Internet Ads: The Numbers Are In

Internet adsThe Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) reports that ad revenues last year were up 22% from the year before, hitting $31 billion. Here’s the biggest news:

  • Mobile ads grew the most of all categories, up 149%, or $1.6 billion
  • Search was the largest category with a 47% share (up 27% to $11.7 billion)

Digital video rose 29% to $1.8 billion and display advertising made up the rest with 35% of all revenues.

“This historic moment, with an especially impressive achievement in mobile, is indicative of an increased awareness from advertisers that they need to reach consumers where they are spending their time—in digital media,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of IAB, in a press release.

Ad Revenues versus Ad Spending

Internet ad spending is huge – the next biggest after traditional television advertising. $31.7 billion of ad spending in 2011 was on Internet ads. Retailers spent the most (22%), followed by telecom (12%), and leisure and travel (8%).

Unsurprisingly, Internet ads’ revenue growth has outpaced all other media outlets’ over the past seven years. Retail has seen the most growth in Internet ad revenues, followed by financial services, telecom, auto, then computing products tied with leisure travel.

As for the minutiae of what makes a great Internet ad, that our business. Let’s talk about whether and what kind of Internet ads are best suited to your business. iQM.

The PDF of the full report is here.

Social Media: Photos Drive Twice As Much Engagement

social media facebook photosWhen marketers talk about social media and what businesses can do to engage customers using social media, they often limit their discussion to prescribed frequency and content of text posts. Granted, the bulk of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media posts will be short bursts of text. But some networks, like Facebook, lend themselves so well to photos (pics) that there are 250 million uploaded each day (making Facebook the biggest photos site in the world).

And, photos on social media networks drive twice as much engagement as text posts.

The growth of apps like Instagram is another indicator of the power of pics when it comes to social media. For businesses, photos allow for subtle marketing because each photo can accomplish a number of things:

1. At the simplest level, showcases new products, driving traffic to your site

2. Shows customers how to use or enjoy your products

3. Encourages customer feedback

4. Provides visual inspiration

5. Gives insight into your creative process

On number 5: All businesses may not be creative businesses, but all businesses need creative thinking to thrive. This is the kind of thing your followers and your new potential customers want to see – it’s part of why they approach you on social media to start with.

Using Photos on Social Media Correctly

Not all photos need to be product-centric. Related trends, pop culture references, and other examples that you are a vibrant and productive participant in your particular industry, are important. If you were a clothing designer, for instance, you would want to post photos of food or musicians that embody the aesthetic of your latest line.

What To Do Now

Tell us about your company. Join in our creative process in bringing out what it is about your company that will inspire social media engagement and drive traffic to your site.

 

Press Release Showcase: OxygenBars.com

press releaseDo you or your company have a new concept, product or service, or an event, that you’d like to publicize with a press release? Do you have anything newsworthy that the world needs to hear about? iQuarius Media can research, write, optimize, and distribute your press release.

Press Release Sample: OxygenBars.com

Here is a writing sample from our archives, released in Fall 2011 for OxygenBars.com.

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OxygenBars.com Provides the Elusive Commodity — A Captive Audience — At The PMA Fresh Summit

As trade show exhibitors get creative to draw people into their booths, they employ crowd-attracting devices such as oxygen bars.

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Venice, FL — The Produce Marketers Association (PMA) will be holding its 2011 Fresh Summit, in Atlanta, GA. From October 14 through 17. At least 18,500 people are expected to attend this International Convention and Exposition.

Industry giants such as Del Monte, Dole, Monsanto, Sunkist and Sysco will be sponsoring and exhibiting. Thousands of participants from food service, supermarkets, government agencies, educational institutions, and other organizations representing the entire supply chain of produce and flowers will be represented at the trade show.

In search of networking opportunities and a chance to promote their products and services, buyers and sellers will be jostling for attention from each other. Trade show participants have had to find creative ways to catch the eye of a potential customer. As such, an oxygen bar will be one crowd-attracting device and attendee perk that will be seen at this year’s trade show.

OxygenBars.com will be setting up a four-station oxygen bar at the Fresh Summit. In the evening, OxygenBars.com will be supplying oxygen after-hours at a corporate party. With individual oxygen sessions running in the five-minute range, the oxygen bars will provide participants an unprecedented way to promote their products and information to a relaxed, receptive, and — most importantly — captive audience.

_________________________________

About OxygenBars.com

OxygenBars.com is the worldwide leader in oxygen bar manufacturing, equipment, and event services. Servicing clients in the United States and worldwide in 52 countries. For more information, please visit https://OxygenBars.com.

For more information on the Fresh Summit, please visit https://www.freshsummit.com.

B2B Social Media Marketing

b2b social mediaAs a business owner, you can no longer ignore the role social media plays in the survival of any business.

