Babelfish Articles Dec 2011

Babelfish Articles December 2011 Brian Crotty Babelfish.Brazil@gmail.comArticles that caught my attention this month

Index1. Social, Mobile Hotter Than Ever in 20112. How Mobile Will Change Search And Display In 20123. Yes, the Feds Are Spying on Social Media4. Top 14 Things Marketers Need to Know About QR Codes5. Gamification: A Fad Or The Future6. Healthcare Takes It Up A Level On Gaming7. Leadership for the Marketing Optimization Team8. Cash in on Content and Social Media Marketing in 20129. Social Media Agency: Fad or Revolution?10. M.I.T. Game-Changer: Free Online Education For All11. Content and Device Separate12. Listen Without Reacting13. Push Notifications: Keep Mobile Users In Touch14. 2012 Forecast: Mobile Marketing15. Kiip Raises Stakes On Mobile Game Rewards, Partners With Disney16. The Ten Most Annoying Management Terms Of 201117. CPG Shopping Habits Reduced To Four Kinds of Trips18. Youre Using the Wrong Social Media Metrics!19. Mobile Devices Have Eclipsed the Desktop Experience; Get Over It20. Look At The Big Picture In 201221. 5 Innovative Campaigns You Might Have Missed22. Use Your Facebook Timeline Profile for Your Career23. 10 facts of the marketing year (Brazil)24. Top 5 Most Common Networking Mistakes25. ERIC-SCHMIDT-DISCUSSES-GOOGLES-COMPETITORS-CHINA-ACQUISITIONS-AND-MORE26. 2012 Digital Planning Guide27. 6 Game-Changing Digital Journalism Events of 201128. 5 Tech Trends to Watch in 201229. Fjord: Year-End Round-Up: Digital In 201130. Online Love: Amazon Earns Highest Marks Yet31. Dont Worry About Your First Job32. Exposure to Social Media Linked with Changes in Sales and Brand Perception33. Set the Stage for your Next Meeting34. Digitas Bitterman On Owned, Earned And Hype -- And Why Google+ Has Been A Negative35. How to Ace a Google Interview36. The iPhone App Store Generates 4X The Revenue The Android App Store37. For Google, Fixing Android Is Like Herding Cats38. Creating an Engagement Index39. Time to Change Our Thinking...Again40. Publishers Challenge Audience Report41. Want Digital Content Domination - Accelerate content innovation?42. Traditional Brick-And-Mortar Retailers Slowly Catching On To Online Search Marketing43. 3 Marketing Mega Trends For 201244. Optify Forecasts Trends For Marketing and Social Media in 201245. Will Digital Media Folks Own the Next-Gen TV Conversations At CES?46. Biggest Trend Of 2011 In Online Video47. How Data From Social Media Will Impact Marketing48. FCC Moves Toward WiFi On Steriods By Approving White Spaces Devices49. ComScore’s 2011 Social Report: Facebook Leading, Microblogging Growing, World Connecting50. 2012 Trends: Sports Sponsorship Meets Digital Media And Entertainment51. Where Are the Talent Shortages As We Start 2012?52. 4 Megatrends in Social Media and Social Business53. A Few Link Building Predictions For 201254. Why Discovery Must Evolve To Save Social Commerce55. 5 Reasons Why real-time bidding Is Not About Price56. Marc Andreessen: Predictions for 2012 (and beyond)57. With Bluefin Labs, Publicis SMG Looks Beyond TV Ratings58. A New Words Resolution59. Moms Say Social Media Impacts Retail Purchases60. New Years Predictions? No Time For Them!61. The Problem With Gamification62. The Age of And - The mix is where the marketing alchemy comes inBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 2

63. Five Things You Should Stop Doing in 201264. Stop Competing to Be the Best65. McDonalds Digital Promos Geotarget College Kids66. Global Executives Treading Cautiously Into 1267. Marketers Struggle With Social Media68. EA Sports Creating Real-World Experiences69. Social Business Planning in 201270. Microsoft Mixes Social Networking With Search71. Choosing the Right Social Technology Vendors72. Top Ten Reasons Why Large Companies Fail To Keep Their Best Talent73. Ten Issues Marketers Should Have on Their 2012 Agenda74. Enhance Your Agency-Client Relationships for The New Normal75. Digital Works to Lift Brand Awareness and Sales -- Without Direct Response76. 7 Things Highly Productive People Do77. Study Finds Google Wallet Could Leak Consumer Data78. Use Jugaad to Innovate Faster, Cheaper, Better79. Take Control of Your To-Do List80. Crises in rich countries the major challenge for emerging economies81. Forresters "Three Social Thunderstorms" At LeWeb82. David Armano: Six Social Media Trends for 201283. 5 Ways to Spot a Bad Boss In An Interview84. Web no celular é o maior desejo das classes C, D e E85. Why I Hire People Who Fail86. Augmented Reality Apps Are The New QR Codes87. Top Trends To Keep In Mind In 12: Mediapost Engage Moms88. 10 Strategies For Building A Successful Social Business89. How to Be a Social Media Power Influencer (And Why!)90. Beyond The Dashboard: Online Advocacy And Offline Sales91. How Online Publishers Should Approach Mobile Ad Networks (With Caution)92. Twitter Just Fired A Cannonball At Facebook And Google+93. Twitter Announces Redesign And New Features94. Dont Short-Sell App Engagement -- Or Video95. Tech Trends: Increasing Traffic With HTML5 Microdata96. SEO: Obstacles, Opportunities and the Future97. The Horses Mouth98. Asking Better Questions99. Trick Questions100. Chief Analytical Officer101. The New Social Order102. Test Your Innovation IQ103. Cutting Through the Remarketing Clutter With Real Time Bidding (RTB)104. Social Media ROI Remains a High Priority for Marketers105. 3 Online Advertising Trends To Watch In 12106. More QR Codes In Store (And Elsewhere) For 12107. Goodbye QR Codes, Hello Near Field Communication?108. Implementing Digital Is a Philosophy109. How to Know When You Should Advertise to Tablet Users110. Digital Is a Philosophy: A New Looking Glass for Common Digital Tactics111. Brands face "big data" test112. Google Adds Graphical Math Calculator To Search Results113. The 20 Best New Startups Of 2011114. Who Are the Top 10 Influencers in Social Media?115. 15 Ways to Bring Social Media to Events116. DATA CRUNCHED: How email deluge makes workers go postal117. MAGNAGLOBAL MEDIA OWNERS ADVERTISING REVENUE FORECAST:118. Social Media - Its Not About Technology119. Social Media Connections Between Consumers and Brands That Inspire Sales120. Do We Need Stinkin Badges?121. Casting the Right Hook Into the Digital Talent PoolBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 3

SymphonyRI: The CPG Basket: Fostering Growth in a Time of Conservation Dec… Ogilvy: Exposure to Social Media Linked with Changes in Sales and Brand Pe… Interbrand Best Retail Brands 2011 Edelman: Social Business Planning Comscore Top 10 need-to-knows about social networking_and_where_it_is_head… Comscore The power of like ICT facts figures 2011 MMA mobile advertising white paper english MMA spain mobile white paper spanishBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 4

Buddy Media + Booz co campaigns-to-capabilities-social-media-and-marketing… Break Media Video study 2012-12-8 PWC Millennials At Work 2011 Most Contagious 2011 MIllward Brown: 12 digital predictions for 2012 JWT10 trends for 2012 executive summary 11 12 05 Magnaglobal global advertising forecast 20 december 2011 Babelfish Articles Nov 2011 Earnst & Young: Innovating for the next three billion CMO council survey: Localize to optimize sales channel effectivenessBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 5

Social, Mobile Hotter Than Ever in 2011by Karlene LukovitzSocial media and mobile marketing continued to heat up in the food/beverage and restaurant categories in 2011 --as Marketing Daily’s most-read stories in these areas amply demonstrate:1. Location-Based Marketing To Diners To ExplodeConsumers today want a moveable feast -- sometimes quite literally, as the remarkable growth of specialty and even chain-owned food trucks has shown. And in another tough year for much of the restaurant industry, location-based and social mediaenabled chains and independent operators to target diners in ways that can only be described as revolutionary. Starbucks,McDonalds, Chipotle and Burger King were among the biggies that leveraged Foursquare, Facebook and (in some cases) Twitterto drive folks through their doors, increase per-diner spend and engender loyalty/repeat business with rewards and offerstargeted via consumers profiles and transactions data. Not to mention the continuing explosion of mobile ordering andelectronic payments…2. A First: Pepsi Using Foursquare on Global BasisSpeaking of location-based marketing, restaurants are far from alone in employing this hyper-targeted platform to the max. Inthe beverage category, Pepsi pulled off an ingenious marketing first: Using a Foursquare badge on a global basis. During theprime soda-drinking July 4th weekend, the brand previewed a fun new TV commercial -- featuring a hip polar bear and hisbrown-bear friend by the pool -- on its Facebook page and YouTube. The spot -- the first-ever from a major CPG brand toemploy Foursquare messaging -- debuted on "Americas Got Talent" the same evening. The ad encouraged fans around theworld to follow Pepsi on Foursquare to ―unlock summer fun‖ (those who checked in from specified locations like beaches andparks earned badges and entry in a sweeps). It was supported by Twitter ads, takeovers of Yahoo and other mass-reach sites,and QR codes on in-store promotions that linked fans to the campaign commercials. Marketing Daily readers were wowed bythis campaigns innovation, integration and sheer logistics.3. Dunkin Launches K-Cups; Starbucks Soon to FollowIf there’s anything that’s hotter than single-serve coffee, it’s the rivalry among the major brands pushing to grab maximummarket share in this lucrative, rapidly growing category. In August, Dunkin’ Donuts made its extremely popular coffee brandavailable for sale in its stores in single-serve Keurig K-Cups, for at-home enjoyment. Soon after, Starbucks, also through a dealwith Keurig parent Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, launched its own single-serve packs for the brewing system in food, drug,mass, club, specialty and department stores throughout the U.S. and Canada. Starbucks also has a deal with Courtesy Products,the leading provider of in-room coffee service to U.S. hotels, to make Starbucks ground coffees available in up to 500,000luxury and premium hotel rooms across the U.S., for use in Courtesys CV1 in-room and on-demand brewed coffee system. Now,we’re awaiting Starbucks’ next moves. Might the coffee titan create its own brewing system?4. Brand Keys: Loyalty Now Hinges On DelightMarketing Daily brought readers an exclusive first look at the results of this year’s always much-anticipated Brand KeysCustomer Loyalty Engagement Index, based on tracking key loyalty factors across 528 brands and 79 categories. Just onefood/restaurant brand made the overall top 10: McDonald’s, at #7. The other brands that rose to the top by ―delighting‖consumers with innovative, life-enhancing products and services were #1 Netflix (prior to its ill-advised jacking up ofsubscription pricing), Apple, Walgreens, Discover, Hyundai, Mary Kay, J. Crew, Samsung and Nikon.5. Report: Gluten-Free Momentum AcceleratingWhat’s causing so many Americans to develop allergies or intolerance to gluten? No one seems to know for certain, butaddressing this problem has proved a bonanza for a major CPG makers, private-label purveyors and specialty brands alike.Packaged Facts documented the trend, estimating that the gluten-free food and beverage category had experienced startling30% sales growth in the U.S. between 2006 and 2010. Indeed, the researcher upped its previous sales projection for 2011 to$2.64 billion, from $2.3 billion. With annual compound growth projected at 14% between 2011 and 2015 (to $5.6 billion), thecontinuing stream of new gluten-free products should keep a lot of marketers very busy for the foreseeable future.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 6

6. Cabot Soup Swap Mixes Events, Social MediaCabot Creamery, a cooperative of 1,200 family dairy farmers, demonstrates that leveraging social media in sophisticated, highlyeffective ways need not require big budgets. Case in point: Cabots "Community Soup Swap," which combines at-home eventsthrown by popular bloggers, a social media-driven recipe contest, donations to food banks, and Facebook and Twitteroutreach. Cabot also employs its extensive social media and blogger networks to marshal volunteers who organize cheese-sampling events in their localities. Furthermore, it recognizes people who serve their communities via programs in partnershipwith national organizations and its online ―Random Acts of Cheddar‖ initiative.7. Millennials: Big On Cause-Marketing, Not On TVResearch of relevance to virtually all categories, including food/beverages and restaurants. A study from Barkley marketingagency, Service Management Group and The Boston Consulting Group confirmed that Millennials are more aware thanAmericans of other generations of cause-marketing-based ad campaigns, and more likely to be exposed to these throughsocial media and online channels. Equally important, just 26% watch 20-plus hours of TV per week, versus 49% of the rest ofthe population. Among the other key findings: Millennials seek peer affirmation/advice; they crave adventure and fun; theyuse their mobile devices to scope out deals and products while shopping; they’re more likely to grocery shop in groups;they’re big on snacking, and they prefer casual dining.8. McDonalds Using Foursquare in N.Y.C.The QSR giants first use of Foursquare in the New York metro area focused on driving awareness and sampling of its McCafébeverages. McDonalds encouraged residents of nine metro areas to celebrate their hometowns and engage in three separaterounds of friendly competition to win McCafé ―parties.‖ The three boroughs/towns with the most Foursquare check-ins fromMcDonald’s locations each won a full day during which free, small McCafé drinks were distributed at a local McD’s. The conceptwas supported by a Twitter campaign, mobile banners, radio, out-of-home and in-store merchandising. In addition tosupporting McCafé sales and boosting brand loyalty, the initiative yielded ample marketing intelligence about regionalproduct preferences and behaviors.9. Brand Keys: Amazon Is 2011s #1 Loyalty LeaderMore insights from Brand Keys’ 2011 Customer Loyalty Engagement Index study, this time showing the top 100 Loyalty Leaders.Topping the list: Amazon, Apple (smartphone), Facebook, Samsung, Apple (computer), Zappos, Hyundai, Kindle, Patron tequila andMary Kay.10. Gen Y Changing Alcoholic Beverages MarketplaceAnother piece resonated with readers because of the pressing need to understand Millennials’ behaviors across all productcategories. Nielsens Millennial Study found that those in this age cohort are more open to exploring new alcoholic beverageproducts; consume more wine and spirits than their parents did (although they still drink beer most); are more likely to equatecost with quality; and are heavily influenced by social media. The researchers stressed the impact of multicultural Gen Y’s, inparticular, on the alcoholic beverages market.How Mobile Will Change Search And Display In 2012by Laurie Sullivan, Dec 28, 2011, 12:49 PMGoogle has developed a framework for the AdWhirl SDK that allows developers to display banner ads from different networksin their iOS and Android applications, but it also enables them to turn off the refresh rate for ads serving up in apps on mobiledevices. Allowing developers to turn off the refresh rate is significant because the longer the ad remains on the screen visibleto the user, the better the chance it will be clicked on.Eric Leichtenschlag on the Google AdMob team tells us that advertisers need only indicate to AdWhirl the ad networks whereads should appear, along with the percentage of requests to allocate to each network. AdWhirl handles the ad requeststhrough Ad Mob. Eliminating the refresh rate prevents AdMob from grabbing and serving up another ad on its own.Framingham, Mass.-based IDC estimates Google will take 24% market share of the $2.1 billion U.S. mobile ad biz this year -- upfrom 19% and $877 million, respectively, in 2010. IDC believes Google holds about 91% share of the mobile search market.Combine mobile search with mobile display, and IDC pegs Googles share at 71%, up 11% in the past year.No doubt about it -- mobile search and display ads will become the hot trend for 2012. In November, IgnitionOne reported thatBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 7

consumer mobile searches rose 355% in the past year, since Q4 2010.During the Search Insider Summit earlier this month, we asked marketers attending the event to name the percentage of theironline budgets earmarked for mobile in 2012. Half of the respondents said they would allocate between 11% and 20%, followedby one-quarter who said between 1% and 5%, and another quarter that said they would allocate between 6% and 10%.Marketers and advertisers should expect major changes to occur in search for 2012. Brands now imprint QR codes oneverything from pickup trucks to billboards, helping consumers find information on the go through smartphones. In a blogrecap posted last week, Googlers wrote that 79% of smartphone consumers use their phones to help when shopping bycomparing prices and finding more product info. About 70% use their smartphones in a store, and 77% have contacted abusiness via mobile, with 61% calling and 59% visiting the local business.Aside from QR codes, marketers should expect a higher dependency on voice search in 2012. Google and Bing launched versionsfirst, but Apples Siri for the iPhone showed us a better way to get answers and produce actions without typing keywords intoa search engine.Yes, the Feds Are Spying on Social Mediaby Erik Sass,Just in case anyone still harbors illusions on this score, the answer is ―Yes, the federal government is definitely spying onsocial media.‖ In the latest development, a group of online privacy advocates is suing the Department of Homeland Security forfailing to release records of its online spying -- which isn’t terribly surprising, considering that it’s not really spying anymore ifeveryone knows what you’re doing.The DHS has admitted in a public statement that it creates profiles to monitor ―publicly available online forums, blogs, publicwebsites, and message boards,‖ including social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, in what is known as the ―PubliclyAvailable Social Media Monitoring and Situational Awareness Initiative.‖ The aim is to ―to provide situational awareness‖ forthe federal, state, and local governments; the DHS ―may also share this de-identified information with international partnersand the private sector where necessary and appropriate for coordination.‖ Crucially, the DHS statement also reveals thatparticipating agencies may reveal personally identifying information about Internet users in emergency, life-and-deathsituations.The list of search and monitoring tools used by the DHS includes Collecta, RSSOwl, Social Mention, Spy, Who’s Talkin, and ShrookRSS Reader, while public content and media sharing sites monitored by DHS include Hulu, iReport.com, Live Leak, Magma, TimeTube, Vimeo, YouTube, and MySpace Video. Twitter alone is monitored through a score of Twitter-specific search engines andtrend monitoring services.The array of search terms used by DHS to keep tabs on social media includes ―Secret Service,‖ ―Border Patrol,‖ ―Agent,‖ ―TaskForce,‖ ―Air Marshal,‖ ―Assassination,‖ ―Attack,‖ ―Drill,‖ ―Exercise,‖ ―Cops,‖ ―Dirty Bomb,‖ ―Militia,‖ ―Shooting,‖ ―Shots fired,‖ ―Deaths,‖―Explosion,‖ ―Gangs,‖ ―Breach,‖ and ―Lockdown,‖ as well as -- surprise -- the names of agencies like the CIA, the FBI, and ofcourse the DHS itself.Back in April 2011 an organization called the Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a Freedom of Information Act requestfor records pertaining to the DHS use of social media monitoring -- a request that EPIC says the DHS has failed to respond to.Thus on December 20 EPIC filed an FOIA lawsuit against DHS for these records, which EPIC director Marc Rotenberg told ABCNews will supply more information about when, where, and how social media monitoring is used.ABC News quotes Rotenberg: ―We want to know how theyre collecting information online, what theyre collecting online and iftheres legal basis to do this… We are trying to understand what the circumstances are when the DHS is engaged in tracking tosocial media sites.‖In an earlier post I wrote about the fact that the DHS is using social networks to ferret out fake "green card" marriagesbetween U.S. citizens and immigrants for the purpose of obtaining residency or citizenship for the latter. According toawesomely frank internal DHS records obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation under a Freedom of Information Actrequest, ―Narcissistic tendencies in many people fuels a need to have a large group of ‘friends’ link to their pages and many ofthese people accept cyber-friends that they dont even know. This provides an excellent vantage point for [the Office of FraudDetection and National Security] to observe the daily life of beneficiaries and petitioners who are suspected of fraudulentactivities.‖Top 14 Things Marketers Need to Know About QR CodesAngie Schottmuller, December 30, 2011118 CommentsI recently spoke at SES New York on best practices for mobile marketing with QR codes. Heres a follow-up crash course ontools, tactics, and best practices to confidently help you jumpstart a 2D barcode marketing campaign.1. A QR Code is a 2D BarcodeQR codes are an encoded barcode image resembling a square-like maze. Unlike a 1-dimensional UPC code, a 2-dimensionalBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 8

barcode stores data in both directions and can be scanned vertically or horizontally to be decoded. 2. 2D Barcodes Can Store a Variety of Data A traditional 1D barcode (UPC/EAN) stores up to 30 numbers, while a 2D barcode (QR) can store up to 7,089 numbers. The additional storage capacity accommodates a variety of data beyond numbers: Text Hyperlink Telephone number (Phone call) SMS/MMS message Email (Send message) Contact entry (vCard or meCard) Calendar entry (vCalendar) Storing a hyperlink presents a myriad of possibilities beyond just loading a web page -- play a video, download a mobile app, check-in on Foursquare, update a Twitter status, "Like" a Facebook page, display map directions, and more. 3. Read/Decode a 2D Barcode by Scanning it With a Smartphone (A 2D barcode reader app is required to decode the encoded data.) 4. 2D Barcodes Can be Placed in and on Nearly Any Location Once the barcode image is created, it can be printed on nearly any surface and location -- newspapers, TV ads, billboards, temporary tattoos, product packaging, clothing labels, cake frosting, and more. This enables you to drive traffic, interaction, and conversion from anywhere. 2D barcodes excel at bringing non-digital media to life. Note: Use caution placing barcodes online. They should always enhance the user experience. If a user could click a hyperlink, dont make them scan a code to complete the same task. Bear in mind the location must be easily scannable. Plastic frames and packaging can reflect light. Lighting can cast shadows, and hillsides and subways can kill Wi-Fi access. Consider all contextual factors that could impact the scanning experience. 5. Mobile Barcode Scanning is on the Rise 2D barcode scanning outnumbered 1D (UPC) scans in Q1 2011. - ScanLifes Q1 2011 Trend Report Mobile barcode scanning grew 1,600 percent in the year 2010. - ScanLifes 2010 Trend Report (PDF) QR barcode scanning was up 1,200 percent in the second half of 2010. - Mobios Naked Facts Report 22 percent of the Fortune 50 have already used mobile barcodes. - Burson-Marsteller Report Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 9

QR codes can be used for nearly any function (logistics, advertising, customer service, etc.) for B2B and B2C across a variety of industries: Best Buy uses QR codes on in-store price tags for quick access to online reviews. Golf Digest uses Microsoft Tag in their magazine to accompany tips with interactive video. Real estate agents use 2D barcodes on "for sale" signs providing prospective buyers access to virtual tours. Libraries are using QR codes to facilitate learning via interactive scavenger hunts. 6. QR Isnt the Only Type of 2D Barcode The most popular 2D barcode formats are QR code, DataMatrix, ScanLife EZcode, and Microsoft Tag (Tag). There are several key differences in these code formats. ScanLife EZcode and Microsoft Tag are proprietary formats only decodable by their tools, while QR and DataMatrix formats are open standard. (Additional format differences can be addressed in another blog post.) A Google Trends analysis of these 2D barcodes shows "QR code" dominates by far from a search popularity perspective. QR has become a common term used to reference a 2D barcode (2D code, mobile tag, mobile barcode, etc.) even when codes are technically a different format. Even@MicrosoftTag uses the #QRcode hashtag on Twitter. 7. Tools to Generate and Read 2D Barcodes are Free Tools are available for all major mobile phone handsets. To run a 2D barcode campaign youll need to following:1. 2D barcode generator (Website service)2. 2D barcode reader (Mobile app)3. [Optional‖ 2D barcode management/tracking tool (Website service) Generators: Different generators have varying features. Choose a generator based on the options for: Code Format (i.e. QR, EZcode, Tag, etc.) Stored Data (i.e. hyperlink, meCard, SMS, etc.) Output (i.e. color, size, download file type, etc.) QRstuff.com is a comprehensive QR generator providing a variety of stored content, color, size, and output options. ScanLifes generator creates their proprietary EZcode as well as QR and DataMatrix formats. Microsoft Tag only generates Tag. Note: To generate a code on the ScanLife or Microsoft Tag sites, youll first need to create an account. (Tag requires providing personal info like birth date, gender, etc.) Readers: Microsoft Tag and ScanLife EZcode can only be decoded by their respective reader apps. Because of the open standard for QR codes, dozens of reader apps are available. (DataMatrix is usually supported on most QR readers.) Some mobile handsets come with a reader app pre-installed. The following 2D barcode reader apps work on the majority of phones/handsets. Download Link Reader App Code Formats (from your mobile phone) RedLaser QR, UPC/EAN redlaser.com BeeTagg Reader QR, DataMatrix, BeeTagg get.beetagg.com AT&T Code Scanner QR, DataMatrix, UPC/EAN scan.mobi ScanLife EZcode, QR, DataMatrix, UPC/EAN getscanlife.com Microsoft Tag Tag gettag.mobi RedLaser and AT&T Code Scanner also have geolocation features for local price comparison shopping. Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 10

8. Management Tools are Available to Track Scanning Analytics URL-shortener and web analytics for 2D barcodes storing URL hyperlinks are a great start. For comprehensive scan tracking, youll need to use a barcode generator tool that includes tracking analytics. (These tools are not independent.) Some management tools will merely track the number of scans while others provide detailed metrics like demographics, repeat scans, geolocation, and more. Collected analytics depends on the reader app used for scanning, so data results may vary. Management tools are relatively inexpensive and sometimes free. Paid plans typically have a free trial with fees based on the number of scans. 2D Barcode Management & Tracking Tools: Microsoft Tag (Tag) ScanLife (EZcode, QR, DataMatrix, UPC) Tappinn (QR, UPC) Paperlinks (QR) QReateBUZZ (QR) BeQRious (QR) SPARQCode (QR) QReate and Track (QR) 9. 2D Barcode Content Should Provide Special Value for the Customer Its work to scan a barcode, so users have higher expectations as to what content they will find. Reward the user with discounts, exclusive content, or useful tips relevant to the codes context. Consider scenarios that leverage smartphone features (email, SMS, phone call, video, map, apps, etc.) to save the user time. For example, including a QR code on a business card that links to a meCard would be a lot easier than the user manually entering the contact record. In contrast, a QR code that links to a website homepage adds limited value. Note: If you link to a web page, make sure that its mobile-friendly. 10. Small or Complex QR Codes Cant be Scanned by Smartphones With Lesser Quality Cameras Complex 2D barcodes (a lot going on, not very dense) are more challenging and time consuming to scan. In the case of QR codes, more stored content forces a larger code size. In general, its best to minimize data stored in 2D barcodes. Always use a URL-shortener to shrink hyperlinks. (Add analytics tracking parameters before shortening the link.) Warning: Small, complex QR codes are the biggest mistake currently being made by marketers. (Microsoft Tag and EZcode formats generally dont have this issue.) Smartphone cameras with resolution less than 4-megapixels cant scan a QR code smaller than about 1"x1". Moreover, without the auto-focus (AF) camera feature, a complex QR code will have the same scanning issue, even if the code is larger. The iPhone 3GS and Blackberry are popular handset examples that lack both of these camera features. Unscannable codes kill and delay the adoption rate for 2D barcode campaigns. Tip: Always provide a back-up (i.e. hyperlink, SMS text message, etc.) option for users to retrieve info within the code. A back- up enables non-smartphone users to also participate. 11. Consumers Need Guidance to Scan 2D Barcodes The variety of code types, readers, and different terminology is confusing to consumers. Nielsen Company estimates that only 40 percent of U.S. mobile devices are smartphones as of Q1 2011, growing to almost 50 percent by Q3 2011. That means there are a lot of smartphone rookies that barely know how to use their phone, much less distinguish differences in mobile barcode formats and reader apps. As long as 2D barcodes are a novelty concept, always include a brief step-by-step guide with the context of your code. Logical steps:1. Get the reader app2. Scan the code with your mobile device3. (Action that happens upon scanning) Tip: For the reader app download, include a URL link or SMS shortcut to expedite the process. This step is imperative when using proprietary Microsoft Tag or ScanLife EZcode formats since only one reader is capable of scanning their codes. Steps two and three can be combined as a call-to-action. Example: "Scan to ____." (... watch a video, download our app, call customer support, etc.) 12. 2D Barcodes can be Customized Artistically Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 11

