It's not about social media, it's about social connections

Dave Brown_MKGEditor’s Note: The Yahoo! Advertising blog recently asked several agency leaders one question: “How are you integrating social media into your creative?” Here is the response from Dave Brown, Director of Digital Strategy, MKG

Forget the “Likes,” “Shares,” “Pokes” or “Check-ins,” the true ROI of social media lies in connections. Consider your social media strategy: It probably includes a healthy dose of branded content, posts meant to inspire, and a fair amount of listening and responding. That's a solid formula, but what takes social to the next level is the value of social connections.

Not only has technology made connecting with one another easier, it has facilitated a means for brands to connect with people in ways that make their lives easier, with companies seeing the benefit of friends’ recommendations every day. E-commerce sites, such as American Eagle, HauteLook and even Ticketmaster, were among the first to bank on social connections, utilizing information from friends’ social networks to inform purchasing decisions. Startups popping up today have taken this idea even further, leveraging social connections to make people feel comfortable, allowing not-quite strangers into their cars, homes and even bathrooms (for example: Get Around, Airbnb, and CLOO).

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Join us on December 8 to learn how to make your campaign management faster and easier

bing_yahooOur friends at Microsoft have been as busy this season as a certain group of height-challenged manufacturers who reside at 90 degrees north latitude. They (the folks in Seattle, not the North Pole) have been releasing some cool new enhancements to the adCenter platform nearly every week for the past few weeks. And now it’s your turn to get the lowdown.

Be our guest at a December 8 webinar that will review all of the new features now offered by adCenter to improve your search ads’ ROI:

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From personalization to monetization, with a cool demo, too

livestand collage 3Even in an industry accustomed to revolutions, tablets are a digital media phenomenon. Led by the iPad, tablets are growing at a ferocious rate (nearly 400 million forecast to be sold by 2014) because they offer an entirely new mobile computing experience that deeply engages users.

The new Livestand from Yahoo! living magazine app makes the most out of the iPad experience for users, advertisers and, especially, publishers. Yahoo!’s recent Livestand for Publishers Webinar covered all the publishing angles, anchored by a live demo that highlights its visually stunning creative canvas and remarkable personalization technology. Yahoo! experts also discussed tablet trends; monetization opportunities; future directions; and, best of all, how to quickly put Livestand to work turning existing publications into tablet masterpieces.

The 50+ publishers who tuned in saw how Livestand can mesmerize users and glue them to their content.

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The New York Stock Exchange teams with Yahoo! to target finance pros and get followers, “likes” and customers

NYSE_LogoYou might not think that a 219-year-old stock exchange founded under a buttonwood tree is a leading venue for technology companies. But the New York Stock Exchange is, attracting digital performers like LinkedIn, IMAX, Demand Media and Pandora. The NYSE is a new home for technology leaders, and it made sure people knew with a tech-savvy Yahoo! mobile campaign.

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"A lot of factors went into why we chose Yahoo! Mobile... We chose Yahoo! based on 2010 campaign metrics since it was one of the top performers.” -- Chandra Keyser, NYSE Director of Global Marketing and Branding

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The Challenge

The proof is in the metrics. It’s one thing to say you’re a high-tech listings leader, but how do you show it? How do you get both established and emerging technology companies to engage with your brand and join your exchange? You start by celebrating your cutting-edge digital technology clients’ successes, and you do it using the two leading digital mediums for technology marketing today: mobile and social. This is where the NYSE’s most valuable potential customers, such as venture capitalists, investment bankers, private equity investors and C-suite execs, do business and spend time online today. “We recognize the power of mobile, especially among today’s always-on-the-go business leaders,” says Chandra Keyser, NYSE Director of Global Marketing and Branding. “In fact, we’ve done more mobile this year than in the last three years combined.”

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nyseYahoo! behavioral targeting fuels higher click-throughs and social media response

Serving tailored ads to smartphones and driving select users to social media sites, Yahoo! executed a mobile-social campaign for the New York Stock Exchange with a bottom line that even Gordon Gecko would love.

The three-month push generated click-through rates 50% higher than standard mobile campaigns and increased Facebook “likes” by 92% and Twitter followers by 13%. Read all about it in Mediapost.

--- The Team

Plus: Shoppers shunning Black Friday; always go through legal; Godfather’s Pizza now partisan, and more

Sale$1.2 billion: The cash (or plastic) consumers will shell out for holiday gifts and other purchases on Cyber Monday (November 28) this year, according to a daring prediction by comScore’s Andrew Lipsman. Lipsman notes that Cyber Monday 2010 hauled in $1.028 billion and in 2009, $887 million.

80%: If Cyber Monday is looking up, Black Friday appears to be on the down-slide, as 80% of U.S. consumers are planning to shun shopping the day after Thanksgiving, says Nielsen.

$50,000: The penalty you can incur from the U.S. Department of Transportation if you misrepresent the total cost of your air travel offerings on Twitter. In happened recently to Spirit Air. Tip: Always go through legal.

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A study by Yahoo! and Ipsos ASI Digital shows Living Ads by Yahoo! are more effective than static ads

Living_Ads_Denim_ThreadsTablets are the future of books, magazines, computing, entertainment – and advertising. And they have been ever since “Ender’s Game” was first published as a short story in Analog magazine in 1977.

Since Apple unleashed the iPad on the world in 2010, the race to the future has been on. And Yahoo! has been right there with it. Earlier this month we launched Livestand from Yahoo!, an app for the iPad that takes the idea of the magazine to the next level. (Have an iPad? Download Livestand now.) And Living Ads by Yahoo!, our dynamic new ad format for Livestand launched earlier this week. Living Ads by Yahoo! move, shift and engage consumers in an immersive brand experience in ways never seen before.

Yahoo! is all about the arithmetic, so we didn’t go into launching Living Ads without first seeing how they would perform. Recently, Yahoo! and Ipsos ASI Digital undertook a study to make the case for Living Ads. The results were even better that expected. The study compared Living Ads with static ads for the clothing brand, Denim & Threads. We found that the subtle movement, unique presentation, and mysterious storytelling made the Denim & Thread Living Ads unit more compelling for consumers than the static ad. In fact, 58% of those surveyed interacted with the Living Ad versus just 35% for the static ad. Fully 42% of those surveyed expanded the Living Ad, 30% clicked on buttons included in the imagery, and 19% played the ad’s “record player.”

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Experts give views on budgets, metrics, creative canvas and more

A special event at the Right Media Forum, held Nov. 7 in New York City, was the Display Advertising Industry Panel, which brought together industry experts from the demand and supply sides who took on a wide range of questions posed by the moderator, James Heckman, Yahoo! SVP Strategy and Emerging Business.

The panelists were:

• Quentin George, Chief Innovations Officer, IPG Mediabrands
• David Jacobs, SVP Publisher Services, Advertising.com
• Josh Jacobs, President, Accuen
• Hardeep Bindra, VP and Co-Lead, Right Media

To read comments and insights from panelists, please visit the Right Media Blog.

Posted by pickard

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