You may think that Business to Business has nothing to do with social media; you may be surprised how vital B2B social media is for your business’s success.

6 Steps to Get You Started with B2B Social Media Marketing

Step 1: Understand what you want B2B social media marketing to achieve for your business.  Remember, with B2B social media marketing, it is a means to an end. This golden rule will help you measure your B2B social media marketing success. If, at any stage, you are unable to identify what you are trying to accomplish, you are wasting your time. Begin your B2B social media marketing by setting one or two clear goals and always have them in mind as your guide throughout your marketing efforts.

Step 2: Find your B2B social media audience. The main point of B2B social media marketing is to successfully reach your target audience. Find out where your customers spend their time online. Where are they most vocal? Identify the proper channels to address. Otherwise, you are just wasting your time.

Step 3: Develop the proper B2B social media content.  Of course, everything eventually boils down to proper content. Why is content strategy essential in B2B social media marketing? What type of information is relevant and interesting to your target audience? It’s something they’re already talking about. It becomes a matter of creating content and then using the proper methods of distributing that content — which differs from audience to audience (that is, from industry to industry).

Step 4: Consider Search and SEO in B2B social media. Be search engine friendly as a matter of course throughout your B2B social media marketing. People Google their questions and do their research through search. Customers and clients go online to finalize their purchase decisions. Optimize everything. Leverage keywords so they find you when they’re ready to make a deal. This is where your B2B social media marketing feeds into your bottom line. 

Step 5: Establish a digital footprint for your B2B social media. Leave a description of your business and an active link for users to click on, everywhere. Besides supporting your SEO efforts, active links are a direct line to your website so users can find it with minimal effort. At the very least, put a link to your site on all your landing pages, welcome pages, and profiles (where applicable) on all your B2B social media channels.

Step 6: Hold yourself accountable. Business requires trust and reliability. Be who you say you are. And establish a regular process for reporting, such as through analytics, so that you can measure your business’ progress at the end of each month.

 Summary

One important thing to note through all this is that running a B2B Social Media marketing campaign requires a lot of hours. Keeping open communications with people you regularly do business with is one thing. But knowing when to outsource is a smart move. A good Internet marketing team can improve targeted traffic and:

  • Create fresh content and push it out on a daily basis
  • Keep an eye on analytics to measure your business’ reach — then interpret and act on the insights provided
  • Manage accounts to make sure you’re not missing important communications with potential business partners and customers
  • Optimize everything

Call us if you need help. We can do all of the above. With a smile.

The Cyber Monday Myth

Cyber Monday is a myth. Let’s put that a little more accurately: Cyber Monday was a myth. It started as a marketing ploy by an e-tailers’ association that encouraged its members to create special ads for a Monday in 2005. Sales were good, but not the best – and they haven’t been the best.

Until last year.

In 2010, Cyber Monday became the first online shopping day to surpass the $1 billion mark, exceeding all expectations. It was a marketing campaign turned self-fulfilling prophecy.

There’s more.

The next two weeks or so after the initial Cyber Monday sales brought on the second, third, fourth, and fifth heaviest sales days of the entire year:

  •  Green Monday (12-13-10) brought in $954 million
  • 12-6-10 did $943 million
  • Free Shipping Day did $942 million
  • and 12-16-10 rounded out the top 5 with $930 million

Local businesses (with Small Business Saturday, for example) as well as the big retailers are going so far as to cut into their profit margins to market for Cyber Monday and Cyber Week. For many retailers who make upwards of 40% of their entire year’s sales during this period, the cost of not getting in on the action is steep.

The rules are simple.

  1. Join the fray. Create the discounts for your store or services and start marketing. It means nothing to do one without the other. The discount can be simple, and it doesn’t have to be for everything.  Saturating social media with “Cyber Monday this” and “Cyber Monday that” and that without having a deal to back it up is not a good idea. Not that a lot of retailers don’t do it – but consumers are also especially wary of that kind of thing during this season.
  2. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Think of Cyber Monday as a kicking-off point. Use the momentum to fuel the rest of December’s sales.
  3. Keep Internet marketing content fresh, and keep it coming. Consumers – and while we’re at it, Google – is looking for mentions of Cyber Monday of THIS year. Tag, link, blog, etc., accordingly.
  4. Stay real. Seriously. Being too sales-y will just get you lost in the noise – there are thousands of retailers out there spouting sales copy, and the trick is to not sound like them.
  5. Get help. It’s exhausting enough being a shopper during this season, let alone a business. Hire an Internet marketing team, or load up your existing team with work.

Black Friday doesn’t have the numbers to back its claims up as the busiest shopping day of the year. Cyber Monday does. Get marketing. Can you afford not to?