QR codes include an Error Correction Level (ECL) that enables "damaged" codes to still be scanned. The error level tolerance (set by the code generator) can be as high as 30%. As a result, creative license can be used to create designer QR codes from a variety of colors or materials (i.e. jelly beans, sand castles, product packaging, etc.) as long as there is adequate contrast to read the code. When it comes to advanced QR code graphic design, its harder than it looks. If you want to get fancy, I recommend connecting with QR art experts at QRarts.com or Delivr.com. Microsoft Tag also allows for artistic codes. Their custom tag tool allows users to generate art from codes or even overlay codes on top of photographs. Tip: Some artistic design is fun and good to see; however, dont go overboard. As long as 2D barcodes are novelty, its important that users easily recognize a scannable code from a distance. 13. Testing Scannability is Imperative. Before you mass print or distribute barcodes be sure to test for scannability. Testing factors: Smartphone cameras (resolution/auto-focus) Reader apps Scan context (i.e. lighting, shadows, surfaces) Scan distance Scan timing 14. Seek Expertise to Ensure Successful Campaigns To ensure campaign success, consider consulting with a mobile barcode marketing expert, especially if its your first time running a mobile barcode campaign. Technology, trends, and tools in this arena are rapidly changing. A few hours of expert consulting can bring your team up to speed, help optimize campaigns for success, and avoid unnecessary embarrassment for poor implementation. Expertise goes beyond consultants: Talk to your web analytics guru and learn all you can about the mobile users currently accessing your website. Seek out mobile marketing industry statistics regarding popular devices and demographics to appropriately target your audience. (Compete,ScanLife, and eMarketer provide regular useful reports.) Follow the #QRcode Twitter hashtag or subscribe to "QR Code News & Mobile Trends" (Paper.li) for the latest news and case studies. Finally, download my QR Code Best Practices Checklist & Campaign Worksheet to help plan and manage your campaigns: Next Steps...Are you ready to jump start a QR code campaign? What questions do you have about the technology, tools or tactics? Please let me know in the comments below. Ill be sure to address the most popular topics in upcoming articles. Gamification: A Fad Or The Future There is lots of evidence that brands see loyalty increases when they invite consumers to participate in an experience. Even Facebook ―likes‖ increase with the smallest gesture of asking people for their opinion in a survey. People collect experiences and they value the involvement that an experience offers. For that reason ―gamification‖ or the application of game mechanics to other types of experiences is interesting because it increases involvement and it’s been shown to create consumer loyalty. And as we all know, loyalty has real business value. While we’ve seen success applying gaming principles to experiences we’ve built for Millennials, there seems to be an emerging debate as to whether or not gamification is here to stay or if it’s currently at the tail end of what Gartner Research deems a hype cycle. This marketer for one thinks gamification will continue to grow for the foreseeable future. There sure doesn’t seem to be a slow down in gaming. Fifty-seven million Americans have played games in a social network (the highest percentage of which are 18 - 34) and according to Research by Pop Cap Games, the number of people spending 6+ hours a week playing social games has doubled since January 2010. But beyond the rise of gaming, here are a few reasons why the relevance of gamification might continue to be applied to Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 12

other types of experiences: 1. People want it. In a recent study by Latitude Research on the Future of Gaming, they found that more than 50% of smartphone users who identify as casual gamers would like to see game dynamics applied to issues outside of traditional games including learning and education, healthcare, and financial planning. 2. The principles of game thinking are very aligned with Millennial values: competition, community, self-expression and reward are all things Millennials value and they are core to a great game experience. These principles are being applied to everything from sport participation (Nike+) to loyalty programs (Starbucks) and health management. I am currently using a new app called The Eatery by Massive Health that helps people improve their health through better eating habits using a game like interface. 3. Entertainment and work have collided. With increased mobility today, there is little separation between the two and as Gartner Group predicts, gamification is something that every CIO, IT Planner and Enterprise Architect must be aware of. As Millennials look for gratifying work experiences, gamification in work can improve results and satisfaction. Salesforce.com has already adopted a Bunchball plugin called Nitro that uses game-like progress tracking, team standings and rewards to increase motivation, engagement and performance. 4. Millennials and Gen Z have grown up as gamers: As such they are very familiar with gaming interfaces in a variety of user experience scenarios. Who hasn’t given their kid their iPhone to keep them busy while in line at Starbucks? What Windows was to baby boomers, gaming interface is to these generations. Ford recognized that and has brought gaming principles into its new Ford Fusion dashboard display. Drivers compete to add leaves to a digital tree by driving more efficiently. 5. Gaming principles have been proven effective for problem solving. In fact, in a study published in the journal Natural Structural & Molecular Biology, players without backgrounds in biochemistry used a game called Foldit to help scientists predict the structure of the retroviral protease, which plays a critical role in the way HIV multiplies. According to Seth Cooper, the game designer, using Foldit to turn a scientific problem into a competitive game ―provides a framework for bringing together the strengths of computers and humans.‖ Computers don’t have great special reasoning skills whereas humans do.If gamification is here to stay, how do we as marketers use that to our advantage? Successfully applying game mechanics tocreate engaging experiences that increase loyalty requires recognizing that just as all people are not the same, neither are allgamers. Before designing any game driven brand experience, marketers need to understand who their target is and what theyfavor as an interaction mode. Are they competitive and strive for status (Foursquare), community and sharing oriented(Turntable.fm), curatorial (Digg), or creative (SETIquest).And finally, gamification requires that brand experiences support people on their journey from novice to expert because theywill have different needs to stay engaged as they progress: 1. Make it easy to learn so on-boarding is fast and engaging. 2. To be involving, show them the way to mastery so there is a path to accomplishment. 3. Increase challenge and reward along the way with fresh content, activities and access.Whether or not you believe gamification is here to stay, at least for Millennials, bringing game mechanics to a brandexperience can help add familiarity and fun, deepen involvement, increase performance, and most of all, build loyalty. I for onesay game on.Healthcare Takes It Up A Level On GamingGamification, the tactic of applying game mechanics to traditional activities, has officially realized its self-fulfilling prophecyfrom early 2011 predictions of becoming the next big thing.In March, we blogged about our experience at SXSW, noting Seth Priebatschs belief that the next decade will likely see thegame layer prevail over social media. Gamification is slated to lead a new era of incentives, giving users a way to interact withtraditionally non-game activities.If you think adding a game layer to a marketing experience will benefit your brand, there are a few ways to up the ante whenincorporating it into your strategy.The concept of gaming, rewards and incentives isnt new. Companies have been helping brands do it for years withsweepstakes, instant win games, loyalty solutions and more. But we are now shaping it in new ways, in new places and fornewer audiences.Making Health FunAARP launched a program this fall under its Brain Health channel, inviting site visitors to a photo memory challenge andoffering a chance to win an Amazon Kindle, Apple iPad2, iTunes gift cards, Nintendo Wii and Wii Fit Plus, and $250 towardBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 13

nutrition counseling – all prizes that tie in to users overall health and wellbeing. Games, according to health experts, can helpward off diseases like memory loss, dementia and Alzheimers."Our brain health games are some of the most popular on the site,‖ said Nataki Edwards, vice president, digital strategy &operations for AARP. ―The Photo Recall Challenge brought together our users love of games, as well as their interest in stayinghealthy and vibrant. We knew that a game challenging memory would work well with our audience and the results did notdisappoint –more than 134K people entered this sweeps."Think games are just for kids?Games also are effective for repeated brand engagement, and a surprising gamer segment is the over-55 crowd, who enjoyplaying games, puzzles and trivia in the online environment."It’s not surprising that the over-50 crowd loves games,‖ Edwards added. ―Sudoku, solitaire and mah-jongg were all verypopular games played in the real world and now they can be enjoyed online as well."Blue Cross Blue Shield gets in the gameBlue Cross Blue Shield of Florida was looking for new ways to encourage Floridians to live an active, healthy lifestyle."In February 2011, we refreshed our brand promise with three core tenets: affordability, access and community support,‖ saidKate Warnock, social media community manager for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida (BCBSF). ―The Pursuit was created as a wayto connect Floridians with nonprofit organizations who expand the reach of our brand promise and help more Floridians in theirpursuit of health."To drive awareness, a social media campaign highlighted three non-profit organizations on BCBSFs Facebook page, invitingFloridians to vote for the organization that should win the monthly mash-up. Each monthly winner was awarded $3,000, whileeach of the runners-up received $1,000.A leaderboard posting the monthly winners put visibility behind the initiative, showing which organizations were benefitingfrom users votes, as well as the total amount donated to date.Dont think gaming aligns with your audience?Maybe thats a perfect reason that it does. Gaming by nature is fun, interesting and even competitive. What audience doesntwant to be captivated? Rather than using the same old tactics to convince, persuade, and educate, reprogram and think aboutthe entertainment factor.The questions every brand should think out loud are, "Is my brand providing organic value to the consumer?" and, if not, "Canwe at least make their experience interesting so they spend more time with us?"Whether or not your brand marketing aligns with a true gamification strategy, remember that in todays world, the consumer isalways assessing ―whats in it for me.‖ If your brand, service, or organization can provide extra value, youll be sure to lock intheir attention.Leadership for the Marketing Optimization TeamBryan EisenbergI rarely get new questions I havent written about before in this column - as I mark my 11th year as a ClickZ columnist. Yet, atSES Chicago in November, one of the attendees asked me how you go about building out a marketing optimization team. Whatkind of people do you need? What kind of backgrounds should they have? I know Ive discussed this with clients, but I haventwritten about it before.First, please notice that I didnt call the team the landing page optimization team or the conversion optimization team. Thisorganizational monstrosity is part of the we-work-in-silos-but-pretend-to-cooperate mentality that produces poor anddisconnected experiences for customers. For digital marketing efforts to maintain consistency across all channels, trafficgeneration needs to be intimately connected to your website and, if appropriate, your offline experience - after all, those arethe experiences promised. Never forget that your website is the glue that binds all your channels together.Jeffrey Eisenberg, my brother, likes to remind people that in our increasingly transparent experience economy, marketers areno longer paid to make promises that the business has no intention of keeping. If youre still in an organization that thinksthey can promote their way to success, bail now. Experience is what matters and you better deliver better than what youpromise or the world will quickly know.Is building a successful optimization team possible? Yes! Based on my experiences working with and training successfuloptimization teams and the research Ive seen from Econsultancy and MarketingSherpa on the topic, I can tell you how tomake optimization succeed.The first and most critical position is to have someone at a vice president or above level that is in control of the conversionrates directly responsible for your optimization efforts. They, along with their staff (well discuss shortly), should all beincentivized directly based on their results of improving conversion rates and revenue. The KPI should relate to marketingBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 14

efficiency. There are a few ways to calculate this but gross margin over marketing expenses is my favorite.This leader should be the online equivalent of your offline VP of sales. This executive should have direct accountability tosomeone in the C-suite who supports the effort. This person should be both extremely curious and driven. This person shouldalso possess a high degree of empathy for the customer and the customers experience. This person is also a competent jackof all trades with significant understanding of online marketing methods including: search engine marketing (SEO and PPC),affiliate marketing, social media, etc. Theyve probably been reading a bunch of the books on this list I put together. They willneed to work collaboratively with all those teams and the web analytics group to segment and continuously tweak both thetraffic driving efforts along with the site experience efforts.Im not done. This person should be comfortable working with a variety of methods of identifying insights and optimizationtechniques. Econsultancys 2011 conversion report found that companies whose conversion rates have improved over theprevious 12 months are using on average 26 percent more methods to improve conversion than those companies whoseconversion rates have not improved.Irrespective of the leader of the team, its very important that the culture of your organization allow for intelligent risk takingso that this person is empowered to try radical efforts to improve conversions and not simple methodical efforts. A stronganalytic background is truly not required. Nevertheless, this person should have the ability to be able to use data to tell thestory of what is happening to your visitors based on that data they gather themselves or they get directly from an analyst. Icant emphasize strongly enough how much more important it is to be connected to the narrative of the experience than thedata it leaves as residue.This is generally why most traditional web analysts dont make for good optimization team leaders. They love the data divingbut not the storytelling and brand value.This person must also have the authority to draw upon a steady stream of talent ranging from web analysts, creativeresources (designers, copywriters, videographers, merchandisers, etc.), as well as IT resources in order to be able to execute ona continuous basis. Ideally there are resources dedicated to the optimization team, but they can be shared as long as there isa strong value placed on prioritization and execution in the organization. This team should not exist as a vacuum within themarketing organization but should draw upon the knowledge and experience of the media team including search, display,email, affiliates, and even offline media. The research shows that organizations that have more people dedicated to improvingconversion rates tend to improve their conversion rate the most. Not a big surprise, Im sure.Lastly, in order to be successful, you need the tools in place to have the agility to gather insights, create ads and landingpages (or paths), refine marketing campaigns and pages, launch tests, and segment and personalize website experiences.Allow this person to be trained and train your team in the art and science of marketing optimization and allow them to createa structured approach to conversion and you can virtually guarantee youll squeeze a lot more conversions from all yourmarketing efforts.The reality is I have only met a few dozen of these individuals who have this experience over the past decade. Im sure thereare some I havent met yet, but they are a rare breed. These leaders are going to have to be trained and mentored in order formore companies to see the massive traction that these leaders have brought to their organizations. You cant outsource thiscore competency or downplay it. Its a serious commitment, but one that has a high payout over the long term.P.S. Ever wonder why the leaders in conversion outperform the average conversion rates by a factor of 500 to 1,000 percent?Think compounding! For example, a 5 percent improvement every month for a year is an 80 percent increase. Steadydisciplined optimization is not a project, its a core competence for industry leaders.Cash in on Content and Social Media Marketing in 2012It has been predicted that 2012 will be the year of content. Whether you’re building your personal brand for careerdevelopment and professional growth or you’re building your business brand to reach new levels of success in the new year,content marketing and social media marketing should be part of your 2012 marketing strategy.Following are strategic steps you should take (if you haven’t already) to ensure you’re poised for social media marketing andcontent marketing success in 2012 and beyond (adapted from 30-Minute Social Media Marketing, McGraw-Hill 2010;and Content Marketing for Dummies, Wiley 2011).1. Begin with BrandingThe first step to joining the digital age and starting your journey on the social Web is to evaluate your own brand promise.How do you want to position yourself in the marketplace? A focused brand is a strong brand, so determine your niche and useit as your primary brand message and image.Your audience needs to develop expectations for your brand in order to develop loyalty to it and feel secure enough in yourbrand message to talk about it with their own friends and connections, particularly across the social Web. You must meetaudience expectations in every brand interaction or they will feel confused and turn away from your brand in search ofanother that does consistently meet their expectations. Don’t let your audience get away. Determine your brand promise andBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 15

position and stick to it at all times.2. Create Your Branded Online DestinationsOnce you know how you want to position your brand in your audience’s minds, you can create your own branded onlinedestinations. The destination you choose to start with is up to you and depends on the types of tools you enjoy using andfeel like you can stick with for the long-term. Start a blog, create a Twitter account, get on Facebook, connect with people onLinkedIn, and get active on Google+.Most importantly, choose one branded online destination to be your core branded online destination. This is the place whereall of your online content and conversations will lead back to. It will be the central hub of your online presence and willbecome the go-to place for people to learn anything and everything about your brand. I recommend a blog for a core brandedonline destination because blogs are so search engine friendly and flexible, but the choice is yours. The most important factoris that your core branded online destination is kept fresh with new content that effectively represents your brand promiseand invites interaction and sharing.3. Find Your Best AudienceWho do you want to connect with online in order to build your brand, business and career? You can engage with existing andpotential clients, online influencers, experts, customers, and more on the social Web. You simply need to determine who youwant to talk to and go out and find them. Visit Google.com and type in the keywords your audience is likely to use to findbrands, businesses, content and conversations like yours. Follow the links. Chances are you’ll end up finding multiple siteswhere your target audience already spends time.When you find your target audiences’ online hangouts, spend some time listening to the conversations happening on thosesites. What topics are important to them? What gets them excited? This type of information-gathering is extremely valuableand allows you to create your own content strategy to best meet your target audience’s existing wants and needs.4. Join the ConversationLook for social destinations such as blogs, Twitter profiles, Facebook pages, forums, and so on where you can interact withother people by publishing comments, asking questions, and answering questions. However, you must avoid self-promotion.No one will want to engage with you if you spend all your time trying to sell yourself or your business. Instead, apply the 80-20 rule of marketing to your activities, and make sure at least 80% of the time you spend on social media activities is notself-promotional and only 20% is self-promotional.In time, those audiences will get to know you and develop expectations for your conversations. Eventually, you can lead themback to your own branded online destinations through links to related content. There you can deepen relationships. It’s thistype of relationship-building that enables you to develop a band of brand advocates online who will talk about your brandand defend your brand against naysayers. There has never been a more powerful form of word-of-mouth marketing, and youcan tap into it thanks to the social Web!5. Publish Shareworthy ContentBelieve it or not, everyone can benefit from social media because of a phenomenon I call the compounding effect of socialmedia participation.Here is how it works:How do people find information about businesses in the 21st century? Do they pick up the printed Yellow Pages directory?No. They log into their computers or pick up their smartphones and visit Google where they type in keywords related to thebusiness or professionals they want to find. You need to be represented when people search for keywords related to you andyour business!Here is how the compounding effect of social media participation can help you do it:Imagine that you have a website for yourself or your business with 10 pages. That’s 10 entry points for Google to find yoursite through keyword searches. Now, imagine that you add a blog to your website and write a new blog post every day for ayear. That’s 365 more entry points for Google to find your site. Next, imagine that your blog posts are incredibly useful andmeaningful to your target audience. Your amazing content, which I refer to as shareworthy content, is good enough that youraudience shares it with their own online connections. They might share links to your content via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn,social bookmarking sites, and even in their own blog posts. Each of those links back to your blog creates additional entrypoints to your website.Google ranks search engine results with a lot of incoming links (particularly from authoritative sites) higher than results withfew incoming links under the assumption that no one would link to a page if the content on it was terrible. More incominglinks to your website increases the likelihood that it might appear on one of the first few pages for Google keyword searchesrelated to your business thereby driving more traffic to your site. You’ve gone from 10 entry points to your website tohundreds or thousands and increased your search engine results rankings all because you published amazing, shareworthycontent.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 16

Social Media Agency: Fad or Revolution? Gary Stein Have you noticed a growing number of companies hiring "social media" agencies? I certainly have. In fact, Ive been responding to calls from companies for social media agencies for at least two years or so and some of these calls have been for pretty lucrative projects and long-term engagements. But, to be honest, Ive wondered if this was a fad that would hit hard but quick, or if we were experiencing something new. That is, were we actually experiencing the formation of a different sort of an agency being brought to life through a new kind of need? Whatever the case was at that point, we (meaning me and many others in this industry) certainly jumped on the opportunity, responding back to those requests for proposals and carefully crafting new agency raps extolling our abilities. I dont mean to say that we were merely opportunists, but rather we responded to the current need that our clients had and (the best of us) saw this as a new-but-unique channel through which we could drive business and achieve goals. That is to say, none of us really knew in 2008 if we would be getting social media request for proposals (RFPs) in 2011. Well, guess what: we are. In fact, the pace of this line of business seems to be picking up. The agency Big Fuel (which has modern advertising legend Jon Bond as its CEO) recently won what was reported to be a seven-figure engagement to perform social media duties for T-Mobile. This assignment from T-Mobile is not to replace its interactive, creative, or media agency. This is a net-new piece of work, and a significant one at that. Our industry has expanded. Its time to figure out what it means. Social Media Services The problem with social media (and therefore, the problem with hiring a company to do social media for you) is that social media is not so much a thing as it is a way. What we generally call social is really a collection of business practices from advertising to support to retention services to satisfaction and advocacy. While the consumer has a solid and clear understanding of the difference between a commercial on television and a call to customer service, the same cant necessarily be said of their concept of a Twitter feed. When the calls go out for a social media agency, there tends to be at least 5 big areas of services that a brand is looking for: Acquisition (brands want help increasing their audience in social media) Engagement (brands want help getting fans involved in the conversation) Advocacy (brands want help having messages spread through the network) Governance (brands want clear rules on operating in social media) Creative (brands want content that can be used in social media) Of course, the best RFPs and the most serious brands are going to look first and foremost for a strategy that is going to underpin all of this. Id love to say that, over the years, social media RFPs have evolved away from simple tactics ("we want a Facebook page") and gotten more sophisticated. But the RFPs that ask for social media services to serve a particular goal remain in the minority. Of course, those are also the ones that produce the best work. The reason is simple: if you can get smart marketing people to think about a goal, and then give them a tool, youll get success. It doesnt matter what the tool is, as long as the smart people understand it. If you go the other way (give smart people a tool and ask them to do something with it), your chances of success are no better than a roll of the dice. How to Send Out/Respond to a Social Media RFP I do believe that we will continue to see more social media RFPs in the near future, which really means that well see more brands establishing specific social media practices in the near future. While this is a net-new agency service, I dont think it is necessarily an entirely new practice. Not considering strategy, which should be a consistent element through all work, we should think of social media services as a mashup of a few other, more familiar services. If you are on either end of a social media RFP (sending or receiving), you should think about these core practices first. The first service is creative development. There are certainly some new formats and guidelines for the building content to go on social media. But dont think about it as just some tweet or set of images. These are impressions that you are placing upon your audience and they should be of the best quality you can muster. The other is media placement. I have long used the language of media to describe the work done within a social campaign. For example, we dont "post" content, we "traffic" it, just like we would with an ad. That means it is planned, placed, and measured. The last big one is community management. This is a tricky one. Ive had community managers working on projects for a long, long time. But we always thought of their work based on their title: they managed a community. They kept it focused on the topic, kicked off the bad people, and provided topics for discussion. Now, we want them to do all that, but the goal is not to manage the community; it is to manage the community to grow value for our clients. These people are now the most front- facing component of a campaign. They cant just be there to manage the community, because "the community" is the entire point of the campaign. And that, I suppose, is the bottom line on all of this. There are more social media RFPs coming because more brands are taking Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 17

social media very seriously. And they are taking it very seriously because they are not just seeking to fill a new channel withtheir message. They are not thinking about social media as a thing, but as a way - a way to connect more closely with theirconsumers.Which is really a good thing for all of us. Lets agree to make sure that we take the opportunity to either bring in an agency orbe the agency brought in to social media to make sure that this isnt just a trend, but in fact a revolution. The dollars are thereto justify, for sure. But most importantly, so is the opportunity.M.I.T. Game-Changer: Free Online Education For All M.I.T.s Simmons HallFor Wall Street Occupiers or other decriers of the ―social injustice‖ of college tuition, here’s a curveball bound to scramble yourworldview: a totally free college education regardless of your academic performance or background. TheMassachusettsInstitute of Technology (M.I.T.) will announce on Monday that they intend to launch an online learning initiative calledM.I.T.x,which will offer the online teaching of M.I.T. courses free of charge to anyone in the world.The program will not allow students to earn an M.I.T. degree. Instead, those who are able to exhibit a mastery of the subjectstaught on the platform will receive an official certificate of completion. The certificate will obviously not carry the weight of atraditional M.I.T. diploma, but it will provide an incentive to finish the online material. According to the New York Times, in orderto prevent confusion, the certificate will be a credential bearing the distinct name of a new not-for-profit body that will becreated within M.I.T.The new online platform will look to build upon the decade-long success of the university’s original free onlineplatform, OpenCourseWare (OCW), which has been used by over 100 million students and contains course material for roughly2,100 classes. The new M.I.T.x online program will not compete with OCW in the number of courses that it offers. However, theprogram will offer students a greater interactive experience.Students using the program will be able to communicate with their peers through student-to-student discussions, allowingthem an opportunity to ask questions or simply brainstorm with others, while also being able to access online laboratoriesand self-assessments. In the future, students and faculty will be able to control which classes will be available on the systembased on their interests, creating a personalized education setting.M.I.T.x represents the next logical evolution in the mushrooming business of free online education by giving students aninteractive experience as opposed to a simple videotaped lecture. Academic Earth(picked by Time Magazine as one of the 50best websites of 2009) has cornered the market on free online education by making a smorgasbord of online course content –from prestigious universities such as Stanford and Princeton – accessible and free to anyone in the world. Users on AcademicEarth can watch lectures from some of the brightest minds our universities have to offer from the comfort of their owncomputer screen. However, that is all they can do: watch. Khan Academy, another notable online education site, offers alargely free interactive experience to its users through assessments and exercises, but it limits itself to K-12 education. Bycontrast, M.I.T.x will combine the interactivity of the Khan Academy with the collegiate focus of Academic Earth, while drawingprimarily from M.I.T.’s advanced course material.―M.I.T. has long believed that anyone in the world with the motivation and ability to engage M.I.T. coursework should have theopportunity to attain the best M.I.T.-based educational experience that Internet technology enables,‖ said M.I.T. PresidentSusan Hockfield in the university’s press release.According to the university, residential M.I.T. students can expect to use M.I.T.x in a different way than online-only students.For instance, the program will be used to augment on-campus course work by expanding upon what students learn in class(faculty and students will determine how to incorporate the program into their courses). The university intends to run the twoprograms simultaneously with no reduction in OCW offerings.According to the New York Times, access to the software will be free. However, there will most likely be an ―affordable‖Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 18

charge, not yet determined, for a credential. The program will also save individuals from the rigors of the cutthroat M.I.T.admissions process, as online-only students will not have to be enrolled in the prestigious, yet expensive, university to accessits online teaching resources.Those chomping at the bit to dive into M.I.T.x will have to wait, as the university doesn’t plan to launch a prototype of theplatform until the spring of 2012. According to M.I.T. Provost L. Rafael Reif and Anant Agarwal, director of the Computer Scienceand Artificial Intelligence Lab, the prototype might include only one course, but it would quickly expand to include many morecourses.Once launched, M.I.T. officials expect the M.I.T.x platform to be a giant hit amongst other universities looking to create orexpand upon their online course materials. ―Creating an open learning infrastructure will enable other communities ofdevelopers to contribute to it, thereby making it self-sustaining,‖ said Agarwal in the M.I.T. press release.Whether M.I.T.x will directly threaten the margins at for-profit online universities, such as the University of Phoenix, APUS, orDeVry remains to be seen. But as M.I.T.x starts to provide many of the salient virtues of for-profit online colleges, such as arobust learning management systems and real-time virtual interaction, these publicly traded education companies might haveto lower fees in order to compete with M.I.T.x’s compelling free price. In addition, the success of M.I.T.x, OCW, and AcademicEarth may push dramatic technological innovation at for-profits, so that they can maintain a unique selling proposition versustheir free competitors. Moreover, as the rapidly growing number of what are termed ―self educators‖ choose free collegeeducation, a cottage industry of social media support services might evolve to bring them together for free in-person studyand help sessions.Which is all to say that, against this country’s sizable need for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) graduates,M.I.T.x is nothing short of revolutionary. This is especially true if you aren’t a credential freak and, like me, just want to improveyour chops in a marketable subject area. Heck, maybe Gene Marks’ (―If I Were a Black Kid‖) tech-based view of education canbecome a reality after all.Content and Device SeparateGary Stein The papers have come through and the divorce is final.I know. This is a bit of a shock, but really, Im sure well all agree that the two parties will be much happier separate from eachother than they were together. This is one of those cases where, separately, each one will be able to grow in new directionsand achieve new things. Things that, I have to say, they never were able to do together.Im talking, of course, about content and devices. I know. You thought this was going to be another article about Ashton andDemi. Ill save that for Twitter.No, the big split that has happened that we in the world of online advertising and marketing need to be concerned with is thatcontent - sound, movies, documents, and so on - is no longer necessarily tied directly to the devices that we use to view andlisten.The last few months of this year have seen a real growth in technology and services that are fueling this split. Appleintroduced iTunes Match, a pay-for service that allows you to have all your music and movies up in the cloud, and accessibleon your laptop, connected iPod, or television. Google introduced Google Music, which offers much of the same functionality(but also tied to the Google+ social network).Earlier this year, Amazon shifted the concept of the Kindle toward being more of a service: buy a book and you can read it onyour Kindle device or any other thing (such as a smartphone) that has the Kindle software installed. I can start reading a bookon my Kindle, place a bookmark, pick up my HTC Sensation 4G (a very cool phone, btw), launch the Kindle app, and find myselfin the exact same spot that I left off.This is, of course, the next evolution in cloud computing, which, more than a simple technology, is a redefinition of what itmeans to be "online." Long ago (in the 1990s), going online meant finding a computer that was able to dial into the Internet andspending time sitting there. Today, its more like we live inside a bubble that allows us to connect to content and functionalityanywhere, anytime.Marketing With ContentThe trend in technology of separating content from devices is running smack into another major trend in marketing: theconsistent communication cycle. Consider the work of past brand marketers. They would have the chance to encounter theirconsumer only a few times a week, at most, since the nature of the media they had to work with moved so slowly. Peoplewould only read a few magazines a week and would only do so in the evenings. Or they would just listen to the radio as theydrove to and from work.Today, consumers are connected constantly and brands have the opportunity to speak far more frequently. Which means thatwe need to find more things to say. The closest analogy we have to what is happening inside advertising right now is themassive disruption that occurred to the news industry when CNN burst on the scene. When news went from being somethingwe got in 30-minute doses, once a day at 11 at night to a constant stream of information that never quit, it changed not onlyBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 19

the news industry, but also politics, business, and more.Advertisers now find themselves in much the same situation. A consumer no longer simply encounters your ad as they flipthrough a magazine. Rather, they have connected to you on a social network and now…expect you to give them stuff. As aresult, a great many marketers have invested in developing content that is relevant to the brand but also seen as valuable tothe consumer.But, as we do this, we need to be aware that we are stepping from one spinning disk to another. Content consumption patternsare going through a dramatic shift from download-and-enjoy to open-up-access.This actually creates a great set of opportunities for marketers, if we operate within the media channels correctly. Inparticular, we need to:Build a LibraryBrands that are going to invest in content should put a significant amount of their overall budget (that is, more than 60percent) toward creating a high-quality, long piece of content. This could be a film that describes your product. Or a set ofrecipes that complement your product. Or a series of interviews with thought leaders in the field where your product isrelevant. Build a very solid library of content, way more than you think you might possibly need.Break It UpOnce you have created your content library, break it up into a bunch of small pieces and group those pieces in new ways. Findall of the recipes that use a particular ingredient. Identify all of the times in all of the interviews where a certain topic ismentioned. Catalog all of these pieces so that you can quickly find and group them.Spread the ContentOnce you have all of these content elements, begin to place them in strategic spots. Bundle all of those recipes with theparticular ingredient into a downloadable PDF and tweet links to it. Place all of those quotes about the particular topic, createa PowerPoint, and place it on SlideShare. You can have a single place where the full-length content lives, of course. But youcan also split that content into new pieces that can be mixed up and redistributed in new ways.The result of all this is that your consumer will go from being someone who has to be driven to content to someone who isconsistently surrounded by your brand. When you achieve this, you are in the exact same place where people want to be.Listen Without ReactingListening is harder than speaking. Even the best listeners sometimes have to bite their tongues to stop from reacting,interrupting, or trying to console the person talking. Here are three ways you can truly listen: Avoid distractions. This doesnt just mean putting down the Blackberry or closing your web browser. Try not to think about what youre going to say next. Simply focus on what the other person says. Repeat back. This sometimes feels silly, but repeating back what you heard shows the other person that youre listening. Ask thoughtful questions. Ask open-ended questions that help you see the issue more clearly and allow your conversation partner to go deeper into what he cares about.How to Really ListenOne morning, my wife Eleanor woke up, turned over, and said, "I am not looking forward to this day." I asked her why.What came out is that we were at the start of the Jewish high holy day season, which means colder weather and three weeks ofbig social meals, long religious services, broken routines, and children out of school. Eleanor didnt grow up with these traditions,and they can be overwhelming.Now, I run a management consulting company; problem solving is what I do. So it didnt take me long to jump in."Cold weather means ski season is about to start," I said. "You love skiing. And these holiday meals are fun and filled with peopleyou love — theyll make you feel better. And Ill be with you; you wont be alone with the kids. Also, you know, Jesus was Jewish,so its kind of your tradition too."Even as I said it, I knew that last one was a reach. It became clear that I was making her feel worse and now she wasnt just sad,she was angry.And when she got angry, I felt myself get angry too. And self-righteous. Here I am trying to help her and this is what I get?But then I smartened up. Instead of giving in to my anger, which would have really blown things up, I shut up and listened. When Idid, I began to hear the real stuff, the things that neither of us was actually saying.What I discovered was that she was upset because the focus on mothers during the Jewish holidays taps into her insecuritiesabout motherhood, not being a Jewish mom, and not having time to spend on her own work.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 20

I also discovered that my own babbling wasnt so much to help her feel better as to help me feel better. Im the reason shes inNew York City, living through cold winters, and part of a Jewish family.In other words, by trying to make her feel better, I was doing the opposite of making her feel better. I was arguing with her. Infact, most of the time when we try to make people feel better, we end up arguing with them because were contradicting whattheyre feeling. Which, inevitably, makes them feel worse.Listening, it turns out, is magic. Not only did it help me understand what was going on with both of us, but it helped Eleanor feelbetter, too. It made her feel that she wasnt alone in her feelings; I was with her.All I had to do was listen.But listening isnt easy. The more we listen to others, the more likely we will react — or overreact — to what they say. Listening,it turns out, is much harder than speaking. We have to allow things we might disagree with to hang in the air. We have to moveover a little and create space for those things to linger.That kind of listening takes tremendous courage.But if were interested in learning — about ourselves as well as others — then its worth it. And if were interested in beingconnected to others, showing them respect, helping them feel better, and solving problems between us, then its more thanworth it. Its essential.Until people feel heard, they will fight to be heard. But once they are heard, there is little left to fight for, and then we can moveon, not as "us vs. them" but simply as "us."So how do you listen in a way that transforms conversations and relationships? 1. Actually listen. And only listen. That means dont multitask. Im not just talking about doing email, surfing the web, or creating a grocery list. Thinking about what youre going to say next counts as multitasking. Simply focus on what the other person is saying. 2. Repeat back. This feels a little silly at first but works magic. If someone says she is angry about the decision you just made, you can say "youre angry about the decision I just made." I know, I know, she just said that. But it shows youre listening and it communicates to the other person that shes been heard. If you dont have the courage to try it with an adult, try it with a child. Youll see what a difference it makes and it will embolden you to try it with a colleague or your spouse. 3. Ask questions. Explore the other persons thoughts and feelings more deeply. And "You dont really believe that, do you?" does not count as a question. You are not using the Socratic method to prove your point; you are trying to better understand whats going on so you can better understand your partner in this conversation.Really listening can feel risky, which seems strange because listening doesnt materially change anything. But sometimes youllhear things that are hard to hear.Remember that listening is not the same thing as agreeing. And it will never force you to take any particular action. If anything,it will reduce the intensity of peoples insistence that you take a specific action. Because in many cases what theyre looking foris proof that youve heard them. So if they feel youve really heard them, their need for action diminishes.As Eleanor spoke, I noticed my own resistance to various things she was saying. Theres no question that its hard to really listen.But once I relaxed into it, I heard her in a much deeper way. That made her feel better. Call me co-dependent, but it made mefeel better too.It turns out that sometimes, just listening is problem-solving.Push Notifications: Keep Mobile Users In TouchADOTAS – Push notifications are a messaging medium that allow applications installed on any connected device to activelycommunicate with an end user, even if the device is inactive. It’s called ―push‖ because the technology enables a device to listenfor messages being ―pushed‖ to it from the application owner’s servers. Push notifications are a powerful new mobilecommunications channel that create a persistent, streamlined and engaging mobile messaging experience. Similar to emailmarketing, push notifications can consist of plain text or rich HTML and must be opted into. Messages can be generatedautomatically from a server; triggered based on user activity, context (like user location) and preference; or sent manuallythrough a web interface. Audience groups can be segmented providing the ability to create campaigns. Like SMS, push gives youthe same ability to engage users directly on their mobile devices, but at a fraction of the cost. Push costs less because it utilizesdata and wifi networks instead of cellular networks. Push notifications are a direct, persistent, user-controlled and cost-effective mobile communications channel.Why are Push Notifications important?Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 21

