which sales and marketing processes can and should be automated, and which work best when done manually.
I know this much, an email does not equal a phone call and a phone call does not equal a face-to-face meeting. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter, and possibly include said thoughts in an upcoming feature article.
The post Social Gets Some Big Time Face Time @Dreamforce 2013 appeared first on AdPulp.
File this one under "unwise ways to announce your startup."
UNC student Taylor Robinette recently launched his new social networking app, Bevii, via email blast to his fellow students. Which might have been fine, except that the email was sent from unc@alertcarolina.com and made to look like a campus shooting alert from UNC's crisis information site, Alert Carolina.
"At precisely 10:01 am yesterday," the email stated, "in broad daylight, shots were fired on Franklin Street." The email goes on to explain that “The victim is being described as a blue, outdated social network.” The perpetrator, of course, was Bevii.
The founder says he felt an immediate pang of maybe-that-was-a-bad-idea. "As soon as the email went out, we contacted the proper outlets and apologized," Robinette said in a phone interview with AdFreak. UNC, however, reacted to the marketing stunt by blocking the Bevii website and posting a "beware of fraudulent messages" alert.
When asked if any students were alarmed by the email, Robinette said, "To the best of our knowledge, nobody thought they were actually in danger." He says the Bevii team has seven developers, eight angel investors and about $300,000 in funds raised so far. Despite the email gaffe, he's confident he will have plenty of support to continue launching the app.
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Jaron Lanier, author of Who Owns The Future?, asserts that the rise of digital networks led our economy into recession and decimated the middle class.
Looking forward, he says it is time for ordinary people to be rewarded for what they do and share on the web.
In an interview with Nieman Lab, Lanier argues:
If you have universal backlinks, you have a basis for micropayments from somebody’s information that’s useful to somebody else… Every backlink would be monetized. Monetizing actually decentralizes power rather than centralizing it. Demonetizing a network actually concentrates power around anyone who has the biggest computer analyzing it.
Monetizing decentralizes power. Perfect! Americans love freedom and money.
I also love to provide information that might be useful to somebody–like this very article–thus, I am fully behind a workable micropayments system that rewards me (and others) for being prolific and readable.
The post Transition To The Modern World, Give Markets A Chance appeared first on AdPulp.
Remember when the call was put out to accelerate our processes and get up to Internet speed? I think we’ve done it, because today a huge company can emerge from a dorm room to become a major Silicon Valley-based player in just a handful of years. Said company–Facebook–can then go public (after which its officers may begin to get their fortunes out, before the whole thing fizzles).
According to San Francisco Chronicle, Mark Zuckerberg took $2.3 billion in stock options last year, while Cheryl Sandberg earned $822 million in cash-outs. Whether the two top people at Facebook need some walking around money, or whether they’re reading the tea leaves, who can say?
What I can do is point to this article in The Guardian, which suggests that FB’s expansion in the US, UK and other major European countries has peaked.
In the last month, the world’s largest social network has lost 6m US visitors, a 4% fall, according to analysis firm SocialBakers. In the UK, 1.4m fewer users checked in last month, a fall of 4.5%. The declines are sustained. In the last six months, Facebook has lost nearly 9m monthly visitors in the US and 2m in the UK.
Users are also switching off in Canada, Spain, France, Germany and Japan, where Facebook has some of its biggest followings. A spokeswoman for Facebook declined to comment.
Are we growing weary of our own Walls, and hearing about life’s little and sometimes major events via our friend’s Walls? Clearly.
As people look for new experiences online and in real life, Facebook’s challenge is to provide them, particularly on the mobile handset. Which brings us to Facebook Home.
According to Reuters, Home lets users comprehensively modify Android, the popular mobile operating system developed by Google, to prominently display their Facebook newsfeed and messages on the home screens of a wide range of devices – while hiding other apps.
I don’t own an Android device, but I like the boldness in this move. Facebook is “improving” one of it’s most significant competitor’s products. That’s not something you see everyday.