Mobile Apps for Digital Marketing: 10 Things You MUST Know

1. Only do apps when you need more

Compared to browsing, mobile apps offer a richer level of user interaction allowing more complex graphics, media, and information to be presented. They also provide a more robust and secure environment for user engagement. But, if you can deliver what you are trying to achieve through a browser you will be able to reach far more consumers. –Jeremy Copp, CEO, Rapid Mobile Media

2. Tell people about your app

Don’t just rely on app stores, you can distribute apps via mobile sites, operators, and through multiple ad placements and formats for maximum impact and reach. –Theo Theodorou, EMEA Sales Manager, Mobile Advertising, Microsoft Advertising

3. Think further than the iPhone

The iPhone offers fantastic functionality for developers and users alike, and apps developed for the platform are eminently PR-able, and are often shared virally. It has a fast growing user base, and reaches relatively wealthy 25-44 year olds who actively use mobile media very well; but also developing a Java version, optimised to work over a wide range of handsets including BlackBerry will give you a far greater potential reach. –Mark Angell, Business Development Director, Marvellous

4. Get the balance right

There are 2 fundamental balances to achieve. Firstly, business objectives vs user needs: For the application to be effective, the business needs must carefully consider the user as well as commercial objectives. Secondly, the three E’s (Engagement, Entertainment, and Effectiveness): Functional apps often outlast the usage of entertainment-based apps. –Paul Taylor, Strategist & Planner, COI

5. Know the average app user

There are 8.7 million people who have used a downloaded app in the UK which is 18% of mobile users. 60% of these users are playing games that they have downloaded. The median age of an apps user is 32 years old and 43% are female. 36% of app users own smartphones compared to 15% of the total market. –Alistair Hill, Analyst and Mobile Products, Europe, comScore

6. Brand-building vs sales

Free applications get the most downloads, where as paid-for applications generate revenue. Knowing whether you are branding or selling is a key point when launching your first application. –Ross Butler, Creative, Parrott and Miller

7. Product longevity is essential

Every service needs a roadmap, no matter how basic. Customers will quickly get bored with a uni-functional app which has no new features or capability added over time. By adding functionality as time goes on you can create brand advocacy. –Christian Harris, CEO, Gorilla Box

8. Send them in the right direction

Ads in existing applications are a great place to advertise, but make sure that the destination site is optimised for mobile. If you don’t then you risk low conversion and a poor perception of your brand. –Jonathan Abraham, Brand Sales Director, AdMob

9. Test, test, and test again

If a customer can access it on their handset it needs to work. If it doesn’t it will do more damage than good to your brand. Invite feedback and always read customer reviews (don’t just ask friends to write them!) to ensure you’re meeting the needs of your consumer. –Oliver Newton, Head of Emerging Platforms, i-level

10. Be on brand

Just like with any form of communication ensure that your app is ‘on brand.’ Tone of voice, brand values, message, production values, and brand fit are essential in making a great brand app. –Kieron Matthews, Marketing Director, IAB

IABUK.

5G Mobile Internet on the Horizon?

Mobile Internet is the biggest thing to come along since, well, cell phones and the Internet. Now, before 4G internet is even mainstream, the possibilities of 4.5G and 5G are on the horizon.

Researchers at Rice University have made a breakthrough that could allow wireless companies to double throughput in their networks without adding a single cell phone tower or overhauling existing phone hardware.

“Full duplex” wireless would enable phones and tablets to  “talk” and “listen” on the same frequency, something that requires two frequencies today. In 2010, professor of electrical and computer engineering Ashutosh Sabharwal along with Melissa Duarte and Chris Dick published the first paper showing that full-duplex wireless was possible. That set the worldwide wireless community off on a race to see if it could be implemented on real networks. This summer, Sabharwal and Guarav Patel demonstrated in real-time that it could be done. They set new performance records while they did it, producing signal quality at least 10 times better than any previously published result. All they did was add an extra antenna and pulled a few computing tricks.

All this could mean new wireless standards allowing carriers to upgrade to 5G in just a few years.

“Our solution requires minimal new hardware, both for mobile devices and for networks, which is why we’ve attracted the attention of just about every wireless company in the world,” said Sabharwal.

Millionaires Prefer Facebook

A new study shows that 46% of online users with investable assets of $1 million or more are members of Facebook, up from 26% a year ago. The survey, by Spectrem Group, showed that millionaire’s use of Twitter has declined, from 5% to 3%.

They also remained fairly cool to LinkedIn. Only 19% of millionaires used LinkedIn – unchanged from a year ago.

Plenty of earlier studies have shown that more than half of millionaires are on Facebook – even if they rarely have time to actually use it. But the Twitter and LinkedIn numbers are somewhat surprising, given that both would seem to appeal to a more business-minded, time-pressed elite.

Apparently not.  One reason may be that Twitter is a more open network, which makes it more difficult for control-freak millionaires to manage who follows them. On Facebook, you can more easily manage access to information.