With the average lifespan of a mobile app hovering at 30 days after being downloaded, push notifications are becoming thecenterpiece of solid, long-term mobile strategies. By driving increased consumer engagement, awareness and conversions, pushnotifications extend the life of an app and add usefulness to consumers. Push is catching on for companies big and small acrossall industries, giving brands a voice in the mobile channel and allowing them to create deep customer relationships. Pushnotifications provide personalized experiences, giving users control to personalize preferences and opt in or out at any time.So what does it take to get started? To send push notifications, you first have to build an app. Smart phone users spend themajority of their time with the device in apps, creating a large opportunity for brands to connect with consumers in new ways.This opportunity is creating a demand for companies to invest more on building solid apps and measuring success in moretangible ways. Gone are the days of building throwaway apps and measuring success using download count and app store rating.Today success is measured by how many times users open the app, how much time is spent in the app, and conversion rates,among other metrics.Mobile networks, like Verizon, and platforms, like Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, are investing in push notifications too. Theyare answering the demand to build better user experiences on their devices and enhance capabilities for their customers. Thisevolution is providing businesses with a new ability to use social, local and mobile context to create more engaging andpersonal experiences. Social integration, geo-based messaging, the ability to create campaign landing pages within apps,business-friendly composition and measurement tools, along with investments in new offerings such as Notification Center andNewsstand, are helping to bring push notifications into the core of mobile strategies.Use casesCompanies like ESPN, New York Times, Groupon, Dictionary.com, Warner Brothers and thousands of companies are using pushnotifications to drive user engagement, awareness and conversions. Push notifications are delivering new content, news, media,local information and deals, and they’re providing social dialogue between people. These companies all benefit from increasedinteraction and decreased messaging costs, while getting a ―built for mobile‖ experience that can’t be matched by othermessaging channels. Here are a few examples of how Push is driving business results:Delivering A Daily Dose Of LearningPush notifications gave the world’s largest and most authoritative online dictionary, Dictionary.com, the ability to create a Wordof the Day app that could actively engage their users. Dictionary.com uses push as a vehicle to deliver a new vocabulary-building word every day, directly to millions of iPhones and Androids. ―We wanted to provide our popular Word of the Day to appusers direct to their mobile device,‖ said Lisa Sullivan-Cross, Dictionary.com’s general manager for mobile. ―Our word-lovers canenjoy our features without needing to launch another program or app.‖Making Radio SocialThe Jelli music app aims to provide a dynamic, social, and gamified approach to radio. To better realize this goal, Jelli beganpromoting community and game features with a social strategy. It used push notifications through my company, Urban Airship, torevitalize social sharing and rating functions, delivering real-time alerts to highlight the app’s unique features. When userssuggest a song to Jelli, they will get a push if their song makes it to the radio and if the community enjoys their song. The pushnotifications drove a 30 percent increase in user engagement along with dramatic increases in app usage and frequencyDriving CommerceAccording to comScore, 14 percent of users respond to offers via push notifications. LivingSocial, Groupon, and Swirl by DailyCandy all offer their daily deals to customers using push notifications. With push, these companies can assure that theircustomers never miss a sale, even when they are on the go. Giving users the ability to click from a daily push directly into theapp has given Swirl a 60 percent increase in mobile traffic and a 20 percent increase in total mobile orders. They areexperiencing 40 percent higher conversion rates than through their mobile browser, which is driven primarily through email.2012 Forecast: Mobile MarketingADOTAS – Having been involved in the mobile and advertising industries for over two decades, I can say with confidence that 2011was a banner year for the discipline. Over the past year, consumers have proven that the mobile phone has become an integralpart of the shopping experience. This is creating a number of exciting new opportunities for marketers to reach consumers atmultiple touchpoints throughout the buying process.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 22

Lessons From 2011Let’s start by taking a look back at 2011. The biggest lesson we learned is that campaigns must tie directly to return oninvestment. Mobile campaigns are no longer experimental: Brands have significantly increased their budgets, and with this,expectations to show ROI have also increased.A big factor in achieving desired ROI is reach. Despite what some may think, Apple does not have a lock on market share. Mobilemarketers must think beyond iOS to reach consumers on all types of devices and networks. Mobile campaigns such as Macy’sBackstage Pass proved that providing consumers with choice in the call to action (i.e. providing a QR code and an SMS short code)drives strong results. It is with these lessons in mind that we look to 2012 and where the coming year will take us.Thinking Beyond the ClickIn the coming year, we can expect more pressure to produce results from mobile campaigns. This means it is critical to thinkbeyond a one-time transaction. In 2012 we will see more long-term engagement opportunities and learn to think ―beyond theclick.‖ There will be even more device types in the hands of consumers (new smartphones, tablets, e-readers, etc.), making itimportant to provide positive user experiences, rather than catering to the least common denominator.Successful mobile campaigns have prominent calls to action and provide multiple ways to engage. Brands should consider usingan SMS call to action and QR code on print advertising campaigns that point to a mobile website that can capture the customer’sinformation. This engages the consumer and introduces a concept of immediacy.Social Media is Here to StayWe can safely expect more social interaction via mobile device at the point of sale, making customer service vital. In a worldwhere a good experience – and, unfortunately, a bad one – can end up on Twitter and Facebook in seconds, the mobile phone hasbecome a megaphone from which customers broadcast thoughts in real time. Savvy brands can integrate mobile and social in asmart way to ensure positive customer experiences and avoid potential disasters.More Vendors, More PromisesIn such a high growth industry, we can expect more new vendors will enter the marketplace in 2012. My advice to brands andagencies is to proceed with caution. There is a lot to be said for experience when it comes to driving results. Any ―two guys in agarage‖ startup and claim to know what they’re doing, but it’s important to ask questions and read case studies to make surethey can back up these claims beforehanding over your precious budget.Patent Litigation Will AboundAlong with more vendors often come more ―me too‖ technologies. This means patent lawyers will be busy in 2012. Patentinfringements are continually identified and enforced, making it imperative to work with a company that has protected itsindustry knowledge and can keep you out of trouble.Year of the Mobile WebIf I were to predict a breakout star for 2012, I would nominate the mobile web. As we move closer to the time when mobile webaccess eclipses PC web access, brands, agencies and others will realize they need a mobile Web offering that over-delivers. Thishas not yet happened, but we’re getting closer every day, and soon the time will come when consumers will demand it.2012 SurprisesSocial networks will play a more important role in the way we buy and recommend products. We don’t know yet what Twitter orFacebook will launch regarding product recommendation or commerce initiatives, but we should be prepared to react to newproducts and make sure all our initiatives are integrated with these social networks. Will others join the race to become thekiller app and be able to deliver in such a crowded category? Will price points continue to be brought down with offers ofdiscounted product in exchange for receiving ads a laKindle? These answers remain to be seen.New Year’s Mobile Resolutions?In the New Year, we should all resolve to tie CRM into our mobile programs, ensuring a deeper relationship and more relevantinformation to the opted-in subscriber. Think after-the-click in mobile advertising – provide a means to an ongoing relationship.Follow behavior and interest research – just because you can do something technically doesn’t mean you should. Know yourcustomers and prospects and market to them in ways that you have the best chance to succeed.Happy Holiday’s and happy marketing in the New Year!Kiip Raises Stakes On Mobile Game Rewards, Partners With DisneyADOTAS – Kiip, the company that pioneered offering real-life, physical rewards for mobile game players, announced today it hadleveled up and has begun incorporating big-ticket items into its rewards. Kiip has partnered with Disney during this holidayweekend in a promotion whereby people playing mobile games can enter flash competitions to win prizes as large as aBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 23

surround-sound HDTV. That’s a big step up from, say, a free soda for trouncing a video game boss.Kiip has been around a few minutes now, having launched in April with a still-teenaged CEO, Brian Wong, at the helm. Wong hadlooked to way web advertising had been hurriedly adapted for mobile (Wong has been known to describe that adaptation―Honey, I Shrunk the Banner Ad‖), and he looked at the way people were increasingly glued to the video games on their mobiledevices, playing for no benefit other than a sense of achievement. Enter Kiip, which took, as Wong explained it in a phone callyesterday, ―the moment of achievement — it’s also a moment of pause,‖ with all of its emotional weight, and used it to offer aphysical reward. The idea, psychologically, was that the player, in that triumphant moment, thereby develops an affinity with thebrand offering the prize. Early brands to get involved included Vitamin Water, popchips, Dr. Pepper, Carl’s Jr. and 1-800-Flowers.Wong explained Kiip had been looking toward promotions with a wide range of industries, but the number of people playingmobile games at any given time initially posed a challenge. ―What about auto? What about travel?‖ Wong mused out loud. ―Youcan’t give away a million cars.‖ On the other hand, he pointed out, ―You’re playing with a hundred, thousands, a million people atthe same time. How are you able to harness those people?‖ Indeed, considering the numbers almost made it imperative thatthere were higher stakes with rewards.And that’s why these flash competitions, in which game-players on the Kiip network face off against each other in real time —the feature’s called Swarm — are different from what Kiip has been doing all along. ‖With every Kiip-enabled game, we can say,‘Okay, for the next two hours, you get the highest score, you can win a‖ big-ticket item, Wong explained. Disney’s the first brandto jump on board with a Swarm campaign — it’s a four-day (through Dec. 26) promotion for its John Carter movie. Great timing forDisney: The entire set of people playing video games on Christmas is quite the captive audience. But the ―captive audience‖factor is, according to Wong, one way of circumventing some of the trial and error that goes into online marketing. ―Thisguarantees a participating audience,‖ he said.The Ten Most Annoying Management Terms Of 2011We are nearly at the end of 2011 and another year of mayhem behind. We will be judging our 2011 Non-Predictions and trying todream up some new ones for 2012 in the next fortnight or so but this week we have been able to get some long needed admindone.With it came a realisation that even if the financial industry is suffering, the creative management community has been in fullswing dreaming up new terms and phrases to camouflage the blindingly obvious.The evolution of ‘management speak’ means some phrases die and some survive and flourish. TMM really doesnt know whatdetermines the success of one term or phrase over another other than, as with the arts, adoption and patronage by the mostrespected in the field. TMM hope that this year’s rash of newcomers all die off naturally but we would like to help with a shoveinto their deserved obscurity.TMM have noticed that every cause nowadays needs an "Awareness" campaign and though we feel that "doing" is of muchgreater importance than "awaring," we will go along with the fashion and launch a Management Talk Awareness Week with thelist of phrases and terms we have found most irksome this year.So here are TMMs top ten annoying phrases of 2011 (even if some are older) that we would like to see the back of.10 - Internalise - As in "What you have all failed to internalise is that there has been a paradigm shift. As a result you are all nowbehind the curve when it comes to the multi-lateral interoperability needed to realise the supra-organisational missionstatement.‖ Even though there is an awful lot to detest in that statement "Internalise" is the word we most object to. It appearsto just means learn or remember but as telling someone to learn or remember something appears instructive, suggesting theyinternalise it will sound more empathetic, but at the severe cost of sounding like a clone-monkey.9 - Hi, I hope all is well - With the birth of the email there came an awkward period when the formality of letters, with their"Dear Sir / Yours sincerely" had to be detuned to fit in with the new immediacy and informality. After a stuttering start the worldpassed through an embarrassed joint squirm and settled on "Hi" for anything other than legal representations. But 2011 has seena pernicious ingress of a new form of insincerity with the addition of "I hope all is well" to the "Hi". Rather than questioning eitherthe validity or sincerity of that statement, we would just ask that the bulk senders of such missives consider where they aresent to, as for many recipients things are blindingly obviously not well. We suggest the only time this greeting is appropriate iswhen addressed to bore-hole companies.8 - Weaponise price opacity - As the scarcity of new Himalayan Pink Salt in the financial market takes its toll on the bottomlines of financial institutions it is becoming more important for them to make sure that they maximise the profitability ofexisting basic products. Opacity of price is critical in this process but weaponising it? Wow.7 - Ideation - What happened to good old "have a think" or "come up with some ideas"? Even running things up flag poles is lessirksome than "ideation" which sounds as though it should involve radioactive iodine.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 24

6 - Stakeholder Community - Not a Transylvanian village but the new plural of stakeholder. Theoretically a stakeholder isanyone who can affect, or is impacted by, your decisions and so could be a lowly minion in your company, but deference onlyever seems to be made to "stakeholders" when they are either your bosses, investors or regulators. Please lets call them whothey really are.5 - Socialise - When issues got out of hand in the old days you would normally either just tell the boss, or perhaps "take itupstairs." But now a cunning adaptation of the old mantra of "My profit, our loss" has invoked a caring sharing attitude to screw-ups by "socialising" them. As in "I think we should socialise this issue with senior management and the stakeholder community."4 - Complementary - Odd one this, and its really down to our own stupidity, but we have regularly opened emails this yearexpecting some nice free service only to re-read it and find its not "complimentary" but something expensive and homeopathic.We expect the marketing world to soon be jumping on this and emailing multitudes of complementary not-at-all-free offers.Such as Ryan-Air offering "Complementary Flights" which sound as though they are free but are actually expensive and just"complement" what a decent service should be by being dreadful. Or have they done that already? "Complementary" should bebanned from subject lines so that the vaguely dyslexic amongst us shouldnt be taken advantage of.3 - Bandwidth - The adoption of IT geeky words into mainstream fashion is nothing new but the latest over-usage of "Bandwidth"by management is particularly grating. Just as "spending more time with my family" has become the acceptable expression of"Just been fired/stiffed/shafted/backstabbed/found out but have photos" so has "Im sorry I cant action that, I dont have thebandwidth‖ become the generic replacement for "I dont have the time/resources/authority or inclination." But the saddest part isthe way its used under the false allusion that "bandwidth" is new and fashionable. Our grandmothers, thanks to broadbandadverts and home routers, know what bandwidth is so please, unless you are the type of person who still uses "groovy" in theboardroom, please drop "bandwidth."2 - Geosourcing - Why you lose your job to someone in a different part of the world. "The support function has been geosourced"or "Hows the front office geosourcing project going?‖ Its the sharp end of a simple belief of ours that if there is someone ableand willing to do your job for less than you, you are toast. But the use of "geo," which has connotations of environmentalfriendliness married to "source," which conjures images of babbling fresh springs in the mountains, results in a super-eco wordwhich actually means "Youre fired."1 - Reaching out - TMM first came across 2011s winning term in July and since then it has spread like wildfire, which has uslooking like Irish Riverdancers as we try to stamp it out as fast as we can. The origins and epidemiology of this disease has ussuspecting its the product of some Class of 2011 Management School somewhere. It really is complete and utter rubbish. If youare about to call an investor for some documents you dont "reach out to the client," you phone or mail them. If you want toknow why a trade hasnt settled you dont "Reach out to Bangalore" you "call back-office." So lets just kill that one right nowbefore someone gets accused of molestation.And with that we open up "Management Talk Awareness Week." We are sure you all have your own experiences to share and welook forward to the comments column acting as a joint cognitive pan-cohesual empathy forum leading to textualisation ofcommon goal and achievement recognition programs.CPG Shopping Habits Reduced To Four Kinds of TripsTrip mix has shifted during the course of the economic downturn, but pantry stock-up and quick trips together still account forabout two-thirds of CPG trips and dollar sales.According to SymphonyRI, in a recent study ―the CPG Basket, Fostering Growth in a Time of Conservation,‖ consumers are verydiscerning about the money they spend today. They are carefully choosing what they will buy, when they will buy it, and wherethey will buy it. They are choosing to eliminate and/or postpone some purchases in the name of keeping their budgetsmanageable.During the past few years, for many getting by has meant embracing frugal and well-thought-out purchase strategies. Thisreport provides insight into evolving economic conditions and consumer response to those conditions vis-à-vis the consumermindset during the predominant CPG trip missions.During the past year, CPG prices have been on a northward march. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is currently placing the all-food Consumer Price Index at 3.5%-4.5% for 2011. In 2012, the rate is expected to moderate only slightly, to 2.5-3.5%1. Escalatingfood and fuel prices and increased budgetary pressures are having a significant impact on the way consumers approach theirgrocery-related tasks.Trip mix has shifted during the course of the economic downturn, but pantry stock-up and quick trips together still account forabout two-thirds of CPG trips and dollar sales.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 25

Trip Missions Overview Trip TypeOverview Quick Trip Special Purpose Fill-In Pantry Stock-UpMindset Need it now, have to Buying for a specific Routine fill-in an heavy Prepare for the coming make a trip week event (not routine) use categories# Items 1-5 2-10 5-15 15+All Outlet Average $ <$40 $20-$50 $30-$80 $50+Spent% of All Outlet Trips 56% 16% 14% 13%% of All Outlet CPG $ 24% 18% 19% 39%Source: SymphonyIRI Trip Typology, SymphonyIRI Consumer Network™ 52 Weeks Ended 8/21/2011Understanding trip missions among key consumer segments will enable retailers to optimize product mix and store layout. It willalso empower retailers to create powerful cross-promotion and merchandising campaigns to reinforce or realign primary tripmix, says the report.Increases in average basket size, evidenced most predominantly across pantry stock-up and fill-in trips, are reflective ofinflationary CPG pricing trends. Average basket ring, across and within trip missions, has been a moving target during the courseof the past two years. Basket ring is being influenced by changing consumer rituals as well as vacillating pricing trends.In the first few months of 2011, average per trip spending began to climb across all trip missions, except special purpose. Theseincreases coincided with an escalating pace of inflation. Baskets within these missions have been growing at an increasing ratethroughout much of 2011, yet, the rate of increase remains below the level of inflation.Average Basket Ring (% Change vs. Prior Year 13 Week Period) % Change vs. YAPeriod Ending % Avg. Price/Unit % Unit SalesMay 2010 +0.8 (1.4)Aug 2010 (1.7) (2.2)Nov 2010 +0.4 +0.2Feb 2011 +1.1 (1.2)May 2011 +1.8 +0.1Aug 2011 +4.0 (0.2)Source: SymphonyIRI Consumer Network, 13 Weeks Ended 8/21/2011 and preceding 13 Week periodsWithin grocery, mass/supercenter and club channels, the predominant trip mission is the pantry stock-up mission. This missionaccounts for one-half of sales in grocery, and one-third of sales in each the mass/supercenter and club channels. In all of thesechannels, pantry stock-ups account for 15%-20% of trips.Quick trips are a strength of the drug and dollar channels. Within these channels, it is these ―need it now‖ purchases that drive amajority of dollar sales and trips.Purchase and consumption habits are shifting in a way that is favorable to these retailers. Their ―nearby‖ locales make itconvenient to swing by for a few quick items without a significant time or gas outlay.During these missions, consumers are eliminating purchases deemed ―non- essential‖ and they are changing the timing ofpurchases to accommodate cash flow. Today’s consumers are focused more on needs versus wants and they are buying closer tothe point of consumption.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 26

Trip Mission as Percent of Trips, 2011 MissionChannel Stock-Up Fill-In Special Purpose Quick tripGrocery 18.6% 18.1 13.3 49.9Mass/Super 15.1 16.7 22.7 45.5Club 15.3 18.3 21.1 45.3Drug - 4.8 16.6 78.3Dollar 1.7 6.9 17.8 74.0Source: SymphonyIRI Consumer Network™ 52 Weeks Ended 8/21/2011; U.S. Department of EnergyTrip Mission as Percent of Channel $ Sales, 2011 MissionChannel Stock-Up Fill-In Special Purpose Quick tripGrocery 49.8% 19.2 12.3 18.7Mass/Super 39.1 22.3 20.7 16.9Club 35.6 22.8 21.8 1 .8Drug 1.1 16.7 29.5 52.7Dollar 6.4 18.3 26.9 48.5Source: SymphonyIRI Consumer Network™ 13 Weeks Ended 8/21/2011 and preceding 13 Week periodsFor CPG marketers, the difficulty is that no ―one size fits all‖ budgetary ritual exists, says the report. Rather, strategies vary bychannel, category, brand, and market. Indeed, strategies often vary at the individual household level.The report concludes by suggesting that an intimate understanding of current and emerging trends within these trip missionswill enable manufacturers and retailers to develop and execute strategies that align with overall corporate goals whilesimultaneously addressing the complex and changing needs of U.S. shoppers in a turbulent economic environment.Youre Using the Wrong Social Media Metrics!John LovettIn my experience, Ive found that the vast majority of practitioners measuring social media currently rely on the wrong metrics.Metrics such as fans, followers, +1s, shares, likes, and dislikes are easily captured and readily delivered by social networks, butthey represent merely the low-hanging fruit of social analytics. These are the "counting metrics" of social media because usingthem typically equates to counting up digital trivia. Effective measurers of social media go beyond counting metrics to createoutcome-based metrics and ultimately report on business value metrics to senior stakeholders across the enterprise. In thiscolumn, Ill elaborate on the minutia of counting metrics and where they can add value to your social media operations, as wellas how to take the next step of creating outcome and business value metrics to ratchet up your social analytics game to thenext level.Testing the Social Media WatersThe temptation for businesses to experiment with social media is practically irresistible. And in fact, youd be foolish not toventure into new and emerging channels if your target audience leads you there. But experimentation and ongoing participationin social media must continually prove out the potential for business value. Often times, this potential is demonstrated inmetrics that are indicative of volume and activity. Counting metrics do just that because they are measures that tell you howdeep the social media pool really is. These counting metrics are typically the freebies offered by social media networks thatquantify the basic observational statistics of participation. The stats include: number of users, number of fans, number offollowers, number of posts, number of comments per post, number of check-ins, number of ratings, number of reviews…and so on.You quickly see that theres numbers on top of numbers.Yet, stopping at this point and using only counting metrics to measure and manage social media is not only just plain lazy, butalso detrimental to your business. These metrics are important for gauging the health and activity of your social mediaBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 27

operations, but they fail to tell you if youre achieving your business goals. Counting metrics can offer insights into how manypeople are swimming and if the water is too cold, or just right. They can also tell you how many people you are reaching withyour social media messages and if your content is worthy of passing on to their friends and followers. But, what countingmetrics cannot tell you is who the lifeguards should be watching, and where management needs to focus their efforts. Thus, itsimperative that you go beyond the counting metrics offered by social media platforms to formulate outcome metrics thatconstitute real measures of success.Identifying Outcome Metrics for Social Media MeasurementStepping away from the pool for a moment, I ask you to consider why youre participating in social media in the first place. Areyou working to build awareness for your new products or services? Do you want to initiate a dialogue with your customers tosolicit their input on what you could be doing more effectively? Are you building goodwill with consumers by giving backthrough social media and encouraging philanthropy? Or, can you increase your profits by selling directly through social mediaplatforms? The answers to these questions reveal the business outcomes that you should be working towards whenparticipating in social media. Its only when you have a clear understanding of what youre trying to accomplish with your socialmedia efforts that you can develop truly effective measures of success. If you cant pinpoint why youre participating in socialmedia today, or if your answers are flimsy and wont stand up to the scrutiny of executive leadership, I strongly advise that youstop everything and rethink your efforts.However, if you have a strategic vision of what youre trying to accomplish with social media, then developing your outcomemetrics will become a much easier task. For example, if gaining exposure is the outcome that you are after, then metrics likereach, velocity, and share of voice will be extremely helpful in determining your progress toward this outcome. Similarly, ifyoure working to foster a dialogue with customers, focus on metrics like audience engagement, key influencers, and trendingtopics. Or if cold hard cash is what youre after, then metrics like social referral source, cost per acquisition, conversion rates, andaverage order value will illuminate progress toward your stated social media outcomes. Each of these metrics tells you how wellyoure doing according to plan and reveals valuable business information.Demonstrating Social Media Business ValueNow that youre straight on using counting metrics for sizing up opportunities and outcome metrics for quantifying purpose, thenext step is tying all this together to communicate your fabulous progress. To do this, you need to detach yourself from themetrics that you use everyday to manage your social operations and translate these granular metrics into more generalizedbusiness language. Think carefully about the things that matter to your organization and the stakeholders that oversee thebusiness and communicate in ways that resonate with them. In most cases, this means aligning your business objectives withcorporate goals. Demonstrate which social media channels are contributing to new customer acquisition, which are addingdollars to the corporate coffers, or which are elevating customer satisfaction. This takes some skill and corporate savvy toindoctrinate non-believers into the world of social media metrics, but its an entirely worthwhile endeavor that will paydividends for your organization in the long run.Ive found that the most effective way to present a strategic plan and communicate your successes using metrics is to leveragea framework for social media measurement. The one I use includes an inside-out strategy that begins with corporate goals, thenaligns business objectives, maps these to measures of success, and then extends out to operational tactics. Using this frameworkallows me to solicit feedback from stakeholders by actually including them in the planning process of developing social mediaprograms. This encourages participation and gives everyone involved a vested interest in the success of social media endeavors.Ultimately, your social media metrics should build from the basic counting metrics to outcome-based objectives that whollysupport your corporate goals. Once you have a solid plan and a strategic roadmap for how youll stitch this all together, thenyoure ready to dive into the deep end of the social media pool.Mobile Devices Have Eclipsed the Desktop Experience; Get Over ItAndrew SolmssenTwo years ago, a group of us at my company had a conversation on this topic: "Whats the one device you couldnt live without?"We were pretty well split between laptop and phone. Twenty-four months later, when I revisited the conversation for thiscolumn, everyone picked their phone or their iPad without any hesitation.Lets start with some background and a few premises. Weve had powerful mobile devices ever since the PalmPilot (for someold-school geek cred, mine was made by US Robotics) came on the scene - a solid 15 years ago. These devices seemed incrediblebecause they allowed us to take part of the desktop with us. First contacts, tasks, and calendars, and then email: the devicesfelt magical because they made it seem like we were using a computer away from the computer. It was a cheap facsimile of thecomputer experience, of course, but it untethered us, and that was amazing.Once the Treo, BlackBerry, and other truly useable "smartphones" arrived, devices had their first advantage, and the first timeyou looked up a contacts phone number and dialed was pretty special. Making a phone call with your computer was basicallyimpossible at the time - even today, its nowhere nearly as seamless as a call from a handset.Today, as the pace of technology continues, devices differentiate themselves in many different ways.GPS. Your phone knows where you are. Far beyond mere IP targeting, knowing where a user is via GPS is a huge advantage,Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 28

providing bespoke, relevant information and helping search immeasurably.Apps. Hardware-accelerated, Internet-connected software at a blistering pace (plus a built-in distribution model): the appsmarketplace has helped consumers understand the value of a program that does one tiny thing (like identify the title of a song),but does it very well. Our EVP of UX, Jason Brush, refers to this as "purpose-built."Browser capabilities. High-end mobile devices, broadly speaking, have much better support for elegant browser-basedexperiences because they use more uniform, standard browsers. Mobile browsers are way ahead in terms of being able todeploy HTML5 experiences through WebKit, the rendering engine that powers Chrome and Safari on phones and tablets.Camera. Yes, most laptops have cameras, but except for video chat, theyre not particularly useful. In-phone cameras allow for QRcodes, barcode readers, and have rendered the point-and-shoot cameras (and more recently, flip cams) completely useless. Theexperience of capturing and sending media in the same motion beats the heck out of attaching a camera to the desktop, movingimages over from the camera, and attaching them to an email. Extra points for the microphone that, unlike a PC, is always hookedup and ready to go.Economic model. The mobile app store has provided a vast marketplace for small software developers. The result: acommensurate lift in innovation for the platform.Direct interface. I wouldnt recommend writing your novel on your smartphone - typing input can be difficult on mobile devices.But, where typing falls short, direct input via multitouch and accelerometer interactions encourages navigation and engagementdirectly with content.At my company, we find were increasingly advocating starting development with mobile. As a team, weve taken away a lot ofuseful information and perspective from Luke Wroblewskis writings on "Mobile First." I recommend that you take a look at hiswork, as it clearly demonstrates that mobile doesnt take a backseat to the desktop anymore. In fact, the experience on mobileis better, and it should be at the center of any application strategy.Further, the mobile surge is accelerating. With near field communication (NFC) devices coming into the mainstream over the nextyear, and companies like Square changing the point-of-sale options, our phones are going to become the consumers wallet andthe retailers storefront. Based on such marketplace currents, the International Data Corporation has predicted a compoundannual growth rate of 16.6 percent for mobile Internet use, with mobile Internet traffic eclipsing PCs and wireline devices by2015. Mobile devices will continue to provide the richest, most fully featured experiences and well see the gap continue to grow.Look At The Big Picture In 2012by Gord HotchkissAnother year’s pretty much in the can. And because I’m working on idle this week, trying to catch my breath with my familybefore plunging headlong into 2012, search marketing falls somewhere behind the recent releases on Netflix and trying outthe new Wii game on the list of things preoccupying my mind. So, don’t expect any salient and timely search news from me!When I look back on what has preoccupied me over the last 12 months, I will say that much of it has been spent ―steppingback‖ and trying to look at the bigger picture. As online interactions have taken a bigger and bigger chunk of our lives (you’llnotice that both of the recreational options I mentioned have online components woven into them), trying to understand howour actions play out against a broader online backdrop has been the thing I think about most often.We digital marketers tend to take that ―bigger picture‖ and break it into pieces, trying to make sense of it by focusing on onesmall piece. Digital marketing lends itself to this minute focal depth because of the richness of each piece. Even the smallestchunk of an online interaction has a lot to explore, with a corresponding mound of data to analyze. We could spend hours drillinginto how people use Linked In, or Twitter, or Google+ or Facebook. We could dig into the depths of the Panda update or how localresults show up on Bing and never come up for air.But think back to what, at one time, was another holiday season pastime. Some of us remember when we used to get a jigsawpuzzle for Christmas. You’d dump out all 5,000 of those little photographic morsels and then begin to piece it together into acoherent image of something (usually a landscape involving a barn or a covered bridge). Success came not only from examiningeach piece, but also in using the image on the boxtop to help understand how each piece fit into the bigger picture. Withoutunderstanding what that bigger picture was supposed to look like, you could examine each piece until the cows came home(again, often a topic for jigsaw art).So, much of my 2011 was spent trying to understand what the picture on the top of the puzzle box was supposed to look like.What would ultimately tie all the pieces together? In physics terms, I guess you could say I’m been looking for the Unified FieldTheory of online marketing. And you know what I realized? You won’t find it by focusing on technology, no matter how cool it is.Foursquare marketing or search retargeting or hyperlocal optimization are all just pieces of a much bigger puzzle. The realpicture emerges when you look at how people navigate the events of their lives and the decisions they must make. It’s therewhere the big picture emerges.A few weeks ago I was speaking to a group of marketers about the emerging role of mobile. This was no group of digitalslouches. They knew their mobile stuff. They had tested various campaign approaches and honed their tactics. But the resultsBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 29