In other news, Google Now is now available on iOS.
The post Create Compelling Mobile Experiences, Or Facebook Falls Apart appeared first on AdPulp.
In an industry starving for innovation, some wild ideas will be thrown at the wall. Some of them will even stick, before sliding down and out of view.
Quick, look at this idea — a smart beer cup connected to your Facebook account — for it too may slide from view.
Chris Matyszczyk writing for CNET says:
I am sure that some will be vastly entertained by waking up after a night when they got truly toasted to discover how many people they truly toasted.
Awkward though it seems at first glance, there is something here that I like. Budweiser is making an effort to be useful, and that I salute. Although, I do question the need for this particular application of technology, and I wonder if Twitter isn’t a better platform for it, given that following behavior on Twitter is “promiscuous,” and better suited to “meeting and greeting.”
Hat Tip: Taplister
The post Click Cups, Become Friends On Facebook appeared first on AdPulp.
I don’t know how they did it, but Glamour magazine has gathered a massive audience on Google+. With 1.5 million readers on this platform, the door is now wide open to sponsored content opportunities.
According to Mashable, the fashion title is using the Goggle+ Hangout feature in new ways:
Glamour magazine is launching a month-long series of Hangouts featuring staffers, online personalities — and products. Eight of the nine Hangouts are sponsored by a company, whose products are featured centrally in the content. In a Hangout for Unilever-owned Suave, for example, DIY blogger Erica Domesek will show how to make hair accessories for hair styled by Suave stylists. A L’Oreal-sponsored Hangout with Glamour stylist Annabel Tollman will show viewers how to wear ombré hair, as colored by Loreal’s Féria Wild Ombré product.
Some of the Hangouts will invite viewers to converse; others will be closed sessions, during which users will be asked to comment on social media networks using hashtags.
In other Sponsored Content news, The New York Times unveiled some interesting tidbits about Mashable’s successful use of sponsored posts. For one, Mashable sees its sponsored posts as something other than advertorial.
“These are not advertorials,” said Lance Ulanoff, the editor in chief at Mashable. “I know what an advertorial is. These are pure editorial.”
Semantic argument, or no, the price for a sponsored series on Mashable can run close to six figures. A sponsored series of posts on AdPulp, however, is considerably more affordable. So, I ask you — yes YOU — what topic do you want to “own” and consistently present to AdPulp’s sophisticated MarCom readership?
If you run a search firm, we can run a weekly series on SEO. If you’re a headhunter, we can run a weekly series on job hunting. If you’re an editing house, we can run a series on working with directors and editors. And so on.
Unlike banner ads on the site, a sponsored post on AdPulp.com reaches our 6500 RSS subscribers. Inquire within.
The post Glamour Makes Good Use of Google+ Hangouts appeared first on AdPulp.
According to Marketing Daily, French jeweler and watchmaker Cartier has chosen to kick off an online campaign for its latest collection, Love by Cartier, on MySpace.
“Blogs, group(s) or individual Web sites are no longer the signs of a new era, but are an established reality for a whole new generation,” said director of international communications, Corinne Delattre. “As a large brand, we must be able to communicate to this new generation of adepts of the digital world.”
According to a recent Forrester Research study, only a third of the world’s premium brands sell their goods online. But that’s a mistake, Forrester concluded, as about 80% of high-net-worth consumers–with annual gross income and assets of at least $500,000–use the Internet daily, and regularly buy products online.
In its first few days of existence, Cartier’s MySpace campaign has attracted some 100,000 visits, and “friends” like Sting.
When your brand is number one, never acknowledge the runners up. This is a long-standing rule of marketing. But one that Rupe willfully broke at Cannes.
According to Brian Morrissey of Adweek, Rupe dismissed the online service as little more than “a directory.” He said the attention lavished on Facebook is not in line with the challenges it has faced in building its audience into a sustainable business.
“They’ve not monetized as well as us,” he said. “They’ve done a great job of being the flavor of the month the last six months of last year.”
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