Another is that Twitter is largely a broadcast tool, while Facebook is more of a network builder. The rich value personal networks more than online megaphones.

But age also plays a role. According to the study, among those with $5 million or more in investable assets, the boomers are slightly more likely to use Facebook than the youngest investors — 56% vs. 50%, respectively. (Warren Buffett is an exception, of course).  Twitter was generally more popular with the younger-millionaire crowd.

They also are split on where they get their financial news. Millionaires younger than 55 years old are at least twice as likely as those ages 55-64 to get their information from social media than from traditional media outlets.

Thankfully, blogs remain popular among all millionaires. Nearly one-third of investors worth $5 million or more say they either read or would read blogs by trusted financial advisers.

Ten Things to Avoid When Running an SEO Campaign

Even if you’re using the skills and expertise of an SEO firm, it is still important that you at least know the basics of SEO so that you can work with the company to make the results even better.

There are loads of things that you need to be doing within an SEO campaign, but there are also some things that you REALLY must avoid, and we take a look at some of these below with our top ten things to avoid when running an SEO campaign.

1. Waiting Too Long – One of the biggest mistakes most people make is waiting too long to even begin an SEO campaign. If you have a website you should be running some kind of SEO, no matter how young the site is, because a good campaign can help to get a higher ranking in the early days.

2. Targeting Competitive Keywords – If you sell houses then the chances of you getting to the top of Google for the keyword “houses” are going to be slim, to say the least. If you are working in an extremely competitive market, then you need to look outside of the box and start looking at easier keywords that you can rank for, because realistically, it is going to take a lot of time, effort, and a little bit of luck to top the charts for the most competitive search terms.

3. Ignoring Long tail Keywords – Many people think that they should always go for the most popular keywords, but these often tend to be the most competitive, so you need to look at the long tail keywords. If you targeted 5 long tail keywords that all attracted 200 searches a month but were less competitive than one that attracted 1000 searches a month, you stand more chance of getting the traffic you want in a much shorter time.

4. Writing Rubbish ContentContent is king for Google and the search engine is so advanced and sophisticated these days that it can easily spot duplicate content and also poor quality content. The main aim is to write high quality content that is useful, informative, and offers the user a good experience; or else you will just be wasting your time and hindering your progress.

5. Publishing Poor Articles – Content on your own site is very powerful, but you should also look at writing articles and releasing them on some of the more powerful article directories like EzineArticles. If you are going to do this, then make sure you only publish good quality articles, otherwise they will be rejected and, once again, you will have wasted your time.

6. Spammy Blog Comments – Although blog commenting can be a good way to get relevant links back to your site, if you go around adding poor and unrelated comments, then this is only going to backfire on you in the long run. If you are going to comment on blogs, then make sure that you post quality comments on quality
sites and check out the link follow status and the page rank / authority before you even begin.

7. Reciprocal Linking – Swapping links used to be one of the methods used for acquiring links until, like most link practices, it was abused and Google started to shy away from the weight it carried in rankings. Although it can be a good idea to swap links with local businesses or related businesses, do not waste your time swapping links and also limit the number of outbound links you have on your site.

8. Bad Link Neighbourhoods – Always avoid linking to or getting links from “bad neighborhoods” – sites like gambling, adult and other sites that might be considered a little bit risque. If you are found to have loads of links on these types of sites, then you are going to be in trouble, so always make sure you are careful about where links are added to your site.

9. Ignoring Your Own Website – SEO begins at home because if your website is rubbish, any extra traffic you generate will be a waste of time. Add to this the fact that if your meta titles and content are really poor, you are also going to lose out on ranking because two of the biggest factors when it comes to onsite SEO are meta titles and quality content.

10. Running Out Of Patience – SEO takes time – fact! You cannot expect to start an SEO campaign and get overnight results; it will take weeks, if not months, before you really start to get the results that you deserve if you run a good campaign. SEO should be an ongoing thing, running for as long as you decide to keep your website alive, because SEO is one of those things that goes on forever and is a constant effort.

Ian D. Spencer

Tweet Lots of Links To Get Followers

To get followers on Twitter isn’t about herding unicorns — that is, there’s nothing mythical about it.

Looking at the relationship between the number of followers a user has and the percentage of their Tweets that are “@” replies: Highly followed users are less conversational than those with few followers.

Looking at the relationship between follower count and the percentage of a user’s tweets that contain links and are not replies: Using a sample of random, recently active Twitter accounts, there is a strong correlation. As the amount of links a user tweets increases, the number of followers they have also increases. And users with more than 1,000 followers tend to tweet many more links than users with fewer than 1,000 followers.

The data is starting to mount to suggest that “engaging in the conversation” is a waste of time from a marketing and reach-building perspective, especially when compared to sharing content.

 

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