were uneven. Some were hits, but more were misses. They knew a lot about the pieces, but didn’t have the boxtop picture toguide them.My message (for those who know me) was not a surprising one: understand how to leverage mobile by first understanding howpeople use mobile to do they things they intend to do. Don’t jump on a QR code campaign simply because you read somewherethat QR codes are a red-hot marketing tool. First see if QR codes fit into the big picture in any possible way. If you do that, youmight find that QR codes are a puzzle piece that actually belongs in another box.After delivering my sermon about the importance of understanding their respective big pictures, I asked my favorite question:―How many of you have done any substantial qualitative research with your customers in the past year?‖ Not one hand went up.This was a group of puzzle assemblers working without any boxtop picture to guide them.If you want to sum up my past year and fit it into one final paragraph for 2011, it’s this: Understand your customers! Spend a goodpart of 2012 digging deep into their decision process and their online paths. Make it personal. Stalk if necessary. Ask questionsthat start with ―why.‖ Observe. Make notes. Broaden your online reading list to include blogs like ScienceDaily, Futurity, Neuroscience Marketing and Homo Consumericus. At some point, the bigger picture will begin to emerge. And I betit will be much more interesting than a landscape with a barn and some cows in it.5 Innovative Campaigns You Might Have MissedTessa WegertIn digital marketing hindsight is 20/20, and thats a perilous fact. While we cant know for certain how our buys will pan outbefore we make them, we must do our best to keep ourselves informed. One way to prepare? Assess what others have done,whether it worked, and why, and look for opportunities to make a similar impact for our own brands.In the examples that follow youll find a nod to some of the biggest trends of the year, from social media to mobile apps andbranded videos. But youll also see mainstay formats and platforms used in creative ways. What sets these 2011 campaigns apartwasnt how much the brands spent to produce them, but how much value they provided, both to the consumer and advertiseralike.1. Dunkin Donuts Geo-Social BuysWe saw an uptick in Foursquare usage this year as the social service grew (it now boasts 15 million users), and Dunkin Donutswas among the brands to embrace it. In August, it sought to crown the "President of Dunkin Nation" in a five-week campaign thatallowed consumers who checked in at its nationwide locations to enter a contest to earn the name and a grand prize.Now it has set its sights on the holidays. Since late November, it has been granting entry into prize sweepstakes to mobile users(both Foursquare and Facebook Places) who check in at their New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut locations. By the end of thefirst week of the holiday campaign, the brand collected 1,500 registrations and awarded 300 prizes as digital-savvy consumersclamored to gain from an easy action that is quickly becoming a force of habit.2. Kathy Beth Terrys Facebook PageSinger Katy Perrys imagined teen attracted the attention of hundreds of thousands of consumers this year, on Facebook andTwitter alike. The star of the video for Perrys hit song "Last Friday Night (TGIF)" made good use of her fame to extol the singersvirtues through exclusive videos. The comedic campaign generated so much attention that it attracted over 180,000 Twitterfollowers, nearly 740,000 fans on Facebook, and spawned additional videos on Funny or Die and MTV online. Most remarkable ofall is that Perry managed to take a fictional character and turn her into her own personal brand evangelist.3. X-Men Takeover AdsWhen the latest film in the franchise, "X-Men: First Class," came out this year - first in theaters and then on Blu-ray and DVD -consumers knew it, thanks to a series of international home page takeover ads. On MSN in the Netherlands, the ad began with apage skin and video clips and ended with an attention-grabbing page distortion and full-screen presence that launched thefilms trailer.A few months later additional takeovers ran on TMZ.com, Yahoo Movies, and YouTube. The latter was a clever play on filmcharacter "Magnetos" ability to attract and warp metal objects at will; after the movie trailer ran for a few seconds, the contenton the surrounding YouTube began to break apart and fly into Magnetos hands. Whenever a brand is able to thematically tie adfunctionality into its product, consumers are bound to take notice.4. Toyotas "Living" iPad AdIn November, iPad users were treated to some advertising eye candy courtesy of Toyotas Prius V. By sponsoring the new YahooLivestand digital reading iPad app, the brand was able to place interactive and sequenced videos promoting the model, whilepresenting them in a magazine-style expanded format. The ads appeared next to news content and featured clickable contentthroughout.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 30

According to Yahoo, ads within the app generate higher than average interaction rates and a favorable perception of advertisers.Compared with static ads, Yahoo says, consumers were 78 percent more likely to interact with the "living" ad and twice as likelyto spend more time with it. One things for certain: the app ad has major impact that cant be missed.5. HBOs "True Blood" Facebook AppBrands have asked consumers to "Elf" themselves, "Simponsize" themselves, and turn themselves into celebrities, so it was only amatter of time before they were invited to become immortal. HBO series "True Blood" this year launched a Facebook app thatallowed fans to insert their image (and those of their Facebook friends) into an interactive video. The clip used as the foundationof the experience was exclusive and never before seen on the air, making the concept that much more interesting to fans of theshow. In the first few weeks alone users created more than 90,000 videos and the brand gained over 35,000 new Facebook fans,but the app served a purpose beyond generating buzz: it helped to bridge the previous and upcoming seasons of the series, thusinciting past viewers to return and inviting new viewers to give the show a try.Use Your Facebook Timeline Profile for Your CareerBrian CarterI spoke to Brian Carter about how professionals can use the new Facebook timeline to advance their careers. Brian offers socialmedia training to B2C and B2B businesses of all sizes and he’s been an internet marketing consultant and trainer for 11 years. Heis the co-author of Facebook Marketing, and author of The Like Economy. In this interview, Brian discusses the Facebook timelineprivacy settings, how the new timeline pages will affect businesses, the best way to measure Facebook ROI, and more.How will the Facebook timeline affect professional users? Should they hide their profiles?I see the Timeline, especially the big new ―cover‖ photo as a big plus for professionals. People certainly can connect to you in abland way over on LinkedIn, but when they come to Facebook they expect a little more personality and creativity. They want toknow who you are. They’re looking for a way to connect emotionally. I use mine to show me speaking, since I’m promoting myselfas an expert speaker and trainer.It’s very important to learn the privacy settings so that if you ―allow subscribers‖ you’re only posting publicly the things youwant everyone in the world to see. And you can create friend lists to post more personal things to your best friends and family.But some people make their profiles TOO private, and I can’t see anything about them, even when they’ve requested me as afriend. Sometimes you request a friendship when you’re in the getting-to-know you stage and you need some kind ofprofessional-but-colorful way for them to learn something about you that will make them want to accept your friendship.How will it affect businesses when it’s rolled out for fan pages?Facebook hasn’t said exactly what the next evolution of brand pages will look like- only that they’re thinking about it. It’s notclear yet if there will be a historical timeline approach. I’m not sure that makes sense for all businesses, or if they’d even wantto show some parts of their history. But we’re all hoping that the brand pages begin to look as exciting as the Timeline profilesdo now. The folks doing graphics for brands would love to have more options.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 31

What are some Facebook marketing strategies that worked a few years ago that are no longer effective?It’s less and less acceptable to just push out content without thinking about how it will be received. The threshold for what’sinteresting enough has risen, because there is more and more noise (more people and more pages posting). That means it hasbecome even more important for page admins to understand what leads people to like and comment on posts. I think the new―reach‖ metric has surprised some brands about how few of their fans they’re reaching. They may need new, more targeted fansto combine with interesting content and calls to action like ―Click like if…‖ and ―Comment below about…‖ if they want greaterreach.How do you measure success in Facebook? What is the answer to the dreaded ROI question?You measure success according to your goals. If it’s sales, you measure true ROI. I’ve seen numerous companies measure this andsucceed with Facebook profitability (my clients and clients of JB Chicago, aimClear and Upward Wave, to name a few). Also, I’veseen multi-touchpoint analytics evidence from Buddy Media and aimClear that the awareness and interest initially generated byFacebook is often attributed entirely to search engines. If you want to answer sophisticated questions like, ―How does Facebookmarketing impact my sales?‖ then you need to install sophisticated analytics.How have you used Facebook to grow your brand?I’ve used Facebook pages to some degree, but as a professional, the networking I do in Facebook groups has actually led to morebusiness opportunities for me. I also post blog posts in some of these groups and on Twitter. My social networking relationshipsplus the quality of the posts leads to greater exposure. Results vary by post, so you have to keep writing! I’ve used Facebookads for my new book, ―The Like Economy‖, which has led to 4.5 million ad views for just over $500. Again, branding can’t alwaysbe tracked, and there’s no way to track book sales accurately on Amazon, but my opportunities to get paid speaking and doingservices for companies have increased since I started advertising.10 facts of the marketing year (Brazil)Mergers - like those in the pharmaceutical sector - March 2011 December 23, 2011 • 09:05The year 2011 brought strong marketing drives and particularly in the retail sector.Were highlighted, for example, the initiative ofthe entrepreneur Abilio Diniz, who tried to merge the operations of the Group of Carrefour Sugar Loaf. In the pharmaceuticalsector, concentrations occurred, especially from the second half. Since Procter & Gamble bet heavily on its operations in Brazil,which also boosted the performance of companies purchasing collective. Remember the list below the top 10 facts Marketingyear:Pao de Acucar went back on the merger with Carrefour, after pressure from social CasinoCredit: Arthur Noble1. Merger between Carrefour and Pao de Acucar was the role in May 2010, the news that Abilio Diniz negotiating a merger withCarrefour, whose departure the Brazilian operation of the French, surprised the whole market - including his partner in GPA(Grupo Pao de Acucar). Biggest competitor of Carrefour in France, the Casino, which is replaced by the right to nominate and takecontrol of the GPA in June 2012, filed for arbitration against the Diniz family in the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) inParis. The shareholders approved the merger of Carrefour and dissemination of material fact by the Group confirmed the Pao deAcucar BNDES participation in the proposed ownership structure for the company to be formed. Until Jean-Charles Naouri, chiefexecutive of the Casino, went to the counter-attack and personally came to Brazil to meet with representatives of theinstitution of government funding. Diniz tried to defend the trade, but clashed with the uncompromising stance of Naouri. Thesituation became untenable and Brazilian businessman withdrew from the scene. The French owners of the Casino, in turn, areincreasing the stake in GPA: October already held 48.1% of the Brazilian company.2. Acquisitions increase the concentration of the pharmaceutical retailalready diagnosed the fragmentation of retail pharmacy began to be "treated" by large investors and leading groups in thesector. The year was marked by the appearance of Ray Drogasil, the association between outcome and Drogasil DrogaRaia, theBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 32

merger between drugs Pacheco, of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and drugstore network and the recent purchase by Brazil of BahiaGaldino Star Pharma, owned by the bank BTG Pactual. The drive in the fourth largest consumer market for drugs in the worldcaught the attention of U.S. Walgreens. Executives of the largest pharmacy chain in the world with 8,100 stores, held talks withlocal players such as Brazil and even Onofre Pharma. The expectation is that the business continues overdose in 2012, since thesector has potential for a higher concentration: today, the five largest chains account for only 25% of the Brazilian drugstores,which today totals about 60 000 establishments.Rock in Rio, with the likes of Metallica, has attracted a lot of weight advertisersCredit: Disclosure3. Marketing in RioRock in Rio opened the way to Brazil for the coming of rock groups and pop stars hitherto unpublished or had not long here inthese parts. Ride in the shows by Guns N Roses, Stevie Wonder, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Elton John, Itaú brands like Heineken,Trident, Niely Cosmetics, Bis, Chilli Beans, among others, have gone beyond the usual two hours of concerts and have attractedmore attention than many of the artists themselves. The crowd of 700 000 people who accompanied the more than 160 showsduring the seven-day festival showed the strength of the Brazilian festivals and concerts. Coping with the enormity of the publicalso was a learning experience for the organizers and sponsors, who have reshaped the concept of the Rock in Rio for the nextfew issues, it would decay as the hours in line facing the spectators to get a snack. For these and other, the edition of 2013 isalready confirmed, but with a maximum audience of 85 thousand peopleper day - 15 000 less thanwhat was recorded this year.4. St. Paul turns the tables and will kickoff the 2014 World Cupearlier this year, 11 cities were already confirmed as the headquarters of the World Cup 2014. Because of uncertainty as to thestage that receives the parties, the question was on St. Paul, until July, the city was not sure he would receive any part of theWorld. Thats when the City took the game and passed the bill providing for the granting of tax incentives to the stadium forCorinthians. Political pressure and the fast pace of work in Itaquera - 20% of the construction was completed in four months -were left with no alternative to FIFA but to hand over the opening of their most precious event to the state capital, he leftbehind in the race Belo Horizonte , Brasilia and even Rio de Janeiro, a candidate in the wings to receive also the openingmatch. Fortress also emerged victorious in the competition to host the games: Fortaleza to receive six World Cup games,including one from Brazil and one in the first phase of the quarter-finals of the tournament. The third presentation of thenational escrete will be in Brasilia. But the Maracana only serve the Brazilian national team in any decision - to reach the GrandFinal winning all the battles of the first phase, the green and yellow team will also play two times in Belo Horizonte.5. Busy year for bitter tastes SchinThe year began and ended warm warm beer in the domestic market - for more than two adjectives are not part of goodvocabulary for the category. The main movements occurred in the second half, all from August. The Kirin bought Schincariol, apurchase that cost the Japanese more than $ 5 billion and consolidated in two steps, the second one after a legal disputeinvolving two sides of the family of the former owners of the company. The clash also left expensive in points of sale in Octoberfor the first time in eight years, Schin lost the second position in the market, taken by the Petrópolis.Schin The agency alsochanged (changed by Euro RSCG Leo Burnett Tailor Made) and Brahma did not prevent the master to take the share of thesponsorship of the Carnival of Salvador, the brewery owned captive Itu was 11 years. The absolute leader Ambev still continuedits strategy of segmentation and finally launched Budweiser, which has ended up in Africa after many tests. Heineken hasalready emerged as the main sponsor of music festivals in the country and renewed communication and flavor Kaiser, targetingthe class C.6. The start of the P & G in BrazilPresent in the country for 23 years and working here in half of the 30 categories in which competes in the world, Procter &Gamble already counts Brazil among the top ten companys operations, with revenues exceeding $ 3 billion. In the disposablediaper category, has won the lead with 29.6% share of Pampers. The matrix, founded in 1837, both the Brazilian subsidiary of thefive largest multinational five years - and spared no efforts in searching for a larger share of the Brazilian consumer. Thecompany, which joined the list of the ten largest advertisers in the country in 2010, followed with a strong media presence inBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 33

2011. Were featured in such notice the sponsorship of the club most fans of the country, flamenco and expansion of thepromotion Airplane Faustão, led by the presenter Fausto Silva, one of six ambassadors of P & G next to Ana Maria Braga, Angelica,Luciano Huck, Rodrigo Faro and player Paul Henry Goose, and the Brazilian team Santos.7. The explosion of collective shopping sitesImpulsivity the Brazilian and the taste for purchases made by an offer off the collective shopping sites in the country in2011. Recent business here, the new model of e-commerce began to expand in Brazil in 2010, when they arrived and clickon theGroupon and was launched in Rio de Janeiro, in March, the Urban Fish. Today, the Brazilian Chamber of Electronic Commerceestimates that the country has 1,200 collective shopping sites, which should make R $ 1.2 billion in 2011 (for a total revenue of e-commerce that should be around R $ 18.7 billion) . Although there is a total number of number of clients served, the six membersto the House-e.net (Groupon, clickon, Fish, Urban, Club Discount, Cheap Travel and Must), representing 85% of the market, sold twomillion coupons until November. The rapid growth has generated some problems with Procon, mainly due to failure of thepartners in the delivery of offers and services contracted by the purchase of coupons. To resolve or at least lessen thecomplaints, the Purchasing Committee of the House Collective-e.net last month introduced a Code of Ethics and Self-Regulation.8. Neymarmania takes care of the countrys soccer1.50 m tall and less than 40 pounds, with only 13 years old, Neymar was discovered by the press in early 2005 and was soonlabeled as the "new Robinho". Seven years later, the athlete is already considered the biggest star of the club after Pele Withinthe lawns, won the Paulista Championship, the Libertadores Cup and played in the Club World Cup in Japan with the Saints (thetournament ended on Sunday 18 ). Outside it was the protagonist of the play that broke new ground by reversing the logic ofworld football: a bold marketing strategy, Santos refused the million dollars offered by Barcelona and Real Madrid, shortenedthe term of the contract and handed over the image rights of Neymar to the players family and their representatives - to read9ine of Ronaldo. Thus, virtually ensured the presence of the star at the club until the 2014 World Cup, when he could move toEurope pocketing the full value of the transaction.The personal sponsorships grew in proportion to worldwide fame of theattacker. In 2010, only Nike and Panasonic had a contract with the ace. This year, Baruel, Lupo, AmBev, Red Bull, Santander,Unilever and its brands also associate course the boys village.9. The wave of the UFC phenomenonAnderson Silva and The Octagon took over Brazil in 2011. The MMA fight that kind of success has always been a niche here, is nowup in the novel and nine in the Globes most notorious brand of mixed martial arts tournament, Ultimate Fighting Championship,was the most talked about topic of the year by the Brazilian Facebook. Originally from the MMA created by the Gracie family, theUFC was born in 1983 in the U.S., and today carries more than 20 annual events, which may be accompanied by the TV in 145countries.The Brazil struggles to watch live from 2002 - Fighting the pay channel, and now by RedeTV by Globo TV, which, eyeingthe success of the year, bought the rights. Among the fighters, Anderson Silva took over as sports idol. Born in Sao Paulo andraised in Curitiba, Silva was the first success abroad. To improve the image in the country, "Spider" Silva is known as the UnitedStates sought the entrepreneur Sergio Amado at the beginning of the year. The 9ine took the athletes career, managing yourimage, attracting sponsorship and digital life champion. The agreements reached with the speed of the blows of Anderson, whichwas sponsored by Bozzano starred in campaigns for Budweiser, Burger King, Ford and Honda, is Nike athlete and represents theCorinthians in the sport.10. Crisis management in times of social networksWith the incorporation of social networks to life for a growing number of consumers, the repercussions of an image crisis out ofcontrol as fast as a click. PepsiCo has been involved in some of the controversies that rang in virtual communities in 2011.Themain one was the contamination of a batch of Toddynho with detergent, causing the hospitalization of more than twenty peoplein Rio Grande do Sul The incident put the chocolate in the headlines and Trending Topics on Twitter. Even the fate of fashionbrands Arezzo, who faced a barrage of criticism also on Facebook, after announcing products with animal skins, and Zara,denounced the prosecution for the use of slave labor in the Spanish Zara suppliers in Brazil. In this scenario, many companieshave hired professionals or companies to respond and propose solutions to minimize the effects as soon as word of mouthonline.Top 5 Most Common Networking MistakesStill trying to tap your network for favors before youve offered anything yourself? Big mistake.By Jeff HadenEveryone tries to network, but few people do it well, often making the same basic mistakes.Here’s what not to do when you’re trying to expand or leverage your network:1. Try to take before you give. The goal of networking is to connect with people who can help you make a sale, get a referral,establish a contact, etc. When we network, we wantsomething.But at first, never ask for what you want. In fact you may never ask for what you want. Forget about what you can get and focuson what you can provide. Giving is the only way to establish a real connection and relationship. Focus solely on what you can getout of the connection and you will never make meaningful, mutually beneficial connections.When you network, it’s all about them, not you.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 34

2. Assume others should care about your needs. Maybe you’re desperate. Maybe partnering with a major player in your industrycould instantly transform red ink into black. No one cares. No one should care. Those are your problems and your needs.Never expect others to respond to your needs. People may sympathize but helping you is not their responsibility. The only wayto make connections is to care about the needs of others first. Ask how they’re doing. Ask what could help them.Care about others first; then, and only then, will they truly care back.3. Take the shotgun approach. Some people network with anyone, tossing out business cards like confetti. Networking isn’t anumbers game. Find someone you can help, determine whether they might (someday) be able to help you, and then approachthem on your own terms.Always select the people you want to network with. And keep your list relatively small, because there is no way to buildmeaningful connections with dozens or hundreds of people.4. Assume tools create connections. Twitter followers, Facebook friends, and LinkedIn connections are great—if you do somethingwith those connections. In all likelihood your Twitter followers aren’t reading your tweets. Your Facebook friends rarely visityour page. Your LinkedIn connections aren’t checking your updates.Tools provide a convenient way to establish connections, but to maintain those connections you still have to put in the work.Any tool that is easy or automated won’t establish the connections you really need.5. Reach too high. If your company provides financial services, establishing a connection with Warren Buffett would be great. Orsay you need seed capital; hooking up with Mark Cuban would be awesome. Awesome and almost impossible.The best connections are mutually beneficial. What can you offer Buffett or Cuban? Not much. You may desperately want toconnect with the top people in your industry, but the right to connect is not based on want or need. You must earn the right toconnect. Find people who can benefit from your knowledge and insight or your connections.The ―status‖ level of your connections is irrelevant. All that matters is whether you can help each other reach your goals.ERIC-SCHMIDT-DISCUSSES-GOOGLES-COMPETITORS-CHINA-ACQUISITIONS-AND-MOREEric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman, discussed Google’s work and activities during an interview at an event held by TheEconomic Club of Washington’s event earlier this month, broadcast by C-Span yesterday.On Google’s competitionWhen asked whether Facebook was its biggest competitor, Schmidt stressed the wide range of Google’s products gives it anumber of competitors:Today we have one very clear competitor, which is Microsoft, we used to two, with Yahoo, but Yahoo largely outsourced thesearch stuff to Microsoft. We seem them as the core competitor, we have additional competition from different corners, soFacebook is a competitor in a bunch of properties and also for attention.Rather than pick out individual companies for mention, Schmidt is more wary of the threat and opportunity that is developingfrom the growth in ownership of smartphones and tablets:We’re more likely to face competition, and there’s lots coming, in these vertical applications that answer questions. Peoplesearch differently on the mobile phone. In the next year, more searches and page views will come off of mobile phones than PCsor Macs. It’s a huge change that provides a competitive front for us.AcquisitionsSchmidt revealed that, in his early time at Google, he was not always aware of the companies and talent that was bought by thecompany:We did a lot of acquisitions of small companies for talent. Typically, Larry and Sergei would just buy them and tell me afterthey’d done it. Android showed up, Google Earth showed up. They’d set this technical framework that we’d plough investmentinto to scale.Things have changed since then with the company reportedly buying companies at a rate of one a week. When asked aboutreports that Google does not always disclose its acquisitions, Schmidt said that ―sometimes we forget or they are just too small‖.The former Google CEO then went on to describe his ideal acquisition as ―four technical people who can solve a very preciseproblem, are brilliant and don’t have a high valuation‖.Dealing with pornography and securing dataLike it or not, pornography is a big drive of Internet traffic and search, making it an important talking point for Google. Schmidtrejected claims that pornography accounts for one in four Google searches, but he did shed some light on how Google deals withporn in an innovative way:Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 35

The company has safe search which means that you’re unlikely to find porn, unless you’re looking for it. In which case adult-rated images may show up.One of our employees, Matt, would run an internal test. His wife would bake cookies, if you could find porn, his wife would giveyou a cookie.When quizzed about the security of Google’s data logs, Schmidt revealed that though it does not monitor individuals, the searchgiant does track IP addresses:There are suitations where we maintan the logs of people’s queries, the information that is identifiable to an IP address isretained on the order of a year. Identifying an IP doesn’t mean tracking you, if you search from a corporation it may not show upas you.It is true that for a period of time the record of your searches is retained, and at a certain point we anonymise it, in such a waythat you couldn’t go back [and trace the person who the searches belong to].Business in ChinaGoogle was involved in the most public battle of any foreign company in China, which eventually led to it moving its coreoperations from the country to neighbouring Hong Kong, which Schmidt refers to as ―the other China, which we like‖.He describes China’s censorship as ―a truly bad set of laws‖ which Google couldn’t handle any longer after five years in thecountry.On learning to flyIt is not widely known that Schmidt is a fully licensed pilot, having taken up the hobby while he was at Novell:I fly with professional pilots [when travelling for work but i] started flying at Novell, while we were working on a turnaround. Ineed a distraction so I learnt how to fly.My instructor told me, ‘you have to focus on this or you will kill yourself!” So it was a good focusing device.Social media, gadgets and TV setsSchmidt admitted that he doesn’t just use Google devices and products, and he readily admits that he tinkers with ―everything‖,from Facebook to iPads and more:Google Plus is my preferred tool but I’d encourage everyone to use all of this, not just Google’s. There are differences betweenthem, and it is what our age is about. I marvel at what people are to do, say and build online.The company executive chairman did drop a bit of a clanger, however, when he referred to the Galaxy Nexus as ―the Nexus Prime‖,before going on to champion it as the best device ever made.As a former programmer, Schmidt spoke passionately about the potential of mobile. Though he didn’t mention his prediction thatAndroid would overtake iOS as the operating system of choice for developers on this occasion, he stress the importance ofmobile for developers today, saying:If you’re a young programmer today, you’re building for the mobile phone, that’s where the action is.Earlier this week, Schmidt told an Italian newspaper that Google would work onintroducing a tablet in the next six months andhe further discussed new areas for the company. Google is working on deals with TV manufacturers, he said, and that ―most‖‘ ofthem are integrating Android into their ―high-end‖ sets.With Apple reportedly set to make Steve Jobs’ dream of interactive a reality, it looks there will be a new area for Google to sparwith its rival in. Let’s hope this doesn’t end up in the courtroom too.In a keynote before his interview at the event, Schmidt spoke of his belief that the Internet, mobile and technology can make apositive impact across the world, as we earlier wrote.2012 Digital Planning GuideRobin NeifieldMarketers everywhere are scrambling to set their marketing and digital marketing strategies for the coming year, andencountering obstacles ranging from corporate politics to shifting or disappearing budgets to a lack of appropriate informationupon which to base that strategy. Most would welcome a tested approach to help define a strategy in a way that can driveplanning and action and get internal support, but first we have to agree on what that strategy is. A budget allocation is not astrategy; neither is a goal a strategy - regardless of how well-defined that goal might be. The strategy is the much-needed planto get you from your current state to your desired state.This is an outline of a 12-step plan to help you understand your current state, define your desired state, and plot your strategyto bridge the gap from one to the other for a successful 2012 in digital marketing.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 36

Understanding your current state: 1. Review past results. In an industry like ours, the past should be viewed primarily as a directional guide because all of the opportunities and channels have morphed in significant ways in the last year. Dont ignore the stats but delve well- beyond them to the important insights about audience behaviors, channel preferences, and other learnings that can be applied to the opportunities present now. Start with the past years results (or another appropriate time period) against goals. Look at channel-specific impacts. Identify both the spectacular winning and losing efforts of the past and dissect them to understand why they fell in one camp or the other. Gather all of your stats - site, social media channels, email lists, etc. (including trending data) and dig in. Identify any dips or spikes in activity or performance and explain them. 2. Review environmental realities and changes. As noted, the world continues to spin while we make our plans and you want your new strategy to be relevant, so take into account any channel or industry changes. Do you have new competitors? New distribution options? New regulations? Supply chain issues? Budget challenges? Bad PR or a failed product launch to overcome? Factor the real world into your planning and identify key opportunities as well as risk factors. Document competitor activity including any new entrants noting spend, approach (channels, tactics), messaging, assets, and results. Set trackers to follow their progress and try and look for patterns that suggest where they are seeing results. Look for any changes in your audience. Mine your stats in various channels to establish demos and any trending information you can use. Use your partners to gather behavioral data.Defining your desired state: 3. Articulate business goals. The marketing strategy and goals are nonsense if they do not ultimately reflect and support the business goals. Start at the top to understand what business moves and impacts on your organization plans to make for the year and how you can accomplish them. Translate those business goals into specific, quantifiable objectives with timeframes that can help define your optimal marketing strategy. 4. Articulate channel goals. Review all your options and identify how each channel is best used for your overall marketing goals. The channels and options are not interchangeable and each should have its own set of objectives. Look at how each one can contribute to the overall goals. In a best case, they help and support each other. Some elements of the plan might be great at driving awareness or traffic, while others create an excellent platform for remarketing, for example. Budgets, timeframes, messaging, and other elements should be revised according to your plan needs. Dont forget your offline elements in this mix. 5. Articulate testing goals. What questions do you want to be able to answer about your audience, products, business, or campaigns this year? Set yourself up for success by structuring those tests to ensure the answers in advance.Setting your strategy: 6. Confirm total budget. Unless you live in a fairytale marketing world, this budget is probably handed down to you before you have a chance to set the strategy. If the established budget does not give you the ability to meet your marketing goals, then you must prioritize, clearly communicate the lost opportunities, and set revised goals that make sense within the budget parameters. To make the most of your budget, establish out-clauses that dont tie your hands as you optimize across channels once you start getting results. 7. Brainstorm initial approaches/tactics and messaging. Allocate budget across goals (not channels!). This is often the step where people start their strategy work - in a room with a white board and not enough information to get the job done well. The tactics that make up your strategy should be the steps that take you from your current to your desired state. Even the best, most innovative ideas may not take you down the path you need. Be sure to continually check back to your defined path while involved in your brainstorming so you wont be tempted off course. Now that you have a set budget, you need to tie that budget back to your goals - not the channels. Dont forget creative or production budgets, email broadcast fees, talent, stock, or other miscellaneous add-ons. 8. Allocate budgets for an initial period. It may be tempting to set the strategy for the entire year and wash your hands of the exercise, but in reality the plan is never set in concrete and should be optimized regularly for best results. One way to ensure regular check-ins is to mandate them by planning for an initial period and institutionalizing the regular review. The length of that initial period may depend on the seasonality and other factors specific to your business. 9. Set project timelines checking assets and resources for the proposed plans. Its reality-check time. You have done your homework and stayed on plan and in budget to define your strategy, but there are still risk factors. Now is the time that strong project management can save the day. Do you have the time, expertise, and resources to execute on your strategy? Double-check with vendor partners on specs and lead times so you dont have any surprises.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 37

10. Sit on the finished plan for at least a couple of days and then review it with fresh eyes.Have you accounted for mobile, social, email, site impacts, integration with offline elements? New browser updates or devices? In your gut, does this feel like the right way to go or a watered down compromise? Ask someone not involved in the plan production to review the background information and completed plan. An outside consultant can be very helpful here. 11. Set appropriate internal expectations on results. Make sure everyones expectations are set on the scale and speed with which you expect to see results. Set official check-in dates with a dashboard that tracks results against stated goals and outlines recommended next steps. This should allow you to continue to march forward toward that desired state without uninformed organizational nervous twitches creating panicked off-plan responses. 12. Create a concise mission statement for your plan. Use this mission statement to rally the troops, remind everyone of the goals, and to test the new inputs that will invariably come up during the year. If you cant articulate what you want to achieve with this multi-faceted, multi-dimensional plan in a sentence or two, start back up at step No. 1.Have you started down the strategy road for 2012?6 Game-Changing Digital Journalism Events of 2011The year 2011 brought extraordinary progress for online journalism.From breaking news curation to new revenue models, many an organization put its best digital foot forward. Social mediabecame more tightly integrated into reporting and overall strategy, while mobile app creation and content optimization were nolonger a nice-to-have, but a must.These trends are quickly shaping the young and agile web news industry. As journalists redefine themselves with new tools andskill sets, they’re reinvigorating a business that just a few years ago was written off as doomed.Here’s a look at six moves with the biggest impact on digital journalism this year.1. Paywalls Find Their FootingIf 2010 was the year of the paywall, 2011 was the year the paywall worked. News organizations stopped using ―our content isworth paying for‖ as a sole rationale, and began strategically providing value for their online content.While the The New York Times‘s strategy was much-criticized when it launched in March, it has since turned a profit. TheMinneapolis Star Tribune made an estimated $800,000 in digital circulation revenue during its first month of having a paywall,despite a 10-15% decline in web traffic. For both papers, tying online access to print subscriptions has been key to success.The Strib saw nearly 20% of its new digital subscribers also buy a Sunday subscription, while The Times said 800,000 printsubscribers have linked their accounts for digital access.These paywall models have shown the potential for creating dedicated digital subscriber bases that advertisers couldeventually pay more for.2. Andy Carvin Becomes an IconThe Arab Spring was undoubtedly one of 2011′s biggest news events — and its main newsman comes in right behind it. When theTunisian uprisings began last winter, Andy Carvin’s duties as NPR’s senior strategist took a backseat while his Twitter accountBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 38

became a one-man newswire dedicated to the culminating situation in the Middle East. He paired his knowledge of and contactsin the region to curate the best and most accurate information tweeted from the ground.What set Carvin apart was not only his volume of tweets — his record is 1,200 tweets in 48 hours, according toThe Guardian — butalso his recognition of fellow Twitter users as experts. He wouldn’t hesitate to tweet unverified information and ask his Twitterfollowers to help him determine its accuracy.For the journalism community, Carvin proved the value of social newsgathering and its ability to complement rather than replacetraditional reporting.3. Journalists Flock to Google+Google kickstarted digital journalists’ biggest love affair of 2011 when it launched social network Google+ in June. Manywere quick to sign on and explore the platform’s potential for news gathering, reporting and audience building.New Jersey newspaper The Trentonian was lauded as the first to use Google+ for breaking news after its producers found a keysource in a breaking news story via her comment on the paper’s Google+ page. For Missouri’s KOMU-TV, it was a socialbreakthrough when reporter Sarah Hill began integrating Hangouts into live TV broadcasts. She would give Hangout viewers abehind-the-scenes look at the newsroom and then interview Hangout participants on-air.While interest in Google+ has waned since its launch, news organizations’ initial enthusiasm shows a desire to expand tocommunities beyond Twitter and Facebook. As the social media landscape continues to grow, this early adopter mentality will becrucial to web journalism success.4. Mobile Gets CompetitiveThough the necessity for a mobile presence was recognized far before 2011, news organizations showed a new commitment tosmartphone and tablet apps this year.News Corp took its chances with a mobile-first strategy when it launched iPad-only newspaper The Daily in February, whileBetaworks’s News.me came on the scene in mid-April. Both much-hyped efforts flopped, in part because free social news readingapps, such as Flipboard and Pulse, were already widely used on tablets.In arguably the biggest mobile move by a news organization, CNN acquired iPad app Zite in August. KC Estenson, CNN’s generalmanager of digital, told Mashable that Zite’s technology would help improve CNN’s digital properties and help it serve morepersonalized content.There are now so many news apps, Apple felt compelled to launch Newsstand, a digital repository for magazine and newspaperapps. With an increasingly massive pool of apps, news organizations will need to find their own competitive edge in the mobilenews market.5. Facebook Makes Personal Branding EasierSince Facebook Subscribe rolled out in September, journalists have been using the tool as a personal branding and contentdistribution opportunity. While Facebook fan pages have long been common for recognizable names like Nicholas Kristof,Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 39

Subscribe gave lesser-known journalists a way to connect with readers on a larger scale.For some journalists, the switch from using Facebook as a personal network to a public forum has been a challenge. Others areembracing the platform’s change by openly offering subscribers a look at not only their work but their lives.Establishing a bonafide web presence is becoming essential for journalists who aim to become thought leaders in their coverageareas. Taking it beyond professionalism and showing personality adds to journalists’ appeal because it makes them morerelatable. Moving forward, they’ll become more open about what they share on social networks, showing that they’re not justjournalists, but people too.6. The Pulitzer Goes DigitalThe Pulitzer Board announced earlier this month it had revised its Breaking News category criteria to emphasize real-timereporting. This is the ultimate recognition that web journalism has come into its own.Under the new set of guidelines, ―it would be disappointing if an event occurred at 8 a.m. and the first item in an entry wasdrawn from the next day’s newspaper,‖ said to the board. In other words, the web is crucial to alerting a community about abreaking news event.The Pulitzer Board’s gesture sets a precedent for future breaking news coverage. The recognition of web reporting’s importanceby such a well-respected journalism entity will inspire more news organizations to invest in digital reporting — if they haven’talready.What This Means for 2012After an incredible year of news events and milestones, online journalism in 2012 has a tough act to follow. We can certainlyexpect more successes and more failures when it comes to business models and mobile strategies. News organizations willclamor to be the first on new social networks — they’re already flocking to pinboard site Pinterest. Journalists will connectfurther with their individual followers, and the 2012 Breaking News Pulitzer winner will have done a great service to itscommunity via the Internet.While we can only guess what the future of digital journalism holds, 2011 paved a strong path, leaving us hopeful and confidentthat the best has yet to come.5 Tech Trends to Watch in 20122012 promises to be a very busy year in all things digital, but, as with any annum, there will be just a handful of big, memorabletrends. Here, I’ve collected five such movements that are likely to make a big impact in our technologically-enhanced lives.Augmented RealityIt’s now in games, location apps, business cards and coffee shops and could start showing up in cars andeveneyeglasses. Augmented Reality, which puts a virtual view on top of your real world, is really just a cool way of saying,―Reality with Style.‖ Instead of simply viewing your apartment through your phone, you’re playing Star Wars Arcade FalconGunner on top of it. Instead looking up a restaurant in your neighborhood, you’re using Yelp to see its location and reviews for itand other restaurants right on top of your on-screen view of the street. 2012 will mark the beginning of exponential growth forMobile Augmented Reality (MAR).According to a report from Visiongain, 25% of all app downloads will feature some sort of augmented reality. Though adoptionhinges on more powerful, high-speed and camera-ready mobile devices, it’s clear to me that the majority of smartphones andtablets in end-users’ hands next year will be 3G-to-4G-ready, high-def, large-screen devices with not one, but two multi-megapixel cameras. Trust me, by 2013, you’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who hasn’t at least tried augmented reality.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 40

The Micro-Payment EconomyApp manufacturers are not the only ones who can make money selling tiny wares and incremental upgrades. The barrier to entryfor starting your own small business has been effectively knocked down by a variety of online merchants who are willing tohawk your wares for next to nothing. In truth, the merchandise isn’t entirely yours. In fact, these companies are often just sellingyour idea on top of their wares and you get a tiny slice for each sale, or for when the numbers of sales reaches a certainthreshold.Sites like RedBubble do everything for the artist; all they need to do is upload the content. RedBubble will, for example, makethe T-Shirt with your art, sell it for you, manage the distribution and, of course, collect payment. The site lets you set the priceabove their fixed price. Yes, you could add as much as you want onto a $16 T-shirt, but most smart sellers know this means theywon’t sell a single garment. Instead, you add 1%-to-5% (maybe 10% if you’re feeling strong) and then promote the dickens out ofyour product on the site and through various social networks.RedBubble is just one of many destinations popping up to help the aspiring entrepreneur. They join established platformslike Lulu (self-publish books), and YouTube. YouTube has been inviting videographers into the commerce tent for years, lettingthem add AdSense accounts to popular videos and then sitting back and watching the pennies roll in.As the economy sputters along, look for more and more of the sites helping you sell almost anything you can imagine andmaking you a ―fortune‖–one micro payment at a time.The Rise of the UltraBookTablets dominate the tech conversation, but that doesn’t mean the PC is dead. No, it’s alive and well, but in a form that willclosely mimic some of the best features of tablets. I don’t have numbers yet, but I’m betting Desktop PCs were not big sellersthis holiday season. Laptops may have done a little better, but who among you was willing to give junior an end-of-lifenetbook instead of a sexy, touch-screen tablet? (I’m imagining no one raising their hands).A term coined by Intel, Ultrabooks describe exquisitely thin and light, yet pleasingly powerful laptops. Think MacBook Air andyou get the idea. No, they don’t have touch screens or apps (though that’s changing, too) and Ultrabooks usually have just one HDcamera. Still, with just a little more heft and girth than your garden-variety iPad, an Ultrabook adds a full-sized keyboard and farmore powerful components. In other words, they’re perfectly designed for getting real work done, but no one will beembarrassed to carry one around. 2012 will witness an explosion of these devices as manufacturers pin on them their last besthopes for regaining consumer computing interest.Social/Digital ExhaustionFacebook will break the 1 billion user mark in 2012, but its numbers have flattened out in the U.S. Twitter is growing; it may haveas many 450 million users, but no one knows how many people are really active users. Google+ is growing steadily, but is stillwell behind the two most established networks and much of the public is unaware of its existence. There is the now persistent,with good reason, backlash against mobile phone usage in cars and on streets.In general, more and more people seem to be reevaluating their social and digital existence. Even the SOPA battle is revealingsome unforeseen schisms. The Stop Online Piracy Act is a bad idea, not because piracy is good, but because of the plan forenforcement is wrong and dangerous. That said, no one who creates content can deny that the digital revolution hasn’t forcedthem to rethink how they create, sell and distribute content. There are no easy answers here and 2012 will be a year ofintrospection; one where we possibly rewrite the rules of content, copyrights and social interactions.Mobile Chip WarsThe tech industry is gearing up for a rather intense battle—on a micro scale. With ARM (Advanced RISC Machine) -based CPUs invirtually all of today’s tablets and handsets, Intel, the dominant system CPU manufacturer, has no presence in the mobile space.It’s a situation the company promises to change in 2012 with Medfield—its rethinking of the Atom CPU (popular in netbooks).Meanwhile a consortium of Pacific Rim manufacturers have just banded together to produce new mobile CPUs for phones andtablets.These efforts may not mean much, though, as Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Motorola, Marvell, Nvidia and others all licensethe ARM architecture and show (along with the hardware partners) little interest in switching to a new or once-establishedplatform. Even Microsoft is developing Windows 8 to run on ARM-based CPUs in addition to traditional Wintel machines.Fjord Year-End Round-Up: Digital In 2011ADOTAS – 2011 was a year in which there was more change in technology than I can remember, some of it exceptionallysurprising.Nokia and Microsoft, formerly arch rivals,joined forces — and somehow managed to deliver a Nokia phone armed withWindows Mobile 7 within nine months. HP bought, introduced and then, within a month, killed its first tablet offering, andseemingly sat on its acquisition of Palm for months, only recently announcingwhat they would do with their WebOS. Apple madetremendous progress from the iPad to the iPad 2, leaving competitors in the dust and giving the market a phenomenal pass-down in the process. Coworkers, children, and younger siblings never got such a good pass-down product so fast. The new iPadsBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 41

are now everywhere, from airplanes to classrooms.The iPad, of course, is a testament to the genius of the lateSteve Jobs, whose passing earlier this year shook the world oftechnology and leaves a potentially gaping void — but still, I think Jobs’ legacy will prove to be lasting. As Apple migrates from―What will Steve do next?‖ to ―What would Steve have done?,‖ the company will be tested. Jobs may have left plans for Applewell beyond his passing (his output in the final year of his life is truly mind-boggling); so of course, without his assertive styleof management, there will be some struggles for the company as they enter the Tim Cook era.And through all of this, the world of tech was increasingly entering into the mainstream, with the news cycle dominated byproduct and company announcements and a whole new generation of adopters eager to talk about their new devices. 2011marked a turning point in how we talk about — and therefore, how we utilize — digital technology. Every year for the past fiveyears, Fjord has released its Fjord Digital Trends forecast for the coming 12 months. Sometimes we’re right; sometimes we’rewrong. But as we prepare for the release of our 2012 predictions, I wanted to look back at those we made for 2011, this busy yearin tech, to see where we’ve been and how far we’ve come.2011 Prediction: Pimp Your Life, Gaming StyleFoursquare mayors have to work hard to maintain their positions — their places assured not by campaigning but by customerloyalty. With its Radar feature, it becomes a local guide and, for many, a trail of places visited. Instead of just check-ins, theservice takes up a central place in the social and local scene, providing increasingly creative marketing solutions (and, for theuser, still offering a competitive experience). In 2011, perhaps spurred by Foursquare’s lead, we saw that anything can become acontest — customer loyalty, yes, but also household chores, weight loss, physical activity and more. And for the less competitiveamongst us, gamification offers a platform for encouragement. Facebook, for instance, is the stage on which you can act out theplay of your weight loss, your increasingly challenging jogging routes, your quest to find the best hamburger in New York: Yourfriends, your audience, are there to applaud your achievements. The dual spheres of competition and encouragement are movingbeyond the realm of social and into the real world, with marketers seeing the value of making their campaigns games. Brandsare tapping into our naturally competitive instincts and rewarding us for striving against our peers.Lifeboats for the ―App Flood‖With more devices launched in 2011, there are now even more places where you can buy apps. But how can you keep them allstraight? Aggregators like Appolicious this year helped us find apps, but 2011 also saw the launch of several ―Super Apps‖ — appslike Angry Birds that transcended the app store and took on lives of their own, marketed initially through their ranking andvalued through CPMs. Angry Birds has even taken on a life outside of the app world, with t-shirts, stuffed toys, and even a retailstore in the works.2011 Prediction: ―Superphones‖ Go 4D — And BeyondWe expected that Superphones would go into 4D, and maybe Siri is a good example of that, but it seems we greatlyunderestimated the slowness at which the platforms would progress, and only a few vendors are dipping into 3D experiencewithout much user love or market attention. This shows a change in dynamics: how phones have become mobile computingplatforms, progressing at the pace of app developers.2011 Prediction: Discovering ―Lifestreams‖Now that the Facebook Timeline has begun rolling out to all users, early complaints are turning into praise, as nostalgia trumpsresistance to change. But beyond reminiscence, life recorders, platforms that track your activity over time — whether it be yourjogging routes or your most frequently visited websites — are hitting the mainstream because they have an inherently practicalside, too, and one that the expanding digital user base seems to have latched on to. Because the success of advertising oftenhinges on the connection consumers make to a brand, smart marketers who use Lifestreams effectively can establish theconnection users have to, or reliance they have upon, certain brands, by showing them in the context of the user’s life. History,for the first time, can become the future of advertising, as journeys into the virtual past open up doors to the virtual present.This could become a massive opportunity for engineered marketing serendipity.2011 Prediction: Digital Magazines Are Still Searching for a SoulNot only did they search in 2011, but at least some magazines also seem to have found one. Flipboard, which we predicted in 2011could be an inspiration for other tablet-formatted magazines, truly took off this year, becoming incredibly central in the space.The Economist’s bi-monthly Intelligent Life is now offered for free in the App Store, sponsored by Credit Suisse. The fact thatmedia are willing to give away a high-value product such as this shows that they’re panicked about retaining their readershipand will go to extreme lengths to retain it. Of course, it also devalues the magazine, taking away some credibility by notcharging a premium for content. At the end of the year, while digital magazines are seemingly finding themselves, printed mediaseems to be soul searching more than ever.2011 Prediction: The Cloud Becomes a KiteThink about how many devices you check your email from on any given workday. You might start off on your tablet overbreakfast, transition to your smartphone while on the subway to work, spend eight hours at your desktop, and then head homeand send a few last-minute emails from your personal laptop. You should have increased possibility and productivity with allthese devices at your disposal, rather than being hamstrung because you didn’t think to email yourself a file on the way out theBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 42

door. Enter Dropbox and Evernote, strong candidates for efficiency-maker of the year. Apple entered a new era withiCloudliberating their mobiles from the Mac, as Amazon turns the Cloud Drive into a kite with introduction of the Kindle Fire.2011 Prediction: Going with the Flow: ―Liquid Experiences‖That familiar blue thumbs-up that you see on almost every website you visit shows the pervasiveness of the Facebook ―Like‖feature. Like a page, see it on your feed. But now, as Hulu, Yahoo News, The Guardian and other popular sites integrate more fullywith Facebook, you don’t need to actively ―like‖ something in order for it to appear on your profile — it’s posted automatically.The iPhone has integrated Twitter; Spotify will stream music wirelessly over a Sonos music system; and with the launch of theKindle Fire, Amazon’s Whispersync becomes even more important to Kindle Store customers. Moving fluidly from device todevice, app to app, task to task, makes the experience more enjoyable, the user more engaged. And engagement is one of thebest things a marketer can hope for.So What’s Next?Digital is here to stay. Consumers are hooked. Marketers are finding success in new channels that weren’t even available a fewyears ago. Developers are having a blast, and device manufacturers are doing everything they can to uncover new segments. Aswith all other years I have been in mobile and digital, 2012 is going to be mind-blowing.Online Love: Amazon Earns Highest Marks Yetby Sarah Mahoney,When it comes to online shopping satisfaction and the holidays, shoppers still can’t get enough of Amazon. In the E-RetailSatisfaction Index, perennial favorite Amazon jumped two points to 88, the highest score ever attained by any retailer sinceForeSee started its online satisfaction index in 2005.Meanwhile, Netflix’s PR and pricing blunders hurt it, with its score falling from 85 to 79. (Traditionally, Netflix and Amazon havevied for the No. 1 spot.)This year’s survey, which tracks all categories of holiday shopping, found consumers were less sensitive to price than in yearspast, and more likely to respond to merchandise and content. Other top performers include Avon, JC Penney, QVC, and Apple. Sitesthat score poorly include Overstock and the Gap.ForeSee says the satisfaction scores are important in that highly satisfied shoppers say they are 64% more likely to consider thecompany next time they make a similar purchase, and more likely to return to the site, recommend it, and stay true to the brand.It’s also key in multichannel retailing strategies, since satisfied online customers are 48% more likely to purchase from theretailer offline. Its analysis has shown that on average, a one-point change in Web site satisfaction predicts a 14% change in Webrevenues.ForeSee, based in Ann Arbor, Mich., uses the academic methodology of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) created atthe University of Michigan to determine the scores. The survey is based on some 8,500 responses, collected betweenThanksgiving and Christmas.Meanwhile, Santa’s coming -- and going -- did little to slow shopper passion for Internet shopping this season. IBM Benchmarksays that online shopping on Dec. 25 and 26 was just as strong as in the weeks leading up to the big day, gaining 16.4% from theprior year on Christmas Day, and 27.8% on Boxing Day. And mobile traffic was healthy as well, with 18.3% of all online sessions ona retailer’s site initiated by a mobile device, up from 8.4% last year. Apple’s iPad led all mobile device traffic, followed by iPhoneand Android.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 43

Dont Worry About Your First JobGraduates, take note: Few people start their work life in the right place. So dont stress about your first job out of college.Chances are its not going to predict your future field, income, or career path. Instead of looking for the perfect job, look forthese three things: Opportunities to learn. Whatever job you take, you should acquire new skills and experience. Enough money. You dont have to be a banker. Waiting tables is perfectly respectable if it affords you the time and flexibility to do what you care about. Chances to contribute. Everyone wants to feel a sense of purpose. Find a position that allows you to be a force for good. If you cant find a job that fits the bill, volunteer on the side.Your First Job Doesnt (Really) MatterI recently polled a trailblazing group of women leaders — Northwestern Universitys Council of 100 — about their careers. Howmany of us were in the same job or even on the same career path today as we were when we graduated from college? Theanswer was three: three out of one hundred women. Then I asked how many were in the same industry. The number went up toabout twenty.So, at twenty-one years old, 20% of us knew the field we wanted to be in (and would ultimately succeed in) and 3% of us gotboth the job and the industry right out of the starting gate.Gen Ys, dont worry: this isnt a cautionary tale; its a reprieve. Dont worry so much about your first job — youre probably notgoing to get it right anyway, and thats okay.Whats more, there are better things for you to worry about that will ensure that, no matter what job you choose today, youbuild skills and create options for the long-term.Instead, worry now about learning, earning, and contributing. Those three areas will get you much farther than nights of stressworrying about what interviews youll get and which networking opportunities to approach.LearnWhen I graduated college, I headed off to the Peace Corps in Latin America to travel and change the world. Travel I did. Im no sosure about changing the world. And I didnt end up in the international aid field either.But what I did do is learn a whole lot about myself, about relating to others, about adjusting expectations and managing difficultworkplace environments. The Peace Corps demanded that I think outside the box, overcome challenges, problem solve in non-traditional environments, and push my self beyond my comfort zone (and then some). Beyond using those skills in my day-to-day work, I often use examples from that time period when I need to highlight my abilities.Whatever first job you land after college, there is learning to be had. Be an observer of people and your environment. What isthe team dynamic like? Why do people love (or hate) the boss? Who can you emulate or model yourself against as you movethrough the ranks? Why do the jerks who bring in the most accounts still get ahead? Who wields power and influence and who isrelegated to the sidelines? How do people who always solve problems do it?EarnDoing what you love and making money doing it dont always coincide. But making money often helps you ultimately do whatyou love. There is no shame in honest work. If you cant land a job at Google or Groupon, dont despair. Go get a job waitingtables, working at a call center, or freelance for a small business. Moonlight as an artist and build out your social media profileand skills. Blog on the side and work retail during the day. Just do something to make some cash, be able to support yourself,and hopefully start building a nest egg. I had multiple periods of "not having a real job" during my twenties. I temped, waitressed,baristad, babysat, worked multiple jobs — I did everything I could to make ends meet between jobs and while searching for mynext "real" thing.That focus on earnings gave me flexibility and created choices. I was able to fly to D.C. (on my own nickel) for a long-shotinterview (I got the job). I was able to take a GMAT class when, out of the blue, I decided to go to b-school. And years later, I wasable to launch my own business as an entrepreneur after socking away my Wall Street salary post MBA. Ive never had to foregoa twist or turn in the road because I couldnt support myself doing something new — continually being able to pay my bills (nomatter how humble the job) has provided me with a sense of pride and a sense of empowerment.ContributeWhat Gen-Ys (and in truth, everyone) most want is fulfillment and a sense of purpose. If youre not utilizing your "highest andbest" value in the marketplace, take that energy and enthusiasm and apply it elsewhere as a force for positive good. Do charitywork on the side or join a non-profit board. Get involved with a cause or an organization you care about. Take the skills yourehoping to build a career on and apply them to a local organization that needs your help. Youll demonstrate your passion andconviction to future employers, and you might just make important connections that will lead to your next big thing. Crazierthings have happened than landing your dream job because of volunteer work.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 44

Even though its hard to imagine right now, the economy will turn around. Things will get better; they always do. As you wait outthis recession, dont think that youre college degree is worthless: its not. Your lifetime earning potential is higher, your chancesof unemployment are lower, and the benefits of the network youve built are incomparable and long lasting. And, as firstgeneration digital natives, your tech savvy skills are invaluable.Whatever youre doing today or trying to do, keep in mind the learn, earn, contribute trifecta. If you can check off one or two at atime, youll ultimately end up with all three along the way — and find that career path or job or circuitous round-about path tohappiness and prosperity somewhere in between.Exposure to Social Media Linked with Changes in Sales and Brand Perceptionby Irfan KamalWith various types of social media (Facebook, Twitter, message boards, blogs, private social communities, Youtube and othersocial sites) taking up an increasing portion of consumer attention, we wanted to understand just how relevant social contentexposure is to changes in sales and brand perception.Much of the work to date has looked at direct channel impacts; for example, do direct clicks from a social media site result insales? This study of restaurant consumers attempts to understand the more complex factors that lead to consumer purchaseand perception changes.We released our final report yesterday at Pivot Conference 2011 in New York. We found that in the real world, social contentexposure - by itself and more broadly when combined with other types of media exposure such as out-of-home, PR or TV ads -is linked with 2-7x higher likelihood of consumption and actual spend increases. And, social content exposure alone is associatedwith the largest impact on week-to-week brand perception changes.The infographic below the fold provides a summary of the results.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 45

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Results were only reported if statistically significant. The study was conducted in staggered 1-week reporting intervalsbetween January 6, 2011 and May 6, 2011. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the link between short-term mediatouchpoint exposure and immediate shifts in sales and/or brand perception.Set the Stage for your Next MeetingFrom the moment you send a meeting invite, as the meeting organizer you are responsible for setting the right tone and makingthe meeting a success. Here are three things you should do before people get in the room: Clarify the objective. Make sure people know why theyre invited. If its to make a decision, give participants the time and materials they need to prepare. Prep important people. Talk with key participants about agenda items ahead of time. You may hear insights that could change how you run the meeting. Expect full participation. Ask attendees to do their homework, come with relevant materials, and show up ready to contribute.Digitas Bitterman On Owned, Earned And Hype -- And Why Google+ Has Been A Negativeby Mark Walsh, Dec 24, 2011, 3:09 PMFacebook continued to dominate the social media landscape in 2012, but Google+ and Twitter introduced advertising andLinkedIn led the way to Wall Street with a successful IPO. To discuss these developments and look ahead to 2012, OnlineMedia Daily asked Jordan Bitterman, senior vice president and social marketing practice lead at Digitas, for his views on thedynamic space.OMD: Facebook’s latest overhaul, including features like Timeline and Ticker, as well as Open Graph apps, encourages brands tocreate their own apps for the platform. How do you think that will play out next year as these features fully roll out?Bitterman: Publishers and app developers have real incentive to build into the Facebook graph. In doing so, they putthemselves at the center of a highly sharable environment that provides both exposure for their brand and earneddistribution for their content. While this immediate opportunity will create huge momentum for continued use of the platform,both consumers and brands are questioning whether the resulting abundance of push updates will create the dynamic ofover-sharing -- and ultimately, burnout. On balance, we see strong growth, but will keep a firm hand on the tiller to makeadjustments as necessary.OMD: A number of social media properties have started brand (or company) pages recently, including Twitter, LinkedIn,StumbleUpon, Google+ and newsreader app Zite. Will a Facebook Page still remain the anchor for social media marketingefforts?Bitterman: With 800 million users and legions of committed brands, Facebook has a huge head start. This will translate intoanother fruitful year for Facebook’s sales force. As the other platforms develop their brand page offerings, with newfunctionality and the possibility of streamlined graphics and coding standards, others will gain steam.For example, Twitter recently rolled out its brand pages, which made the site more consumer and brand-friendly. While thesebrand pages likely wont pull followers away from engaging their favorite brands on Facebook, interaction with a brand forthe users -- and ultimately, marketers -- will be greatly enhanced. Overall, social brand pages give marketers options toconnect with an audience, and numerous factors such as content, participation and listening will be increasingly critical formarketing success.OMD: What, if any, developments (or non-developments) in social media this year surprised you?Bitterman: We were surprised by the lack of true adoption of Google+ after an initial burst. With all of the resources at theirdisposal, we don’t count them out by a long shot, but integrating G+ into other parts of the Google ecosystem -- as theyintend to do --– would be wise. 2012 feels ripe for a breakout in this area. We are pleased with the speed in which brands areembracing marketing as service. (Digitas defines this as developing experiences with utility built-in.)OMD: Will there be a standard metric for measuring effectiveness in social marketing campaigns? Is one needed?Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 49

Bitterman: Digitas has been working both on our own and with industry partners to solve the equation. Generally, however,trying to measure effectiveness in social is analogous to doing so in brand and direct marketing: Every client is different andevery client situation is different.The value of a fan or a follower depends on what you intend to do with them once you acquire them. The value of aconnection on one platform is different than the value on another. Ultimately, we are making great progress towardstandardization, but it will be a marathon in getting there -- not a sprint. If anyone says differently, don’t believe them.OMD: For Digitas clients, what proportion of their digital budgets goes to social media, and what portion to earned or ownedmedia versus paid advertising?Bitterman: Investment in owned and earned channels is adopting rapidly. Hype is driving part of this shift. Brands are alsorealizing that in the social age, working media simply doesnt work well on its own. Still, even at strong growth multiples, it’schallenging for clients to take the plunge. The paid media ecosystem –- and the associated metrics -– have been anestablished driver of objectives for decades. For the next ring of dollars to move to line items beyond paid media -- ownedand earned live in this column -- innovator brands such as American Express and P&G will have to show the way.OMD: Do you have any thoughts on what trend(s) in social media might emerge next year?Bitterman: Driven by the opportunity for exponential ROI gains, brands will embrace social commerce more fully in 2012.Consumers will become more comfortable buying through technologies on networks, and the technologies themselves willbecome more mainstream and reliable.Social will prove to be the ―killer app‖ that drives mobile growth and adoption. Two-thirds of Americans are on Facebook andthree-quarters visit social networks regularly, yet smartphone penetration is at just 50%. Social will be a force to push thatfigure higher.Investments in initiatives that stretch beyond paid media -- so-called non-working media, such as development costs forbrand pages or social applications -- and the buildout of the content that populates those experiences, will continue to scaleas innovative case studies demonstrate an effective path forward.How to Ace a Google InterviewBrain teasers like the ones used for hiring by the Internet giant are spreading to other picky employers.By W I L L I A M P O U N D S T O N E Imagine a man named Jim. Hes applying for a job at Google. Jim knows that the odds are stacked against him. Google receives a million job applications a year. Its estimated that only about 1 in 130 applications results in a job. By comparison, about 1 in 14 high-school students applying to Harvard gets accepted. Jims first interviewer is late and sweaty: Hes biked to work. He starts with some polite questions about Jims work history. Jim eagerly explains his short career. The interviewer doesnt look at him. Hes tapping away at his laptop, taking notes. "The next question Im going to ask," he says, "is a little unusual." You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and thrown into a blender. Your mass is reduced so that your density is the same as usual. The blades start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?Google receives a million job applications a year. The interviewer looks up from his laptop, grinning like a maniac with a new toy. "I would take the change in my pocket and throw it into the blender motor to jam it," Jim says.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 50

The interviewers tapping resumes. "The inside of a blender is sealed," he counters, with the air of someone whos heard it all before. "If you could throw pocket change into the mechanism, then your smoothie would leak into it." "Right… um… I would take off my belt and shirt, then. Id tear the shirt into strips to make a rope, with the belt, too, maybe. Then Id tie my shoes to the end of the rope and use it like a lasso." Furious key clicks. "I dont mean a lasso," Jim plows on. "What are those things Argentinian cowboys throw? Its like a weight at the end of a rope." No answer. Jim now realizes that his idea is lame, but he feels compelled to complete it. "Id throw the weights over the top of the blender jar. Then Id climb out." "The weights are just your shoes," the interviewer says. "How would they support your bodys weight? You weigh more than your shoes do." Jim doesnt know. Thats the end of it. The interviewer begins ticking off quibbles one by one. He isnt sure whether Jims shirt—shrunken with the rest of him—could be made into a rope that would be long enough. Once Jim got to the top of the jar—if he got there—how would he get down again? Could he realistically make a rope in 60 seconds? Photo illustration photography by F. Martin Ramin for The Wall Street Journal Jim doesnt see where a word like "realistic" comes into play—unless Google has a shrinking ray. "It was nice meeting you," the interviewer says, extending a still-damp hand. *** Jim isnt quite imaginary. Hes a composite. For the last eight years Ive collected interview questions. The blender question is real. Several Google interviewees recounted to me what happened when they came up against it. And though Google doesnt comment on the specifics of its hiring process—it likes to maintain an air of mystery, which has led to a cottage industry of samizdat Google questions passed among hopeful future employees and curious outsiders—former and current Google HR specialists have shared rather freely with me what it is that motivates the way they interview job candidates.“You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and thrown into a blender. Your mass is reduced so that your density is the same as usual. The blades start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?”Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 51

Well get to the longer answer, but the short answer is that Google isnt looking for the smartest, or even the most technically capable, candidates. Google is looking for the candidates who will best fit Google. Thats tougher than it sounds. And the dilemma Google faces is emblematic of our depressed knowledge economy. We live in an age of desperation. But in our current economic climate, employee screening has become more, not less, important. In a boom, companies could afford to be cavalier about hiring. If a worker didnt fit, he or she would soon move on. Today, employees cling to jobs like limpets to wet rocks. The only way to get rid of someone is to fire him (an increasingly fraught maneuver in our litigious society). Thus, the flood of job applicants has to be strained more finely than ever before, as even unsexy firms find themselves with multiple well-qualified applicants for each position. How are companies coping with this new environment? In September 2009, the Labor Department reported that job seekers outnumbered job openings by 6 to 1. These unemployment numbers have spread riddles, loaded questions and multiple-interview marathons across the corporate food chain, into mature and less cutting-edge industries. Each year Glassdoor.com compiles a list of "oddball" interview questions (puzzles, riddles and the like) reported by members. In the most recent list, only about a quarter of such questions came from tech firms. The rest were from mainstream corporations, from Aflac to Volkswagen. "If you could be any superhero, who would it be?" "What color best represents your personality?" "What animal are you?" These questions, posted by job candidates on Glassdoor.com, arent from some wacky Silicon Valley start-up—theyre asked of applicants at AT&T, Johnson & Johnson and Bank of America, respectively. Goldman Sachs interviewers ask candidates the firms stock price. Morgan Stanley asks interviewees to name a recent story theyve read in the Financial Times—apparently, a lot cant. J.P. Morgan Chase asks the value of pi. (Its thought to be instructive to see how many digits the candidate can recite.) Since being a math or tech whiz is irrelevant to running most businesses, some companies have redoubled their efforts to find the perfect match of candidate and corporate personality. Whole Foods interviewers have candidates describe their perfect "last meal." Its a quick way of gauging the applicants knowledge of food and passion for it. Expedia does the same thing with travel, asking questions like "If you could go camping anywhere, where would you put your tent?" The online retailer Zappos has a trickier question: "On a scale of 1 to 10, how weird are you?" The preferred answer is somewhere in the middle, CEO Tony Hsieh explained in a speech to the Asia Society in 2010. A 1 "might be a little bit too straitlaced for the Zappos culture," and a 10 "might be a little too psychotic." Does any of this work? Weird interview questions have become a meme, like a joke or a viral video. Its catchiness, rather than proof of their effectiveness, that keeps them in circulation at many companies. But folks who believe they need to shake up the traditional method of hiring—the standard job interview—are certainly on to something. The deep, dark secret of human resources is that traditional job interviews dont work very well. In fact, theres been quite a bit of research on the topic. One example is a famous experiment that Nalini Ambady and Robert Rosenthal of Harvard did in 1992, with videotapes of traditional interviews. People who saw 10-second clips of an interview had roughly the same opinion of the interview subject as did the actual interviewer—making a strong case that job interviewers go by first appearances and are fooling themselves into believing theyve gleaned additional information from everything that comes after. Unfortunately, the human-resources profession has yet to identify a widely accepted alternative. But its hardly been from lack of trying. Some companies have used "biodata" (a mash-up of the words biography and data). In World War II, it was found that promising pilots could be identified with a simple question: "Did you ever build a model airplane that flew?" In the 1950s, the emerging computer industry latched onto logic puzzles as an attempt, however makeshift, to identify those capable of thinking in new ways. Does the puzzle approach popularized by the tech industry work? A controlled experiment is difficult—you would have to ask a lot of applicants the same question, record the results and then hire them all. “The best answers to many of the questions begin with, It depends.” But these types of questions do reflect the general findings of employment psychology. There is significant evidence that "work sampling," the use of tests similar to the work being performed, is a better predictor of future performance than the usual job-interview chit-chat. Google does a lot of work sampling, such as requiring coders to write code in the interview. The rationale for the creative-thinking questions is that they test the type of mental processes used in inventing a new product or developing a new business plan.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 52

So how do you measure a talent for invention? The blender riddle encapsulates the process of inventing a new product. You begin by brainstorming. There are many possible answers, and you shouldnt be in a hurry to settle for the first idea that seems "good enough." The two most popular serious answers to the blender riddle seem to be (1) lie down, below the blades and (2) stand to the side of the blades. There ought to be at least a nickels width of clearance between the whirring blades and the bottom or sides of the blender jar. Another common reply is (3) climb atop the blades and position your center of gravity over the axis. Hold tight. None of the above answers scores you many points at Google. Former and current Google interviewers have told me that the best answer theyve heard is: Jump out of the jar. Huh? The question supplies an important clue: the word "density." "Being shrunk to the size of a nickel" is not a realistic predicament. For starters, it might mean eliminating 99.99% of the neurons in your brain. To deal with a question like this, you have to decide where to suspend disbelief. The fact that the interviewer mentions a detail like density is a nudge. It says that things like mass and volume matter in this question and that a successful answer can use simple physics. In short, if were you shrunk to 1/10 your present height, your muscles would be only 1/100 as powerful—but youd weigh a mere 1/1,000 as much. All else being equal, small creatures are "stronger" in lifting their bodies against gravity. Were you shrunk to nickel size, youd be strong enough to leap like Superman, right out of the blender. Think of the feats performed by fleas in a flea circus. That is the kernel of a good answer to the question. But Googles interviewers are not just looking for someone who has the basic idea. The best answers to many of the questions begin with, "It depends." Whats the most efficient way to sort a million 32-bit integers? It depends on the makeup of the list of integers and the constraints of time and memory. The applicant is expected to ask about these things. In general, Google is not trying to fill a particular job. The way the company morphs and grows, they want to find people who can join in one role and end up doing something completely different. Google has tried biodata. "Did you ever make a computer from a kit?" was one question that the company found could isolate candidates with a lifelong passion for computers. But such methods have been de-emphasized in favor of its sometimes quirky interviewing process. Design an evacuation plan for San Francisco. Use a programming language to describe a chicken. What is the most beautiful equation you have ever seen? Explain. By design, none of these questions has a right answer. This has led to intense speculation and even paranoia among Google job candidates. Its also led to other companies adopting Google-esque questions without having any idea what constitutes a good answer. Fifteen million Americans are now out of work, and many of them can expect to come into contact with this new and alien culture of intense interviewing practices. The blender question is a metaphor. The growth of a company, or of anything we humans care about, is all about change of scale. Solutions that work when something is small do not necessarily work as its scope expands. Googles quirky interviewing works for Google. But other companies need to understand why it works at the tech giant—and how it might intelligently be adapted to other contexts. And job candidates need to understand what kind of thinking and skills are being sought by firms that are hiring. Often, all it takes to succeed is one good mental leap. But its important not to jump out of the blender and into the fire. 5 Google Interview Questions 1. Whats the next number in this sequence: 10, 9, 60, 90, 70, 66 … ? Asked at Google 2. Youre in a car with a helium balloon on a string that is tied to the floor. The windows are closed. When you step on the gas pedal, what happens to the balloon—does it move forward, move backward, or stay put? Asked at Microsoft 3. Using only a four-minute hourglass and a seven-minute hourglass, measure exactly nine minutes—without the process taking longer than nine minutes. Asked at GoogleBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 53

4. A book has N pages, numbered the usual way, from 1 to N. The total number of digits in the page numbers is 1,095. How many pages does the book have? Asked at Google 5. A man pushed his car to a hotel and lost his fortune. What happened? Asked at GoogleANSWERS1. Whats the next number in this sequence: 10, 9, 60, 90, 70, 66 … ?A. Spell the numbers out:TenNineSixtyNinetySeventySixty-sixThey are in ascending order, based on the number of letters in the spelled-out numbers. A correct response will have nineletters: 96, for instance. A cleverer answer is "one googol." Thats the huge number that can be written as a "1" with ahundred zeros after it. Google, the companys name, was originally a misspelling of "googol."2. Youre in a car with a helium balloon on a string that is tied to the floor. The windows are closed. When you step on thegas pedal, what happens to the balloon—does it move forward, move backward, or stay put?A. The near-universal intuition is that the balloon leans backward as you accelerate. Well, the intuition is wrong. Your job isto deduce how the balloon does move and to explain it to the interviewer.One good response is to draw an analogy to a spirit level. For the not so handy, a spirit level is the little gizmo carpentersuse to make sure a surface is horizontal. It contains a narrow glass tube of colored liquid with a bubble in it. Whenever thespirit level rests on a perfectly horizontal surface, the bubble hovers in the middle of the tube. When the surface isnt solevel, the bubble migrates to the higher end of the tube. The takeaway here is that the bubble is simply a "hole" in theliquid. When the surface isnt level, gravity pulls the liquid toward the lower end. This pushes the bubble wherever theliquid isnt— toward the opposite end. Untie the helium balloon and let it hit the moonroof. It becomes a spirit level. The balloon is a "bubble" of lower-density helium in higher-density air, all sealed in a container (the car). Gravity pulls the heavy air downward, forcing the light balloon against the moonroof. When the car accelerates, the air is pushed backward, just as your body is. This sends a lighter-than-air balloon forward. When the car brakes suddenly, the air piles up in front of the windshield. This sends the balloon backward. Centrifugal force pushes the air away from the turn and sends the balloon toward the center of the turn. Of course, the same applies when the balloon is tied to something; its just less free to move. The short answer to this question is that the balloon nods in the direction of any acceleration.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 54

3. Using only a four-minute hourglass and a seven-minute hourglass, measure exactly nine minutes—without the process taking longer than nine minutes. A. Start both hourglasses at 0 minutes. Flip over the four-minute glass when it runs out (at 4:00); ditto for the seven- minute glass (at 7:00). When the four-minute glass runs out the second time (at 8:00), the seven-minute glass will then have one minute of sand in its lower bulb. Flip the seven-minute glass over again and let the minute of sand run back. When the last grain falls, that will be nine minutes. 4. A book has N pages, numbered the usual way, from 1 to N. The total number of digits in the page numbers is 1,095. How many pages does the book have? A. Every page number has a digit in the units column. With N pages, thats N digits right there. All but the first 9 pages have a digit in the tens column. Thats N - 9 more digits. All but the first 99 pages have a digit in the hundreds column (accounting for N - 99 more digits). I could go on, but not many books have more than 999 pages. A book with 1,095 digits in its page numbers wont, anyway. This means that 1,095 must equal: N + (N - 9) + (N - 99). This can be simplified to: 1,095 = 3N - 108. That means that 3N = 1,203, or N = 401. Thats the answer, 401 pages. 5. A man pushed his car to a hotel and lost his fortune. What happened? A. He was playing Monopoly.The iPhone App Store Generates 4X The Revenue The Android App StoreJay YarowBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 55

The top 200 grossing apps in iPhones app store generated four times as much revenue as the top 200 grossing apps inthe Android app market, says mobile analytics company Distimo.It also says the top apps in the iPad app store are generating double the revenue of the Android app market.Distimo doesnt break out specific numbers, and didnt respond to a request for information on the absolute numbers itestimates for each market.As Android continues to take smartphone market share, stats like this are important to keep in mind. The growth in marketshare only matters if Apple loses its appeal with developers. Once it loses developers it loses its edge in software /applications.Once it loses the edge in applications, it really loses out. It makes it difficult to sell phones to users. Would you want a phonewith inferior applications?For now, Google is totally blowing its market share lead. For some reason people arent paying for apps through Android. Themobile ad market is not big enough to offset this problem, and arguably it will never be all that big -- tiny banner ads wontwork.Unless Google figures out a way to sell more apps, or generate more revenue for developers, Apple will remain the firstchoice for developers making the best software in the world.For Google, Fixing Android Is Like Herding Cats Matt Rosoff | Dec. 16, 2011,Last May, Google announced a deal with a bunch of cellphone makers and wireless carriers that was supposed to fix a bigproblem with Android.Now, as PC Magazines Jamie Lendro reports, that alliance is basically dead.Of the seven companies in it, only one, Sony Ericsson, has publicly promised to live up to the pledge to release new versionsof Android to ALL phones that are less than 18 months old.Motorola, Samsung, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon all danced around the question.This is a problem for users -- theyre not always getting the latest experience that Google has created, and they cant alwaysuse the latest apps. Its a huge problem for developers -- if they target only the most recent software, they dont know howmany customers theyll be able to reach, and on what timeline.The thing is, this deal was never going to work. Google cant force these companies to do anything that wasnt in the terms oftheir contracts -- and even then, Google only has leverage over partners who want official Google certification. Anybody cantake the basic underlying version of Android and customize it to their own ends, like Amazon has done with the KindleFire and Facebook is reportedly doing with its phone.Meanwhile, handset makers and carriers want to maintain differentiation-- they release phones with different hardwarespecs, layer their own UIs on top, and so on. Updating all those phones requires a lot of extra work.Its like herding cats.Fortunately for Google, if the feds and the EU approve the Motorola deal, Google will have a little more leverage -- it canbuild its own phones to its own desired hardware specs and tell software developers to target those specs. If other handsetmakers and wireless carriers refuse to come along, thats their loss.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 56

Creating an Engagement IndexDavid DanielsAs an email marketer, it is vital to understand the overall engagement of your list of subscribers. While based on a singlemailing it may be easy to view aggregate measures, such as unique click-through rate, often I find that many are not lookingat such audience engagement measures over time.Understanding audience engagement on both a macro and subscriber level is important to determining which subscribershave churned or are showing signs that they are about to leave. A consumer survey conducted by my consultancy found that30 percent of consumers changed or created a new email address in the past year. Developing key performance indicatorsand using them to build an engagement index is a necessary tool to determine how many of these address churningsubscribers are on your list. Heres how to do it.First, develop key performance indicators. Although rates for open, click-through, conversion, and delivery are useful to know,they are also the necessary ingredients for developing an engagement metric to trend the health of a mailing list or segmentover time. Along with the aforementioned metrics, add the unsubscribe rate, spam complaint rate, new subscriber rate, andhard bounces to a quotient that directionally indicates the quality and performance of the mailing list. Each sub-metric can beindividually evaluated, but rolling all of them up into one metric is an easy way for marketers to gauge the health ofsubscribers over time. With these key metrics in place you are ready for step two.Next, take all the key performance indicators, and score them on a three-point scale, with the value of 1 when you are belowyour benchmark average, the value of 2 when you are at or within 2 percent of your benchmark average, and the value of 3when you are 2 percent or more over your benchmark average. Apply this approach to all your major key performanceindicators, and sum them up. The higher the number, the better your list is performing. It signals that your audience isrelatively engaged with you. For the purposes of illustration, your engagement metric calculation may look like the following. How to Create an Engagement Scorecard Note: These numbers are for illustrative purposes only. They are not industry average benchmarks. ScoreDelivery rate = 95% 3Open rate = 24% 1Click-through rate = 12% 2Conversion rate = 1.5% 2Percent of list clicking within past month = 350%Opt-in rate = 3% 3*Spam complaint rate = 10% 1*Unsubscribe rate = .01% 2Total engagement score 17*With the spam complaint and unsubscribe rates, the higher the number for these metrics, the lower the score shouldbeThe overall engagement score in this example is 17. Although each metric is a key performance indicator, rolling up themetrics in a scoring system like this will give you a quick snapshot of the audiences health and its performance. If there is abig change from mailing to mailing, it is easy to identify which individual key performance indicator is dragging you down.From here you can begin to focus on subscriber behavior when creating audience segments. Create engagement rules (forexample, the number of subscribers clicking at least one link during past three or four mailings vs. those clicking morefrequently and those not clicking at all). This approach will create a behavioral segmentation framework to drive subsequentmailings and remarketing campaigns and in turn provide an overall effective means of targeting subscribers based on theirengagement. Applying this approach to reactivation mailings can help spot dormant subscribers and with the right offerbreathe new life into dying ones.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 57

Time to Change Our Thinking...AgainSage LewisOne of the most difficult aspects of the information age is having to change our perspective.People hate change.There has been a wide adoption of social media in the business world. I continually get businesses of all sizes desperatelytrying to figure out how to use social media. But I dont think its because they want to grow into better human beings. I thinkits only because they are being forced to use it.I believe two things happened: 1. 800 million people got on Facebook 2. A massive recession swept through the countryI believe many businesses have been suffering over the last couple years and have, therefore, been scrambling to find newways to promote their products. Fundamental shifts in business always happen during recessions and depressions. If thingsare good, there is no reason to change.Businesses gravitated to social media because everyone is there. And there is no cost of entry other than time.So while we are all on the change train, I would like to suggest that we just keep the change coming.The change I am suggesting has to do with the silos we have all created.I hate segmenting and siloing things. But I believe it is a necessary evil. Theres simply too much information to have a flat,non-departmentalized system. However, the structure we have today is wrong.Look at how this, and virtually every other site in the online information market, is structured. The topics are organized likethis:  Email  Analytics  Marketing  Media  Mobile  Search  SocialThis is the approved and accepted structure of most sites. The issue is that virtually every topic crosses over almost all ofthose segments.Take Google for example. Gmail is, on its face, email. But it also has paid search listings. It has a mobile component thatincludes apps. And, I dont know about you, but it is the search bar I use most often right after Google.com.You can email people in Google+. And of course, it is considered a social tool. Google Analytics is increasingly incorporatingsocial statistics within its interface. Google AdWords and Google.com are now incorporating +1s within those results. We alsonow recognize YouTube as the second most used search engine. And of course, you can buy ads through YouTube PromotedVideos.I bring this all up because I was getting stuck with each topic I wanted to write about today. Initially I wanted to talk aboutthe Google Panda update. But then I thought I was going to probably have to talk about video and social signals, not tomention usability. It seemed like a search column. But it couldve easily moved into virtually every other topic within this site.I believe that you would not be telling the whole story of search engine optimization if you were not talking about virtuallyall the topics segmented here. This isnt just something that ClickZ and other publishers need to address. This is a way ofthinking that we all need to change.We are no longer doing search engine optimization from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m., social media from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., and paid searchfrom 11 a.m. to lunch time.You cannot be a search engine optimizer today without a Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ strategy. Search engine optimizationis bigger than on-the-page content and link building. You need to think about it by the brand and product you are targeting.Strategies you have will be:  Google SEO  Google AdWords  Google+  Facebook PagesBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 58

 Facebook Ads  Bing SEO  Microsoft adCenter  Twitter  Google AnalyticsWe all are thinking about how to get the most use out of the specific product. We need to stop thinking about our socialmedia strategy on one hand and our search engine optimization strategy on the other hand. They literally go hand in hand.It would be like segmenting your business publishing website by office supply:  How to use pens  How to use paper  Getting the most out of paper clips  Making the most of manila foldersYou would then tell your writers that their topic is one of the above. "You can talk all you want about how to use paper. Butjust dont get pens involved."We are thinking the same way about online promotion.We as businesses and we as publishers need to start thinking differently. We still need to segment but the segmenting needsto be done by the tool and what needs to be accomplished. Not by individual activity.Publishers Challenge Audience ReportFall study shows widespread readership declines By Lucia MosesMagazine publishers are demanding explanations from GfK MRI after its fall magazine audience report showed more thantwo-thirds lost audience versus a year ago, many of them by double digits.Some year-to-year audience fluctuations are common, but the fall report was unusual. About 70 percent of the 220magazines measured were down, according to MRI. Big decliners includedWired, down 22 percent to 2.5 million; Bon Appétit,down 17 percent to 5.8 million; O, The Oprah Magazine, down 10 percent; and New York, down 14 percent.Print ad buyers use the semiannual report to decide where to spend clients’ budgets, so decliningaudiences are the last thing publishers need. Until now, the overallmagazine audience had held steady, giving periodicals needed ammoat a time when newsstand sales and ad revenue were falling. The fallMRI report showed the total magazine audience down 3 percent,though.Publishers’ unhappiness doesn’t end there, though. Some are complaining that the report under-represents their digitalaudience.It wasnt supposed to be this way. Until recently, magazine measurement firms focused on their print audiences, but readersare now getting magazine content on mobile devices and online as well as in print. To that end, MRI, along with rival Affinity,has begun measuring magazines’ digital footprint, a step that some publishers hoped would boost their overall numbers. MRI’sfall report was its first to include such comprehensive data.One publisher, whose title saw a double-digit audience decline, fumed, ―Magazines with robust readership are showingdeclines, and magazines with significant digital platforms are not seeing those recognized. MRI is going to have a lot ofexplaining to do.‖Another publisher, Bon Appétit’s Pamela Drucker Mann, said it was a ―challenge‖ to understand why Bon App’s audience fell 17percent, given strong year-over-year newsstand sales for the past several issues under new editor Adam Rapoport.―We did speak to MRI about this, and they said it typically takes syndicated research 12-18 months to reflect an editorialchange,‖ she emailed. ―Therefore, we conclude these numbers to reflect reader fatigue toward the former BonAppétit editorial product and the exact reason Adam’s team was brought on to reshape the editorial vision of the magazine.‖Howard Mittman, publisher of Wired, said the problem was the methodology itself. MRI gathers the information by conductingin-person surveys with 26,000 interviewees.―The last wave had Wired showing a healthy double-digit increase, and this latest wave has us showing a double-digitdecline,‖ Mittman emailed. ―Frankly, I believe any drops, or increases, are less a symbol of a magazine’s audience than theyare a shining example of deficiencies in the research collection process itself. Do you really think a Wired reader is going tospend that amount of time completing a written and online survey? If so, theyre not likely the affluent, intellectual readerswe target anyway.‖Anne Marie Kelly, MRI’s svp of marketing and strategic planning, said MRI stands behind its research.While it’s true that MRI changed its questions with this survey to capture digital readership, she said, ―We did a lot of testingto make sure this question would be understood by all consumers and would not impact the print numbers.‖Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 59

As for the digital data, she said its only preliminary and won’t be part of MRI’s official ratings until the spring when a secondwave of research will have been done.As for the decline in print audience, she suggested that circulation, which has been on a downward trend, played a part.―Circulation is down,‖ she said. ―There are fewer magazines out there. We don’t know how much of those [readers] havemigrated digitally. I’m not saying it’s good news. But we’re in the middle of a transition.‖Want Digital Content Domination? - Accelerate content innovationJeanniey Mullen | December 23, 2011Today, every brand wants to do more with the content they own. They want to share it with more people, sell it to morepeople, or even just engage more of their company in reading it. And, this is no short-term task. The average company isexpecting to work on this for at least five years before they feel their digital content distribution strategy is solid andeffective. That said, no one person or company claims to know all of the answers in generating a proven path toward successand high-value brand equity. Everyone loves to hear what others are doing and innovate off of that.After having been on the road for three weeks, speaking with CMOs and CEOs of companies - from B2B to B2C, and across allindustries and countries, I felt there were 10 pieces of advice that could help everyone accelerate their innovation, or simplygain enough courage to get started. A few people asked me to share them in a broader forum, so here they are: 1. Build an effective preference center (aka, get people to opt in). This means gather approval to email, text, Facebook message, tweet, and whatever else you can think of. Putting my old email hat on, anyone who gives you permission to speak to them will buy 25 percent more than those who dont. 2. Get a social sentiment monitor and gather the data. Every brand talks about monitoring social sentiment so they can respond in a time of crisis. But that is not enough. You need to monitor your commentary and save the words people use to talk about your brand. Those words then need to be used in your SEO, SEM, and marketing efforts. Speaking in the terms your customers understand, you will increase revenue 15 percent or more. 3. Use print - dont lose print. If you do anything in print, you have this unique, once-in-a-lifetime chance to use it to target your best prospects for digital. Stickers, QR codes, SMS codes, and more will enable you to educate and transition your customer to your digital content. 4. Create and distribute video. Regardless of what business you are in, it can be represented visually. And that is important, because one video can impact five efforts. Video is currently the most malleable digital format. Meaning…you do not need to worry about resizing it for different mobile devices, or color correct. It can stream, or be embedded. But most importantly, it can be overlaid into digitized documents easily to wow the consumer, shared on social networks to introduce the prospect, included on your website for exclusive insights, and be used with partners and sales team as well. 5. Define your international position. While the shackles of print have often held us back from thinking globally, digital distribution enables us to overcome those issues. This is hard. Its hard to think globally for all content distribution. But its key to defining emerging market acceptance and true global domination. 6. Phone a friend. Just like the early days of email, none of us know what tomorrow will bring in terms of technical advancements, strategies, consumer acceptance, etc. Now is not the time to try and do it on your own. Reach out and ask an expert for help. Some great resources (and people) I have enjoyed working with recently include The CMO Club, Argyle, ExactTarget, Webtrends, Skyword, and The IMA (and of course my own crews at my company and VIVmag). 7. Create a consumer panel. In our overly social world, consumers like to feel like they are making the decisions. They want to help. Reach out to them and ask for advice, testing support, and help. If you have a consumer brand, you will be shocked to see how asking for help will lead to new business deals. 8. Remember the four defining elements of a digital strategy. Consider what your goal is across these four factors when building anything digitally to ensure you are reaching the right target with the right product features: age (generation), access (small or large screen), intent (answers or entertainment), and engagement (fast flip vs. content engagement).Good luck! And share you stories and learnings. At this point in the digital distribution lifecycle, things are going to keepgetting better and more exciting!Traditional Brick-And-Mortar Retailers Slowly Catching On To Online Search Marketingby Laurie Sullivan,While it may not come as a shock to online advertisers and marketers to find pure-play Internet giants at the top of the listfor companies most likely to take Americas dollars this holiday season, its important to note that the study also revealsBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 60

that traditional brick-and-mortar stores continue to lose the battle for online sales. Most just cant apply learned physical-world strategies to the Web.A Conductor study released this week identifies Amazon, Zappos, Overstock, and eBay as being the top retailers most likely totake the majority of online consumer spending during the 2011 holiday season. These companies -- known for being mostfamiliar with search engine optimization (SEO), paid search, and all-around online customer buying and return habits -- appearto be maintaining an edge on traditional retailers. I can completely understand why.Conductor Senior Research Analyst Nathan Safran has a slightly different perspective. He found the "solid showing by the big-box department stores" surprising. Historically, they have not done well in natural search, reminding me that back in 2009,Conductor published a study on the natural search visibility of the big-box retailers showing that Target was buying nearlyhalf of their search traffic from Google on paid search to the tune of several hundreds of thousands of dollars daily."Given the large sample size and focus on retail of the keyword studies, the study suggests they are taking natural search -- their biggest online channel -- far more seriously," Safran said, noting that the company was "fairly rigorous" about themethodology and sample size.Perhaps I have simply turned into an online shopping junkie with zero desire to walk in a store to find specific items amongrows of overstocked shelves. I would much rather open a browser, type in a specific URL to find the retailers Web site, enter aterm in the box and hit the search button, rather than try and find the items in any one of several dozen display or productaisles.I nearly made it through the entire pre-holiday season without setting foot in a store, but on Wednesday night I popped intoBest Buy to try and find the movie "Lion King" on Blu-Ray for a friend after checking stock availability online. Given enoughtime, I would have bought it on bestbuy.com -- which, by the way, ranked No. 5 in Conductors top 10 retailers best positionedto take Americas money online during the 2011 holiday season. I became so overwhelmed in Best Buy with the inability to sortthrough the mess to find the one DVD I nearly walked out of the store. Lucky for me a salesperson knew exactly where tolook for the item.More than $30 billion was spent in the first 46 days of the November-December 2011 holiday season -- up 15% compared withthe same time person a year ago, according to comScore. The Conductor study also cites stats from Marketing Sherpaestimating that 81% of all online adults research products using a search engine and 71% buy something using a searchengine.The study breaks down the retail sites by category, such as Clothing, Electronics, and Health and Beauty. For clothing, Zappostook the No. 1 spot, capturing the largest percentage of traffic this holiday season. Focusing on long-tail queries, Zapposranked on page 1, for the most queries. Shopping engine Nextag captures the fourth-greatest amount of traffic.In the Health and Beauty category, Amazon took the top spot, capturing the largest number of visitors from search in thecategory. Drugstore .com came in a close second, ranking on page 1 for a large number of high-volume keywords. Health andBeauty as a category had a broad representation of diverse domains coming up in the search results with appearances byonline retailers, such as drugstore.com and overstock.com for brand names like esteelauder.com, loreal.com, macys.com, andwalgreens.com.3 Marketing Mega Trends For 2012by Andy Crestodina,PMI lead strategy for my Web design company, and one of my primary roles is to connect with potential clients. This means Iam in the middle of 1,000+ conversations per year about marketing -- its past, present and future.Based on these conversations and experience, I will share my predictions for 2012.Mega-Trend #1: Mobile Ecommerce Will Reach a Tipping PointIt was a quiet explosion and it’s not over yet. Purchases made on mobile devices will jump significantly in 2012. If you’venever bought anything on your phone, watch yourself in 2012. You may personally contribute to this trend.In 2010, e-commerce sales from mobile devices on Black Friday were 3.2%; in 2011, this number jumped to 9.8%. This year willbe the tipping point for the ecommerce portion of the mobile mega-trend.Retail spaces will still be stores, but more than ever, will become showrooms for their Web sites. Big retailers will make iteasier to order online from the store on your phone. For small brick-and-mortar retailers, “buy it where you try it” will be therallying cry. Either way, in 2012 shoppers will realize they can scan, price shop and order any product in front of them, thenhave it delivered tomorrow.Mega-Trend #2: The Decline of AppsWell -- not an actual decline, but a decline relative to the growth of mobile sites. 2012 will be the year when people who say―I want to build an app‖ also say ―...unless the same thing is possible with a mobile site.‖Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 61

Potential mobile application builders are starting to figure out that building an app really means building two apps (one foriPhones and one for Android) or else leaving out a big chunk of the audience. Mobile Web sites don’t have that problem. Aproperly built mobile site will display on any mobile device.When something is purchased through an app, there’s a middleman who usually takes a cut (Apple takes 30% of purchasesmade through iPhone apps, for example). But when you sell something through a mobile site, you don’t have to worry aboutthis. Sales are handled through the company.App development is expensive and time-consuming and usually has no advantages over mobile sites. They have to bedownloaded and installed: This is not my preferred way to access things -- is it yours? Plus, apps can’t be linked to easily, sothey’re harder to promote.In 2012, marketers will begin to realize that mobile sites can do virtually everything an app can do, easier, faster and cheaper.Mega-Trend #3: Enter Inbound MarketingThis is the year that millions of companies large and small realize that inbound marketing, rather than outbound advertising,is the way to go. By inbound marketing (a/k/a content marketing), we mean writing and promoting content using searchmarketing, social media, blogging, email marketing and PR.As we begin year four of the recession/recovery, marketers are still cost-conscious. They will find that inbound marketingtakes time, but the out-of-pocket expenses are low. Business-to-business companies seem to be leading the charge, buteveryone will be on board soon. Year 2012 is the year of content marketing.Inbound isn’t a fad or the next ―shiny object,‖ it’s a long-term commitment of real time and energy. But as word gets out aboutthe clever ways to combine search marketing with blogging, social media with PR, hordes of marketing departments will jumpin.And to help all these marketing departments, a new generation of marketing company will rise to prominence: the inboundagency. These companies will combine the disciplines of formerly separate companies. Look for hybrid SEO/PR/social mediafirms. These will be small strategic firms that write search-optimized press releases and understand social media analytics.Optify Forecasts Trends For Marketing and Social Media in 2012Posted by @Optify Team | December 5th, 2011Leading Online Marketing Software Company Identifies Five Key Predictions that Will Shape the IndustrySEATTLE, WA – December 02, 2011 – Optify, the leading provider of online marketing software and services for the real timeweb, today announced its top five 2012 predictions based on insights from customers, analysts, and partners.The past year saw many new developments in online marketing, including evolving organic and paid search landscape,convergence of social media and search marketing, growth of mobile and local searches, and a rapid rise in spending on socialmedia marketing using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+. Online marketers have only begun to explore and respond tothese new opportunities.In this evolving landscape, Optify’s top predictions include:1. Mainstream Organizations Adopt Marketing Automation & Social CRMMarketing automation has traditionally consisted of email and email nurturing. However, 2011 witnessed the expansion ofSocial CRM, enabling another channel to reach and interact with customers and it has become one of the fastest growingsegments within the CRM industry. In the next year, Social CRM will evolve from an early adopter strategy into a mainstreamsolution for organizations wanting to connect marketing operations from the top of the funnel, to online search, downthrough sales and customer management. Companies that learn how to adopt and implement these solutions will moreeffectively be able to reach and engage with their customers and have a clearer path to a positive sales and marketing ROI.2. Social Media Becomes an Increasing Factor in Search AlgorithmsSocial media networks are growing. In 2011, Facebook’s social signals were integrated into Bing search and Google+ emergedwith native integration into Google search. Companies also started using social media in earnest and began experimentingwith ways to influence their rankings using these social factors. In 2012, Optify expects this trend to continue with socialmedia becoming more of a key component of Search Engine Results Page (SERP) algorithms. For companies looking topreserve or improve their rankings, social marketing activities will no longer be optional; they will be a necessary element oftraffic driving success.3. Customers and employees become an extended part of companies’ marketing teamsAs social networks are used ever more frequently for aggregating and sharing interests, expect opinions, both positive andBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 62

negative, about products and services to spread with lightening speed. As a result, businesses customer relationships willbecome increasingly focused on creating and managing perceptions. In 2010, companies began listening to customers wantsand needs via social buzz. In 2011, they focused on responding to digital customer commentary. In 2012, companies will needto proactively scale their marketing efforts by creating and sharing information with employees and influential customerevangelists to help define their brands, products and services from the ground up. Salesforce.com’s recent extension of theirChatter feature, allowing businesses to share information and files with their customers through a hosted network, is earlyevidence of this.4. Mobile + Social Evolve Together to Create New User ScenariosCustomer interactions and purchases, in specific marketplaces such as travel, shopping and dining, will occur with increasingfrequency on mobile devices. A recent study found a third of all American adults utilize smartphones and that number isexpected to rise in the coming year. Travel related click-through-rates are already higher on mobile devices than on PCs andlocation-based marketing fueled by companies like FourSquare will continue to soar. Online purchasing is indisputably movingto mobile. Google estimates 44% of last-minute online shopping searches will come from Smartphones and tablets. Thisholiday, the majority of last minute shopping transactions are expected to take place on mobile devices. This creates anopportunity for marketers to zoom in on specific and unique user scenarios they may not have been able to address usingpure traditional online marketing tactics.5. Facebook platform grows and expands into new marketsFacebook‘s IPO in 2012 is estimated to surpass Google’s IPO (1.67 billion in 2004) with a goal of raising $10 billion. This shouldfund quite a bit of expansion. With a large infusion of IPO cash and the potential to create social shopping experiences,Facebook will be well positioned to give online retailer Amazon a run for its money. While analysts have begun speculatingAmazon will launch a Smartphone in 2012, Facebook will likely do the same. These visionary companies see that the mobilephone is quickly becoming the portal to purchase; an opportunity to get in front of customers before they’ve even arrivedonline or a physical store. Facebook, along with their competitors, will be vying to put their products and services in theirusers’ hands first. Expect Facebook to also leverage ‘other people’s work’ to build a developer ecosystem similar toSalesforce.com, Amazon and Google’s Android marketplace to capture the innovation of others to help expand their platform.―Success for marketers in 2012 will be based on their ability to embrace and implement integrated online, search, and socialmarketing campaigns,‖ said Anthony Joseph, VP Marketing of Optify. ―Experimentation with emerging mediums will bewarranted, but an integrated solution that measures ROI and return on effort across these various channels will be critical toknow what’s working and what isn’t.‖Will Digital Media Folks Own the Next-Gen TV Conversations At CES?By Dave MorganIn three weeks, thousands of consumer marketing executives will descend on Las Vegas for the annual Consumer ElectronicsShow. CES is fast becoming a must-attend annual event for the advertising/marketing and media industries. As all media andentertainment become digital, everyone in the industry must now understand and experience the latest devices people willuse to receive, interact with and share media.This year, a significant focal point of CES will be the future of the digital living room and next-generation television and videoviewing experiences. We will see everything from smart, connected TVs to new set-top boxes or on-demand video streamingto ―second screen‖ tablet and mobile devices, with applications for social TV viewing. Next-generation TV and the +$500 billionspent globally for consumer TV services and TV advertising will be center stage at CES.That television, the dominant global advertising platform, is now becoming digital has not been lost on brand marketers,which is why so many of them will be at CES. The fact of TV’s digital transition has not been lost on TV ad and media agenciesand media sellers, either -- which is why so many of them will be there as well. The big question is, who will lead the next-gen television conversations? Will it be the traditional TV folks? Or, rather, will digital media folks elbow their way into theconversations? I think that we’ll see quite a bit of the latter. Here’s why:CES done right requires curating and translating. CES can be overwhelming, and not all of the best stuff is either easy to find,understand or easy to get into (yes, lots of velvet-roping goes on there). To do CES right, it helps to have some really smartand well-prepared veterans take you around, show you the best stuff and help you understand which and why things areimportant. Folks like Jack Myers, Shelly Palmer and Medialink are brilliant at this. This year, virtually all of the big agencyholding companies are hosting clients and taking them around, recognizing how important CES has become.Most TV media folks don’t have digital pedigrees yet. Most of the folks who buy and sell the billions of dollars of TVadvertising transacted each year were born, trained and matured in the TV business and have virtually no digital mediaexperience. Of course, there are exceptions. Group M’s Irwin Gottlieb was coding in the ‘60s; colleague Rob Norman led CIA’sdigital efforts in the mid-‘90s, and The Weather Channel’s Mike Kelly and Beth Lawrence both have great digital advertisingresumes, but most other traditional TV folks don’t.Digital folks want a piece of TV, and they can talk the next-gen TV language. The online ad display business today is mostknown for ever-expanding inventory, ever-dropping CPMs. and fighting over tenths of a cent. Not so in TV advertising, whereBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 63

money is moved in billions of dollars, inventory capacity remains stable and prices continue to rise. The digital folks knowthat as TV become digital and all viewing become directly measured, much of TV advertising will be bought, sold, targeted,measured, optimized and accounted for with Web-like metrics. That is a world they know well.I believe that we will see a lot of digital folks driving and owning the next-gen TV conversations at CES, ultimately hoping towin budgets. Their traditional TV media counterparts will be standing nearby, hoping to learn as much as they can, as fast asthey can, in fear that the digital TV advertising of the future will slip away from them if they don’t. What do you think?sBiggest Trend Of 2011 In Online Videoby Ashkan Karbasfrooshan,In our end-of-year series, we asked a number of online video professionals three questions.The professionals included:- Brian Fitzgerald, CEO of Evolve (content producer, publisher, ad representation)- Matt Heiman, CEO of Diagonal View (content producer)- Jim Louderback, CEO of Revision3 (content producer)- Adam Singolda, CEO of Taboola (distribution and aggregation)- Brett Wilson, CEO of Tubemogul (distribution and ad network)- Steve Woolf, VP content blip (aggregation and network)We’ll start with one question, and will cover the other two in upcoming posts:What was the biggest news/development/trend of 2011 in online video?Jim Louderback: ―YouTube priming the pump with hundreds of millions.‖Steve Woolf: “Number 1 was investment in content. YouTube has justly garnered most of the press around this with theirchannel initiative, but Yahoo, AOL, Netflix, and Hulu, among others, have either launched new initiatives that signal anincreased amount of investment in original web video content, or continued their support of internal programs designed tokeep web video programming progressing into the mainstream.Number 2 is that media buyers finally get it. If the ad buys and RFPs coming to blip are any indication for the original webseries market, brands and agencies are finally starting to understand the value of these eyeballs.Media buy sizes and campaign lengths took off like a rocket in 2011, and huge RFPs come to us on a daily basis now. We lookat it as validation of the position weve had for years. Perhaps most interesting was the shift in peak viewership -- for us,the prime-time hours became our biggest viewing period, indicating that audiences are looking at original Web series as alegitimate alternative to television entertainment. This is a compelling metric to media buyers.‖Matt Heiman: ―Mobile usage. Roughly 20% of our views are now on mobile, representing incremental views sold at a premium.‖(Heiman’s company is based in Europe, historically always one step ahead of North America (until the iPhone came along, ofcourse).Adam Singolda: ―I think the biggest change in 2011 versus the previous year is that video monetization became real, andmaybe even possible for the first time. I saw the industry stuck in 2010, where it didnt matter if publishers increased theirvideo views, as there was not a lot to do with that increase.In 2011, between companies like Tremor, Yume, Adap.tv and more -- video is monetizable and in different ways and formats. Ithink the actual details of what ad format is the best -- whether its skippable ad, overlay, from an exchange or through atraditional pre-roll -- is less important than the bottom line. For the first time, video inventory equals money.Of course, just as online is starting to ‘grow up’ and take shape, we’re seeing emerging platforms take off.‖Brett Wilson explains why we saw an investment in content:Brett Wilson: “More demand than supply, leading to the launch of multiple exchanges and CPMs trending upward for top sites.This scarcity also led to the rise of fake pre-roll gaming the system, which totals over 3.3 million impressions per dayaccording to technology we built to block it.‖Brian Fitzgerald explains what led to things taking off:Brian Fitzgerald: ―The establishment and fairly rapid adoption of VAST 2.0 as a standard, and agencies pushing for compliancewith it.‖To conclude: I think YouTube’s dominance was the story.- YouTube spent anywhere from $100-$250 million in guaranteed money to lock up content exclusively for one year. Thismakes YouTube the only online company doing ―upfronts,‖ and continues its scorched-earth philosophy of making it hard forany other aggregator to build a business around video online.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 64

- YouTube and comScore’s partnership to open up audience measurement per channel will give an incentive to manyproducers who rely on YouTube for distribution to invest in a sales team or at least have a shot at building a business aroundtheir YouTube presence.- But the clutter that content creators face online is an obstacle: with over 48 hours of content uploaded to YouTube eachminute, the reality is that most content creators cannot justify the expensive process of producing content. While inaggregate there’s more video viewing than ever, each video seems to represent a needle in a haystack. Ultimately, contentneeds to be i) good enough and ii) produced at the right price point to make it worthwhile.How Data From Social Media Will Impact Marketingby David Baker, Vivak Palan,When you shop for a new product that you know little about, are you more likely to trust the recommendation of a friend oran ad? If you answered "your friend," then youre not alone.Recent surveys by Nielsen indicate that a recommendation from a friend or even a review from a virtual stranger aregenerally far more likely to be trusted than ads. Moreover, people now spend three times more time on social media than onemail. And this trend is not limited to youth, either.The average age for a Twitter user is 31. As social media grows to the point where almost everyone on the planet has someform of a social identity, the next issue will be to better understand the consumers on these platforms and deepenengagement.As the richness and complexity of social media increase with different types of content being shared, the types of dataavailable about consumers will also increase. Twitter and Facebook have given powerful incentives for consumers tovolunteer this information freely, either in the form of comments, creation of personal videos, or sharing and recommendingexisting content.The challenge will be to sort through the complexity of these different types of data to generate the necessary consumerinsights, although quite often, the data is in separate databases without a clear way to link them together.Unlike the structured data typical of traditional databases (e.g., name and address fields, marital status flag), much of socialdata consists of free-form, or unstructured content: short tweets, longer blog comments, video uploads- basically anythingthat can be created by a user. Organizing the data will be a prerequisite for meaningful analysis.Then there is the privacy hurdle. Most people dont read the terms of use on a site. Regardless, the more important issue isnot legality, but rather whether targeted marketing is expected or welcome. Some users are completely indifferent. But itmay seem creepy to others when an ad shows up that coincidentally seems to know everything about their personal life (e.g.,Just had a fight with your girlfriend? Buy flowers!) >If not managed properly, this could damage the brand being advertised.To address these issues, we recommend the following:*Many companies are now starting to use social listening systems to monitor references about their brand on the Web. Inaddition, we recommend that marketers also consider a wider use of these social listening tools to segment and then analyzeusers discussing not only their brand but also related topics. Use this data to understand what aspirations, behavioralpreferences and intent your consumers have. Finally, incorporate those insights into marketing decisions pertaining toproduct research, post-launch feedback, and real-time alerts around customer service trends.*For most companies, social media currently sits as a silo within the enterprise, and as a result, many of the insights it holdsare not actionable. It will be important to invest the time to build a data management platform that can do the following withthe data collected: link different data types together to enable a multidimensional view, manage privacy constraints onsensitive personal data, and have an ability to integrate with other CRM systems to improve engagement.*Rather than fighting against the current, marketers should look for ways to help users set their preferences, signal theirbuying intent, and opt out of receiving offers they don’t care for. A number of companies are now working on ways tofacilitate this kind of explicit demand signaling. The privacy policy should be able to be easily understood by non-lawyersand have a simple opt out process. By lowering the risks and barriers to leave a marketing program, consumers will have lessto fear about their information being mishandled.As more data becomes available, there is a real danger of becoming overwhelmed. Data creation is accelerating and arrivingin multiple unstructured forms, requiring more sophisticated ways to manage and analyze it. Moreover, the value of the real-time component is indicative of intent, which decays rapidly if not used quickly.Despite these numerous roadblocks, marketers must rise to the challenge to better serve their customers.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 65

FCC Moves Toward WiFi On Steriods By Approving White Spaces DevicesThe prospect of ―WiFi on steroids‖ took a big step forward today with the Federal Communications Commissions approval ofthe first database and first device for ―white spaces,‖ or the unused spectrum between TV channels.―With today’s approval of the first TV white spaces database and device, we are taking an important step towards enabling anew wave of wireless innovation,‖ FCC Chair Julius Genachowski said in a statement. ―Unleashing white spaces spectrum hasthe potential to exceed even the many billions of dollars in economic benefit from Wi-Fi, the last significant release ofunlicensed spectrum, and drive private investment and job creation.‖When the FCC approved the use of white spaces for mobile broadband in 2008, then-chairman Kevin Martin said the decisionwould lead to WiFi on steroids. But technical details proved challenging and the FCC didntadopt final rules until last year.Google, Microsoft and broadband advocates backed the plan to use white spaces for Web access, arguing that it willencourage companies to create new wireless broadband networks because the radio airwaves are powerful enough totransmit through walls and across large areas. But incumbent users like the National Association of Broadcasters, Broadwaytheaters and performers criticized the move, saying that mobile broadband on the spectrum could interfere with existinguses.One safeguard against interference comes from the white spaces database, which will track which frequencies are available.Spectrum Bridge was named today as the first database provider; Koos Technical Services was named as provider of the firstdevices that will be allowed to operate on unused TV waves.Advocacy group Public Knowledge cheered todays announcement by the FCC. Harold Feld, the organization’s legal director,said in a statement that using white spaces for WiFi ―marks a new era in open wireless technology.‖ComScore’s 2011 Social Report: Facebook Leading, Microblogging Growing, World ConnectingYou already know that social networking sites have been getting huge around the world, but an annual report out todayfrom comScore shows what exactly is going at a wonderful new level of detail, with surprises for even long-time industrywatchers like me.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 66

1 in every 5 minutes of time online is now being spent on social networking sites, up from a mere 6% in early 2007. The sites,led by Facebook, now reach 82% of the world’s internet-using population — about 1.2 billion people in total. This growth ishappening across countries, with 41 of the 43 countries that the web measurement firm tracks showing penetration of 85% ormore.Within these big numbers, though, all sorts of differences emerge. People in Latin America spend an especially large portionof their time online on sites like Facebook and Twitter — 28%, or 7.6 hours per month. That’s much less the case in Asia, whereit’s 11% and less than 3 hours per month. Those are broad averages, and full of anomalies. The Philippines, for example, isactually the most socially networked country in the world, with 43% of users time going to these services, and above 8.7hours.Facebook itself is making up the largest portion of all this usage — even as all sorts of rivals and alternatives are surging. Theservice reached 55% of the worlds’ online population in October, with incredibly high engagement: 3 out of every 4 minutes onthese types of sites, and every seventh online minute. For the most part, it has surged into first places across countries thathad previously been on rival sites, like Orkut in Brazil.But Facebook is running out of new users in North America and Western Europe simply because it has so much of thesemarkets already (even though it’s not running out of users’ attention). In the meantime, a whole other crop of social sites arebooming everywhere, led by Twitter.The microblogging service has grown by 59% in the past year to reach 160 million monthly unique users worldwide.Professional social network LinkedIn has grown by 55% to nearly 100 million. Easy-blogging site Tumblr is up 172% to nearly40 million; Chinese Twitter-style site Sina Weibo shows almost identical growth (albeit mostly in China).Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 67

Report co-author Andrew Lipsman says this is one of the trends that was most surprising to him about the report. There’smore and more people who want to share around interests, not just the close social relationships.All in all, many of these market leaders are also showing just how global they are these days, with Twitter and Facebookeach now having 80% of their users outside of the US.The report has all sorts of other data gems, too. Here’s a few that jumped out at me:- Google+ now has 65 million users worldwide. That thing has some legs, even if we don’t always see them here atTechCrunch.- Women continue to lead men in engagement across the world — by 2 hours or 30% per month in North America and Europe.This is a long-term trend that comScore has seen across older services like instant messaging. But, men have shown a 10%bump since July of 2010, and they gradually appear to be catching up. A lot of this has to do with age. Usage is about atequilibrium among younger age groups, Lipsman notes.- Mobile is crucial to usage in many markets and growing, but continues to account for a minority of overall usage. Between aquarter and a third of users in Western markets reported accessing social networking sites at least once a month from mobiledevices.- Ads are still playing catch-up to spending levels per traffic that you’d expect to see in other areas.- Email usage has been declining in usage among younger age groups, a trend that’s not likely to change.This is by no means all of the interesting data in the report.ComScore’s methodology, considered by many to be the best in the measurement business, includes large-scale opt-in usersampling around the world and across desktop and mobile devices.2012 Trends: Sports Sponsorship Meets Digital Media And EntertainmentThis may be jumping the gun a bit – typically these annual prediction pieces come out in that slow week between Christmasand New Years – but I figure it’s good to get these out now so you can do more important things that week (like eat a lot ofunhealthy food!).So here goes, three predictions, actually more like ―trends,‖ that will thematically connect the worlds of sports sponsorshipwith digital media entertainment.Pent-up Demand Unleashed in 2012Let’s face it, 2011 has been a bit of a drag in the sports world. Two lockouts, no great positive news stories to keep usenthralled (where’s Brett Favre when we really need him?), and enough global debt crisis black clouds to scare off even themost optimistic media buyer.So just playing the law of averages means that 2012 will be a big year. Labor peace pervades the NFL, NBA and even the MLB.Marketers can actually now build long-range marketing plans around the properties that they are investing. In the case ofthe NFL, the TV deals are going to run for the next 10 years – imagine how many ad impressions Tim Tebow might get over thatspan?Layer on top of this the fact that 2012 is an Olympics year and that Tiger Woods won a tournament in late 2011 (imagine whathappens to golf if he wins a Major next year?), and the macro outlook for sports sponsorship and advertising spend looksvery positive in the coming year.Leaping to Emerging Digital PlatformsOn the digital front, marketers will turn their focus to where sports fans are going – and that means mobile and socialplatforms. With another big holiday season of new smartphone and tablet purchases, more fans will be accessing sportscontent and entertainment through these smaller screens so sponsors will be smart to figure out how to embed their brandsand messages into those experiences.From a social media perspective, Facebook and Twitter will continue to explore ways to connect top tier content publisherswith brand advertisers. Part of this will take place on those dominate social platforms directly, but a big part of theexperience will come through the smart integration of social elements within the publisher’s digital media experience.Of course, the perfect storm here for marketers will be the opportunity to partner with content publishers and propertiesaround experiences that combine the social and mobile consumer experience. Expect to see a major shift towards innovationaround this theme in 2012.Sports and Entertainment – Lines Continue to BlurOkay, we’ve been talking about the confluence of the sports and entertainment worlds for years – how long ago did ESPNHollywood launch – and sunset? But we know how much entertainment stars love to hang out at sporting events and beBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 68

around athletes, and in turn, athletes all want to be entertainment stars (e.g., case in point, Shaq’s latest ad promoting theNBA on Turner).But 2012 truly feels like the year this sports-meets-entertainment theme really takes off. Part of it will be driven by the twotrends above: labor peace means athletes will have their public stages for a full year without distraction and no group hasembraced social media more than the athlete cohort. We should not overlook other data points that infer an inflection pointhere -- thank you, Kardashian sisters, for helping to really define ―NBA Entertainment‖ and thank you to the WWE for pushingfor your own TV channel.Why does the acceleration of this sports-meets-entertainment trend matter for sports sponsors? Well, many advertisershave smartly caught on to the fact that by connecting with this theme they can keep a 24/7 narrative going with fans thatdoesn’t have to end when the game ends. For example, it’s great for Visa to be associated with what happens on NFL fields,but it’s even better if they can figure out how to stay in front of fans through an association with athletes and teams whenthey’re off the field or court – which will increasingly take place in that arena we’ve traditionally considered an―entertainment‖ setting. Consider the lines officially blurred in 2012.So there you have it. Three trends to wrap your head around if you’re sitting anywhere on the spectrum between sportssponsor and publisher/property. Happy sports new year to everyone!Where Are the Talent Shortages As We Start 2012?These will be the five hardest slots for you (and any start-up) to fill in the new year.By Keith Cline | @VentureFizz | Dec 19, 2011The year flew by mostly because it was a very, very busy one.Although the economy continues to face many challenges, the startup and tech industries are very much alive. The IPOwindow slightly opened up for companies like LinkedIn, Pandora, Groupon, Zynga, and Carbonite. We saw monster rounds offunding for companies like Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox. The appetite for seed and angel investing was extremely active. Techincubators and accelerator programs kept popping up.It was also a very busy year for hiring at startup companies, as you know, and it doesnt look like that will slow down in 2012.Weve certainly seen opinions on both sides of the fence as to whether or not there is a tech bubble or 2012 will be anotheractive year of investing. Im an optimist and I believe the pace of investing will remain consistent. Yes, some companies willfail, of course, but others will scale and grow their teams at a steady clip.Hiring the best of the best is an absolute must if you are going to build a successful company. You will need to be preparedto compete against big companies with deep pockets and other up-and-coming startups that also have blue chip investorsand a game-changing idea.So, what are the most competitive areas for talent these days? Heres a look:Software Engineers and Web DevelopersThe demand for top-tier engineering talent sharply outweighs the supply in almost every market especially in San Francisco,New York, and Boston. This is a major, major pain point and problem that almost every company is facing, regardless of thetechnology "stack" their engineers are working on.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 69

Creative Design and User ExperienceAfter engineers, the biggest challenge for companies is finding high-quality creative design and user-experience talent. Sincealmost every company is trying to create a highly compelling user experience that keeps people engaged with their product,it is tough to find people who have this type of experience (especially with mobile devices including tablets) and ademonstrated track record of success.Product ManagementIt is always helpful for an early-stage company to hire someone who has very relevant and specific experience in yourindustry. This is especially true for product management, since the person in this role will interface with customers anddefine the product strategy and use cases. However, be prepared, as it will be a challenge to find people with experience inthese high-growth industries: consumer web, e-commerce, mobile, software as a service, and cloud computing.MarketingIm not talking about old-school marketing communications. Companies are looking for expert online marketers who knowhow to create a buzz of inbound marketing or viral traffic through the web, social media, and content discovery. Writing agood press release just doesnt cut it anymore, as everyone is looking for the savvy online marketing professional whounderstands how the current state of the web operates and knows how to make it work to their benefit.AnalyticsSince data is becoming more and more accessible, smart companies are increasingly making decisions driven by metrics.Analytics is becoming a central hub across companies where everything (web, marketing, sales, operations) is being measuredand each decision is supported by data. Thus, we are seeing a high level of demand for analytics and business intelligenceprofessionals who almost act like internal consultants; they help determine what should be measured and then build out thecapability for a company.4 Megatrends in Social Media and Social Business2012 is primed to be the year of social. In particular we can anticipate a blitz of publicity around social business. But socialmedia too still has room to surprise. Talking with a group of people recently including Lloyd Armbrust at OwnLocal and TomSmith of Global Web Index (and reading his blog) I picked out four megatrends that will shape social as it truly comes of age.The growth of the transmitter ecosystemFacebook, Twitter, Google have brought many more people into the online conversation. They’ve pretty much minced thebarriers to creating online content – which is also good news for brands that are smart enough not to throw too muchmoney into too many channels.But another part of the story is that more channels create a larger need for content. Many millions of those people nowactive online are not, however, content producers. They are sharers and curators.We have a content discovery challenge and we have curators to manage it. The importance of their role is on the rise.But does this mean we are migrating from a peer-to-peer conversational network, to a more top down one, where we becomeincreasingly dependent on those curators with large follower groups? Does that make Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus topdown networks?Tom thinks so but I have my doubts. Blogging too was very top down and I sense, by way of contrast, a strong peer culture inGoogle Plus.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 70

Around the time Facebook became famous a well known blogger told me – why do I need Facebook? I know how to set up awebsite. The answer of course is that Facebook, then Twitter and now Google Plus provide you with the tools to communicateand the audience to talk with. Bloggers had to go out and find that audience and it was uphill for those who came evenslightly late to it. There is no uphill in 2012 but there will be a growing role for the transmitter ecosystem.The age of globalWhen American broadcaster ESPN wanted to extend its remit outside North America, it bought cricket blogging site cricinfo. Sonow a major US network is big in a sport that Americans don’t follow in a country half a world away.One of the most telling examples of a new emerging global culture can be found in a sport. When website cricinfo set upinitially it was a placid English affair. But cricinfo pioneered live blogging of cricket matches and began to make the webrelevant to sports fans without national boundaries or national broadcasting rights getting in the way. The site eventuallyfound a market in India where cricket is treated almost like a religion.Separately, PlayUp is now building out the social network for global sports fans, more of which tomorrow. One of the beautiesof cricinfo, and the same applies to all sports, is that reporters can follow and report on the tweets of celebrity sports peopleor tweet themselves from the training ground or nightclub. When English players misbehaved in New Zealand during therecent Rugby Word Cup it was global news immediately. A club bouncer uploaded CCTV footage to YouTube. Content is instant,continuous and pervasive. There is no reason why a national boundary or national broadcasting rights should exclude me fromengagement.In the start-up community even Silicon Valley start-ups now want to hire talent from wherever, as long as it’s thebest. Nairobi and Instanbul are, along with numerous other cities, start-up hot spots attracting American and Europeaninterest. The start-up is suddenly a global culture.There’s a new internationalism that segues with what is happening in the economy: more global, multi-polar, more equal –see this thread on Google Plus which discusses whether Google Plus is responding quickly enough to this desire to engagewith global audiences. People care about this new globalism whether it arrives at their desk through sport or business orfashion or food. We need to work out how to become global online citizens.Social media vertical and localI think the next wave of social media will be in verticals and local. That trend is already visible in music and fashion. I don’tmean simply that there are more music and fashion bloggers but that refining social media marketing, working the nuts andbolts into place, is taking place in vertical markets. In country music for example pioneer Jessica Northey has near to 200,000Twitterfollowers and a growing client base for Finger Candy Media who role is to make the musician the social media star.Expect to see more writing on the specifics of making social work in specific sectors.At the local level founder of OwnLocal Lloyd Armbrust tells me that his alliances with local newspaper owners are beginningto bring local businesses in small town America into the web in an accomplished way. Most small towns lack SEO or onlinecontent expertise. OwnLocal offers a suite of SEO and related social tools to rural and semi-rural business owners via localnewspapers, as well as daily deals functionality. WordPress owner Automattic invested in OwnLocal back in October – givingWordPress a leg up into highly-local-social. Local has been difficult to crack but Lloyd tells me the smartphone is making iteasier. Many small merchants do not own computers but they do have a Droid.The emergence of brand driven social mediaThe general consensus on branding in social networks is that it can easily become an interruption. But that’s not necessarilyeven half true. Tom points out that: The fastest growing markets for social network adoption are in places like China, Indonesia, Philippines or Brazil where lower per capita GDP mean that many of the brands that consumers identify with are out of reach in the real world but now completely accessible via social networks.In those markets, engagement with brands is an important feature of the aspirational society. Audiences might not be able tobuy branded goods yet but some of us dreamed about buying Levis when we were younger (yes true!) or Chanel. Anemotional, aspirational connection with brands is available to people through social media, which is quite counter intuitiveand perhaps taking brands back to their golden age.A Few Link Building Predictions For 2012Dec 20, 2011 at 11:51am ET by Eric WardIt’s prediction time again.Before I dive into predictions for 2012, let’s take a look back at where I’ve been wrong and right over the years. I have a fairlygood track record, and I like to take a few chances with these, rather than taking the easy way out with predictions like ―linkswill still matter‖.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 71

Footer Links Get The Boot?I was quite wrong about search engines devaluing all footer link networks. As easy as these are to spot, it baffles me thatsome sites can achieve high rankings via this spammy tactic. Check out this amazing expose blog post from Joost de Valk.Prediction for 2012: This will be the year the footer link truly hits the ignore bucket. This tactic has been around since theearly 90s with ―free web counters‖ that sneakily linked to other sites. Then came WordPress themes, then site-wides, blogrollspam, footer links and many other tricks. Key word: tricks.I am frankly amazed footer links have not been blown up. Like they should have been way back when school newspapers firstused them like this below. Sorry, I’m not telling you the school. Paid links on a school newspaper web siteDirectory Links Take A DiveI was both right and wrong about general (non vertical) directory links losing all value. While some of the worst directorieshave finally died a welcome death, I have still witnessed sites improve rankings via submissions to weak no-namedirectories. It will stop someday, it just didn’t in 2011.Hopefully, 2012 is the year the generic link directory to nowhere and everywhere stops having any effect at all. How can anyalgorithm take seriously a directory that nobody uses other than the people submitting links to them? Sorry, Link-o-Matic is ficticiousThe name of the game here is curated verticality. And it’s what I’ve been going after since the day I started in 1994.Name me one single mass general directory that comes anywhere close to truly organizing and cataloging the Web. None ofthem can. Yahoo! couldn’t. DMOZ couldn’t. The Web’s very nature is distributed links pointing at expert content. Single sourcedirectories are antithetical to the nature of the web’s design.Prediction for 2012: Watch for hundreds if not thousands of small highly curated and vetted resource lists to appear. In fact,they already do, and have for years.I’m not going to give away the farm here, but for a recent project I gathered over 80 veterinary resource collections based at.orgs, coms, and .edus. These are small curated lists. And they matter. They matter more that you’d ever imagine.Notice the link on the bottom right: Veterinary Product Vendor Sites.Which of the two directories would you rather be in? Link-O-Matic above or this one below?Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 72

Facebook Brand Pages Build Likes & LinksI was wrong thinking any company with an existing and well trafficked website could forgo having a Facebook page.While not an absolute necessity for every site, (are enough people really going to become fans of the Preperation HHemmoroid Treatment Facebook page to matter?) the sheer mass and potential matriculation across the Facebook links spacemake it a worthwhile alternative mode to reach customers. At least for most brands it does.Prediction for 2012: Dare I say it, every brand not currently on Facebook will be by the end of 2012. Please Like Us - We Stop Itching!Twitter Link CredI was right about Twitter having a far smaller effect on organic search rank that most claimed it would. Tweeted links haveyet prove to me that their rank has improved due to being tweeted. Tweets are good for quick drive by traffic and that’sabout it.The only Twitter impact I see in organic results is people with Twitter credibility will see their twitter profile rank quite high. Iwas a reluctant Twitter user several years ago, but I can’t argue with the fact that my Twitter profile ranks at position 4 for asearch on my name, and I’ve done nothing other than be cautous about who I follow and what I tweet. My Twitter profile Ranks #4Prediction for 2012: People will stop chasing followers and work on sculpting a more authoritative Twitter profile. What thismeans is instead of following 17,000 people and having 17,000 followers, people will realize that to have any influence at all,you need have more followers than you follow, and you need to tweet about things other than how wonderful your mostrecent column was. Share the good, curate the helpful, and the followers will come.Anchor Text Gets DevaluedI was right about anchor text being devalued. This was never a reliable signal, because it was too SEO centric a signal and tooeasily gamed. You’ve heard me say before, in 17+ years of requesting links, I’ve never once asked for anchor text.The most trustworthy content on the Web is not going to give over editorial rights to you so you can anchor your way up theGoogle ladder. We are all the Hemingway’s of our own content, so don’t tell me how to link to you.The engines more than likely did not realize just how far people would go to try and manipulate anchor text, but the ironicthing about this is the more you try to manipulate your anchor text, the more you create a backlink profile that lookssuspicious when compared to the mass of historical anchor text data the engines have to study.Prediction for 2012: Services like these below slowly but surely start to vanish.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 73

Two Final PredictionsFirst, people will discover the fantastic and free linking data available from blekko. It’s incredible.Second, people will realize the futility of relying on search engines for all their traffic, and put more effort into link marketingtactics and strategies that have nothing to do with search results,like this.Don’t laugh, their last client’s QR code baked cookies resulted in a 40% scan and install rate for a mobile app. Forty percent.Via an edible baked cookie with a QR code on the icing. And yes, it was my idea and it had nothing to do with search engines.Here’s one they baked for me: Baked Cookie with QR CodeSometimes us early adopters who have been around a while can see the forest for the trees. Have a great 2012!Why Discovery Must Evolve To Save Social CommerceBrian Ficho: Shopping gets better.Welcome to the very beginning of a brand new phase in e-commerce, where personalization and discovery combine touniquely fit consumer needs. This is when ―Wow I can’t believe what a deal this is!‖ turns into ―This combination Mongolian-fur-hat-and-MP3-player is just what I need for my walk to work in December in Chicago!‖Phase One – the phase Amazon mastered – was Search, the process of helping people find what they’re looking for at theexact moment they want it.Phase two was Push, whereGroupon and Gilt led the charge. Push provided people with unbeatable deals on things theyprobably weren’t looking for, with elements of scarcity, limited time offers, and social baked in.Phase Three will combine these two elements, leading to highly relevant offers and product discovery at the exact right time.Everyone has their own way to break down the evolution of e-commerce, but for the sake of this piece let’s use these phasesand keep it simple.Discovery and personalization – the generation of marketing opportunities based on an individual’s unique interests, wants,and values – is a wonderful thing. Phase Two businesses knew this. Most deal businesses are based, to some degree, ondiscovery and personalization. Groupon may know, for example, that a given prospect lives in Chicago, and Gilt knows thatthat prospect is a guy. Without better business models and technologies, however, the result is superficial discovery thatquickly leads to deal fatigue.Contrast the current state of daily deal affairs with a different scenario: Say you’re a 28-year-old living in Manhattan. Youenjoy cooking, fashion and going out with your friends. You don’t own a car and the 10-day weather forecast is trendingbelow 30 degrees. Today you get offers for a scarf from an up-and-coming designer, a Dutch oven, and tickets to yourfavorite band. Serendipity? Or simply a better understanding of who you are as an individual?The reason today’s consumers are struggling with daily deal sites is because the filtering mechanisms and technology aren’tquite ready to handle highly targeted offers to individuals. There are too many ―deal pushers‖ at a time when consumersreally want simplicity, relevance and accuracy.There’s another side to the situation as well. Because of the way many e-commerce companies’ business models were set up,moving lots of single SKUs quickly is how they make money. Many other providers of goods and services have great productsbut lack the inventory and scale needed to market through these channels. They default to Phase One e-commerce, listingtheirgoods on Amazon, hoping potential customers will find them. With tens of millions of widgets out there, it’s a dauntingtask for a consumer.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 74

For online commerce to succeed, then, discovery theory must evolve. There are three aspects to the challenge: the discoveryprocess itself; curation, or the sourcing of high-quality, appropriate product solutions; and personalization, which involvesaccurately matching the right product or service with the right individual, at the right time. Discovery, when properly executed, is about helping consumers find stuff they didn’t even know existed. It begins byencouraging customers to offer information about their interests using a variety of techniques that deal in the individual’sself-interest, from games and metaphors to direct feedback. Moreover, discovery is an ongoing process, one that iscontinually refined over time to generate relevance at deeper levels regardless of how the person’s interests change. Curation is about offering a filtered selection of high-quality products and services to consumers. So many e-commerce sites push an overwhelming number of unrelated, mediocre products with the goal of creating as many saleopportunities as possible. Unfortunately, this business model is incongruent with the consumer’s need for a quick, relevantand reliable experience. Creating a conscious effort to select a handful of products that are unique, interesting and high-quality eliminates excessive product sifting on the customer’s end. The result is a highly targeted, meaningful shoppingexperience. Personalization ensures that the right offer reaches the right person at the time that person needs it most. This has alot to do with the technology and business model of the seller. All the big players are pushing hard in this direction, whetherit’s Amazon’s recommendations, Groupon’s interest mapping, or Gilt’s verticals. All these businesses are getting better at it, buta new business model is needed to truly address the problem.To achieve this ultimate dialogue between merchant and customer, e-commerce companies must perfect the troika ofdiscovery, curation and personalization, then apply all three consistently in the retail environment. Some non-commerce sites,e.g., Pinterest, Tumblr, and Stumble Upon, understand this dynamic. Pinterest allows users to self-curate by ―pinning‖ products,photos, news items and other online content onto a personal interest boards that serves as a discovery tool between users.Pinterest is taking off, demonstrating the massive potential waiting for venues that help people set themselves apart anddiscover new things based on who they are.It doesn’t take an expert to realize that personalized discovery has a long way to go. But certainly as this evolution begins,truly exciting new retail models will emerge in mobile, local and online commerce. Finally, deal fatigue will be a thing of thepast. And what is ―serendipity‖ to the consumer, will be exceptional business success to the merchant.5 Reasons Why real-time bidding Is Not About PriceMatt HardyI work for a trading desk. For those that are unsure what that means, I work for a division of a media agency that is focusedon buying advertising in real-time bidding (RTB) marketplaces. This is all quite new to me as it is for the whole online adindustry.What I am coming to understand very clearly is that RTB is not really all about price. There is a lot of misinformation in themarket about RTB. Principally, that RTB will crash CPM (expand) pricing, impoverishing web publishers. Apart from seriously notbelieving in this, I think that focusing on price is making people miss the point.RTB is about process improvements that empower online marketing to be much better than ever before. RTB is about process.Its about what we can do and when. RTB is the gateway to powerful marketing online with banners.Display media banners were once the king of online marketing. Search pushed banners into the shadows and those who havestayed with the medium have done our time as the "step-child" of online media. RTB turns things around and gives all thebenefits of mechanical optimization of search marketing to a genuine broadcast medium.I am a fan of search. I think search is the backbone of any campaign and if it is done wrong, then the whole campaign cantfunction. However, search has its limits; search cant create interest, desire, or awareness. For other reasons social media cantdo what display can either. Display is a broadcast and reach medium and the other parts of online media do not performanywhere near as well."If RTB is not about price, then what is it about?" You ask…With RTB we buy ads one impression at a time. This gives us the option to choose between the impressions being offered tous. We can choose those impressions that give us the best chance of delivering against our clients goals. We can act assmarter marketers. Here are five ways:1. Message control. RTB is data-backed marketing. A trading desk can bring together any data the client has, along with third-party data sources and transactional campaign observations. This means that for some clients we can tell them preciselywhich impressions are their existing customers and who are not. Segmentation of messaging based on what the data can tellus about the relationship with the impression being bought, is a paradigm shift from how banner buying is done today.Creative messaging in campaigns can now take a formulaic approach and bring logic, intelligence, and process to thecustomer dialogue.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 75

2. Frequency control. We have always been able to control frequency in online display advertising. What we have not beenable to do, is control duplication of the audience across multiple websites very well. A trading desk employing RTB buyingtechniques solves this problem by forming a unique point to view the campaigns data. With all buying being handled by oneplatform and impressions analyzed one-at-a-time before we buy them, the audience is effectively de-duplicated. Once thatis achieved, real insights on optimal frequency can be observed. Then real campaign-wide frequency controls can be put inplace.3. Audience control. The same processes apply to audience control. Lets say we have a collection of cookies that we haveidentified as belonging to an audience we really want to target. Without RTB these would be hollow insights that we couldprobably do nothing with. With RTB, we can check the audience of an impression before we choose to buy it. Buying adsshown to just those cookied users that we wanted. Add this to better control over the messaging and this gives brands abetter way to place their brand messages on key audiences.4. Content and semantics. Placing an advertising message in context and controlling the environment is very important. RTBgives new powers of targeting in this regard also. Messages can be placed into content verticals, thats easy and somethingwe have been doing all along with banners. New RTB enabled tools allow us to look into the semantic meaning of the pagecontents and deliver ads against more focused content. No longer limited to broad content verticals, we can now targetgranular content and importantly avoid specific content with sites or content verticals.5. Privacy. If all of this sounds as if it comes at the price of robbing web-users of their anonymity, then you would be wrong.This is another piece of misinformation about RTB and data-targeted ads. A publisher may well have personally identifiableinformation (PII) on you or any web-user. A trading desk does not, nor do they want to. Trading desks (or at least ours) are notinterested in targeting people; we are interested in targeting data points. For targeting data points we dont need names oremail addresses or phone numbers. We only have the cookie and when you clear it all, its attributes are gone. The desk is notgoing to resurrect cookies. These data points, unlike people (thankfully) have fast expiry dates (30 days, 60 days, etc.) andneed to be actioned for the campaign quickly or be lost.My question is "wouldnt you pay more for all these upgrades?"Regardless of what happens to CPM prices, RTB is of a huge benefit to the advertiser. The effects of the reduction ofcampaign trafficking, price negotiations, and campaign paperwork make the buys faster, more accurate, and less labour-intensive to execute.RTB is about much more than price. Its about process. Its about doing online marketing right. RTB is the future of banners andthe future is bright.Marc Andreessen: Predictions for 2012 (and beyond)by Paul Sloan December 19, 2011 11:22 AM PSTMarc Andreessens view of the world boils down to software.From where he stands, as the guy who co-founded Netscape Communications and now co-runs the powerful Silicon Valleyventure firm Andreessen Horowitz, no industry is safe from software. Or, as Andreessen put it in a much-discussed piece hewrote for The Wall Street Journal, "Software is eating the world."Software has chewed up music and publishing. Its eaten away at Madison Avenue. Its swallowed up retail outlets like TowerRecords. The list goes on.No area is safe--and thats why Andreessen sees so much opportunity.Fueling his optimism: ubiquitous broadband, cloud computing, and, above all, the smartphone revolution. In the 1990s, theInternet led to crazy predictions that simply werent yet possible. Now they are.I caught up with Andreessen to talk about 2012 and softwares onward march.Q: Lets start with smartphones.Andreessen: I think 2012 is the year when consumers all around the world start saying no to feature phones and start sayingyes to smartphones. Feature phones are going to vanish out of the developed world and over the course of five years theyllvanish out of the developing world.Thats a big deal because?Thats a big deal because thats the key enabling technology for software eats the world broadly. Because thats what putsthe computer--literally puts a computer in everybodys hand.In a way that the PC industry couldnt?Most of the people in the world still dont have a personal computer, whereas in three to five years, most people in the worldwill have a smartphone.... If youve got a smartphone, then I can build a business in any domain or category and serve you as acustomer no matter where you are in the world in just gigantic numbers--in terms of billions of people.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 76

Does that mainly help existing players, or also open opportunities for new businesses?Both. If youre an Amazon or a Facebook or a Google or even a startup, the fact that you can potentially address 2 billionsmartphones in the developed world or 6 billion in three or five years, in the entire world, its just a huge expansive market.But it also opens up new kinds of businesses. The big thing that happened in 2011 was sort of the rise of the verticals, and e-commerce was the hotbed of that. We saw the rise of a whole category of e-commerce category killers in verticals that 5 or10 years ago couldnt support high growth companies because the markets werent big enough.What e-commerce players are you thinking of?We just did an investment in Fab, which is just growing by leaps and bounds, and theres Airbnb [Andreessen-Horowitz is aninvestor]. That company is growing vertically. Its software eats real estate, software eats home furnishings. Another veryexciting company, which were not invested in, is called Warby Parker, an e-tailer for eyeglasses. So its software eats LensCrafters.Its just on and on and on across different verticals because of the number of consumers who a) have PCs, b) are on theInternet, and now c) have smartphones. I expect vertical specialization to continue and there to be killer Silicon Valley stylesoftware companies in all kinds of verticals and categories in 2012 and 2013 that werent viable three or five years ago.Just e-commerce?E-commerce was the hotbed of vertical personalization of 2011, and big fat vertical expansion goes into other categoriesother than e-commerce in 2012. It could be content. It could be new kinds of service providers.Weve seen some already.One I really like that were not involved in is Uber. Uber is software eats taxis. Its almost entirely a smartphone-basedapplication bringing town cars to you.... Its a killer experience. You watch the car on the map on your phone as it makes itsway to you.Thats smartphone specific, and theres going to be all kind of things like that. Task services likeZaarly and Taskrabbit aredelivering a sort of distributed mobile workforce available on demand through your smartphone.These are slicing and dicing different aspects of the economy into vertical slices or category slices and making themavailable via smartphones hooked to these really powerful networks with cloud computing on the back-end. Were justseeing a pattern of companies doing this over and over.So who should be scared in 2012?I think 2012 is the year that retail--retail stores--really starts to feel the pressure. And I dont say that because I dont likeretail stores. I loved going to Borders. I thought it was a great consumer experience. And I was a huge fan of Tower Records.But the economic pressure is huge as e-commerce gets more and more viable and as these category killers emerge in thesuperverticals. If I own mall real estate or retail stores in cities, or if I own chains like electronics chains, Id be concerned.... Ithink electronics and clothes are going to be a real pressure point. Home furnishing is going to come under pressure. Its goingto get harder and harder to justify the retail store model.The model has this fundamental problem where every store has to have its own inventory and every store is also awarehouse. The economic deadweight of that entire inventory in each store--thats what took down Borders.Retail runs at very thin margins. So if e-commerce takes a 5 percent or 10 percent or 15 percent bite out of your category,then it becomes harder to stay in business as a retailer. So I think 2012 is the year that that really kicks in.Doesnt this bode well for the e-commerce incumbents?For sure, Amazon is going to do really well and anybody with major e-commerce is going to do real well. But the newcompanies in e-commerce verticals are providing a very differentiating customer experience that is much more like shoppingas entertainment.Fab has more interesting products and merchandising and presents them in a more interesting way with much deeper socialinteraction. At Fab, something like 25 percent of the purchases over Black Friday weekend were a result of Facebook referrals.Theres a whole fun element to shopping and whole entertainment element and whole excitement element that the firstgeneration of e-tailers were not very good at.Like Amazon?I like to say that the first generation of e-tailers was really good for nerds. Amazon for me is--I love it--its like the biggestwarehouse superstore of all time. Its just awesome, and I love wandering up and down the aisles and its like, wow, look atthat. If I do enough searches I can discover anything.The new generation of e-tailers are much more appealing to normal people--people who like to go the mall, have fun withtheir friends and try on clothes and compare clothes, and go home and brag to their roommate what they got on sale, and allthe rest of it. A lot of new startups are not only very viable but also growing very fast because they provide a very differentexperience.Arent there opportunities for startups to help?Yeah, theres going to be a big opportunity for software assistance for the incumbents at getting better in the new world.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 77

As an example, at eBay [where Andreessen is on the board], we bought a company called Milo, and there a competitorcalled Shopkick. These guys expose local inventory on retail store shelves and make it available as part of the e-commerceexperience. Thats the kind of software thats going to be incredibly useful to retail chains as they seek to compete onlinebecause it unlocks the local inventory.The other category is represented by Groupon and Foursquare [both also Andreessen-Horowitz investments] and a whole newgeneration of these local e-commerce platforms, which is bringing online the gigantic number of businesses in the world thatarent on the Internet today at all. Whether its a restaurant or hairdresser or day care center or yoga center or lawn carefirms and on and on, there are so many that just arent online in any meaningful way today, even 15 years into the Web.Advertising on Google doesnt do them any good because it doesnt matter if people come to their Web site, its not how theyget business. So theres going to be a whole set of new companies, like Groupon and Foursquare, that are going to unlockthese local businesses that arent even online today.If nothing else, Groupon has done a great job of getting local businesses online.Ive always felt that the criticism of Groupon has been unwarranted. People have really underappreciated what Groupon hasdone, which is theyve created a way for small businesses that arent online to spend money online and be able to dial upcustomers on demand. Thats a really big deal.I think Foursquare is a revolution in the local experience of cities and connecting to small businesses around you, throughinformation and, increasingly, coupons and offers. Again, its customer acquisitions. There are going to be more of these kindsof things--and a whole bunch of new ideas in 2012.And this all circles back to smartphones.Foursquare was impossible before smartphones. There was no way to implement it. Then, theres the other side of this. Theresthe user app for Foursquare, but theres also going to be the merchant app for all these things.Local merchants, like local restaurant owners, are going to have a smartphone app they can use to dial up customers ondemand. Whether thats from Groupon or Foursquare--any of these companies can do that. A lot of small business owners aregoing to start running their businesses from their smartphones.With Bluefin Labs, Publicis SMG Looks Beyond TV RatingsSure, They Watched Your Ads. But Are They Tweeting About Them?Advertisers have long based TV-buying decisions on whos watching. Starcom Mediavest Group is adding another wrinkle:targeting shows based on what those TV viewers are talking about in social media.The Publicis-owned media network is adopting social listening technology from startup Bluefin Labsand will begin offering itto clients, which include Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, P&G and Samsung. Bluefin, founded in 2008 and built on technology developedat MIT, listens to social media and connects conversation to specific TV shows, and soon, the ads themselves.Xfactor in social mediaBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 78

SMG, which spends close to $1 billion on behalf of clients each year, plans to use the technology throughout its US operationsto understand what shows and ads resonate with consumers beyond Nielsen ratings; specifically, what kinds of conversationsare being started and what those conversations are about. The findings could significantly shift how much brands are willingto pay for a presence in shows, beyond what they know from Nielsen ratings."What Bluefin allows [our clients] to do is see who is talking and what they are talking about in near real-time so we canstart to respond to those consumers with different marketing stimuli," said Kate Sirkin, EVP of global research at SMG.SMG plans to the use the technology in two ways that could alter the way brands measure the effectiveness of the millionsspent on branding through TV. First, it will help brands locate TV shows that are resonating with their target audience, asjudged by the conversation generated by the programming. Second, SMG is going to help Bluefin extend that capability to theads themselves. Did they generate conversation? Was it passionate? Positive? Negative?"If a brand is spending $100 million in TV every year, its not enough to understand how many eyeballs. You need to quantifyhow much social conversation the campaign generated," said Bluefin VP Tom Thai. Other agencies including WPPs Mediacomand IPGs Initiative have used Bluefin data, but SMG is "baking it into their internal platform."One of the first big tests of the technology will come during the Super Bowl in February, when SMG clients will be looking tosee how their massive investments in ad time and creative impact the largest single-TV audience of the year. "The social datawill help us understand if the environment is truly worth it," Ms. Sirkin said.As part of the year-long licensing deal, SMG will help Bluefin apply its technology to ads, a significant technical hurdletheyve been tackling for the past year. "Its a lot harder than doing it for TV shows," said Mr. Thai. "It takes a lot ofcomputation to get it right. We made a significant investment from our side in the engineering, and were working with SMG topush this out."Measures of TV ad effectiveness is an inexact science usually based on surveys of a limited group. Ms. Sirkin sees Bluefintechnology as a "massive, real-time copy test. Much bigger than anything anyone could afford through traditional copytesting."A New Words ResolutionBy Matt StrazThere were a number of words and phrases that infected media during 2011. Some made people feel queasy about the stateof the industry, while others left people confused about what we actually do for a living. Here are some of the words that weshould quarantine immediately:Dead. This year everything from television, apps and the Web itself was declared ―dead‖ by various industry commentators. Ifhistory is any guide, though, the technology of today will be with us far longer than we expect.Disrupt. It became fashionable this year to claim a new technology would disrupt or destroy some existing one. For 2012, let’sresolve to simply make the things that already exist like a little better.Agonistic. Mark Naples of WIT Strategy points out that saying something is ―platform-agnostic‖ actually implies that thetechnology doesn’t work with anything.Bifurcated. I first heard the word ―bifurcated‖ spoken a few years ago by Rob Norman, CEO of GroupM North America, and itsounded really smart. Fast-forward to today, and this four-syllable word is now all the rage across media. Let’s agree toleave the fancy words to the CEOs.Cloud-based. ―The cloud‖ sounds so much better than ―a bunch of servers housed in a big building that we don’t own‖ -- whichis probably why most companies use the former to describe the technology.Amazing. Detecting earth-like planets 600 million light years away is truly amazing, but at this point there’s little that’samazing about a new mobile phone, ad platform or consumer app. Cool, maybe, but not amazing.Leverage. Writer Brian Morrissey says he’s tired of hearing the word ―leverage‖ used as a verb -- as in, ―our companyleverages amazing, cloud-based technology that disrupts markets.‖Chunky. Industry vet Sean Finnegan notes that the word ―chunky‖ is on the rise. The term is used to describe a difficultproblem, but given that ―Chunky‖ is already the name of a soup and a candy bar, we should stop this new applicationimmediately.Sports jargon: If you spend time in the testosterone-filled boardrooms of venture capitalists, you know that these firmsspeak in an endless stream of sports metaphors. ―Hitting a home run‖ means building a business that makes everyone gobs ofmoney. ―Skating to where the puck is going,‖ describes a business that isn’t making any money yet -- but hopefully willsomeday.Pivot. Another popular venture capitalist word, a ―pivot‖ can mean that a startup has discovered a better way to make money,but it can also mean that their first (and sometimes second) business idea was really stupid.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 79

Tradigital. Mashable’s Lauren Rubin has had enough with mashing the words ―traditional‖ and ―digital‖ together to form―tradigital‖ -- and who can blame her? For evidence, here’s an excerpt from an actual piece that Adweek published on thetopic:“What excites me most about the future of marketing? Thats easy: tradigital. Not just because I enjoy the crafty natureof neologism, but because Im captivated by the artful venture of respecting traditional branding ideas in the face of a newdigital reality. Its what a whole new breed of tradigital agencies is all about.”Acronyms. Seasoned entrepreneur Dave Morgan points out that the media industry has become awash in acronyms -- to thepoint where it is now difficult to understand what anyone is saying. Using terms like DSPs, RTB or ATDs needs to stop, ASAP.Proxy. Dylan Parks of Brand.net is tired of hearing the word ―proxy.‖ I’ll take that as a sign that everyone else has, too.At the end of the day. Most Brits working in media -- as well as a number of Americans -- feel compelled to use the phrase―at the end of the day‖ at every opportunity. Ultimately, though, we all need to find a better way of making a point.Those are some of the words that media people were sick of hearing this year. What are yours?Moms Say Social Media Impacts Retail PurchasesMoms say their retail purchasing decisions are influenced by social media, according to a national survey of 700 mothersconducted by Fleishman-Hillard and ModernMom.com in September. Social media affects their in-store shopping experiencewith information about sales and coupons, as well as through blogger reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations fromfriends.One caveat should be noted, as the moms surveyed here are obviously online denizens; within this group, however, theinfluence of social media was pretty clear. Overall 84% of mothers surveyed said they use Facebook to engage with brands,followed by blogs at 69% and other online communities at 63%. Likewise 63% of mothers surveyed said blogger reviewsinfluenced their purchase decisions, and 48% said they are following a brand on Twitter.In terms of categories, mothers surveyed by FH and ModernMom.com said they were most likely to use social media toengage with brands in categories like food and recipes, at 88%; health and beauty, at 86%; children’s products, at 84%; andclothing and fashion, at 73%. Asked what helped drive engagement, survey respondents said they should be able to givefeedback to the brand, read articles with tips and advice or get a sneak peek behind the brand.As noted, the survey group appears to be skewed towards online moms, who are logically more likely to use social mediathan non-online counterparts. But this turns out to be a large percentage of them, as mothers with children under the age of18 are 19% more likely than the average American to use online social networks, according to data released by Nielsen in Mayof this year; what’s more, they are 31% more likely to like or follow a brand, 37% more likely to post photos, 25% more likelyto link to articles, and 33% more likely to post status updates. In terms of online purchase behavior, Nielsen found moms are20% more likely to buy magazines online, 15% more likely to buy digital music, and 7% more likely to buy video games.New Years Predictions? No Time For Them!by Harvey Chipkin,If anybody is looking for New Year’s predictions, forget it. Things are changing too quickly and unpredictably. However, it’s agood time to think about how some of this year’s trends might have an impact on 2012.1) Social media wags the tail of the marketing dogI went to an event at a trendy New York hotel recently and met the two managers (one fresh out of college) in charge of theproperty’s social media – that’s right, two people whose full time job is social media at a hotel of barely 250 rooms.Talking to them, I realized they were heavily responsible for planning the New Year’s events at the hotel and in promotingthem. On top of that, they were deeply involved in all the advertising and marketing at the hotel.And maybe I’m the last one to see it this way, but rather than social media being an arm of marketing or a tool of marketingor an extension of marketing – it’s all turning around. Increasingly, social media is where it all starts – marketing, advertising,image-building – and yes, even booking the right act for a New Year’s party.As someone who has worked by and for himself for many years, I’m not sure how this would work in an organizationalstructure. I don’t know if the social media person (stereotypically younger and less experienced) would suddenly assumehigher status than the veteran vice president of sales and marketing.This situation is not without precedent. Sales and marketing departments used to be separate and autonomous – withmarketing the new kid on the block. Eventually, marketing came to be seen as central to the sales role and for a very longtime, the vice president of sales and marketing has overseen a combined effort.2) Consolidation: Anyone who has written about travel for many years is aware that the travel industry public relations andmarketing field has been dominated by smaller boutique companies. The recent announcement that MMG Worldwide hadBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 80

merged with Ypartnership – creating a powerful combined force called MMGY Global – is an indication that more resourcesmight be needed than in the past. And the use of the word global recognizes that it’s necessary to have a strong presence inmore than one place – ideally in more than one country.It’s simply become a challenge for a smaller agency to keep up with rapid-fire changes in the marketplace.Whether there’s more of this to come remains to be seen but there’s no question that traditional public relations skills mightcall for additional resources – and that may mean accelerated consolidation in the future.3) Think presidentially. Holiday Inns got huge exposure for a fun and substantive promotion in 2008 by displaying a runningaccount of how much each presidential candidate could have saved if they’d stayed in a Holiday Inn rather than in the moreexpensive hotels where they were staying. Since 2008 now seems primitive as far as using the Internet to get a messageacross, it will be interesting to see if any brand can make similar hay out of the 2012 electio4) Good Travels and Great Marketing in the New Year.The Problem With GamificationAdrian LeeIts going to happen sooner or later…your client sidles up to you and asks you the golden question:"What are we doing about gamification?" Sure, youve heard all the great things about gamification, about how adding a fewbadges and levels to your campaign will instantly increase customer engagement and make instant followers of your brand,and your client believes that it will bring in the much needed key performance indicators to show off during their criticalannual business review.If only.Now, Im not an expert on this subject matter, but it seems to me that there is increasing hype around gamification and how itmight be the silver bullet to help customer engagement and increase brand loyalty. But the fact is, the act of infusing gamemechanics into a non-game scenario is not an easy task, and here is why.Gamification Tools Are Just That…ToolsThe first pitfall that people will fall into is the illusion that to "gamify" a campaign or a site, all you have to do is to assignpoints to actions that you want the customer to undertake, slap on a few badges and a leader board and finally watch in gleewhile the numbers crank up. This is compounded by the fact that there is now a plethora of platforms and tools out there thatare offering solutions and engines that will provide your site with exactly those rewards; examples of which includeBunchball, Badgeville, BigDoor, PunchTab, FanGager, and many more.These tools and platforms, by and large, offer platforms and services to help you add rewards to your sites by offering usersreward points, leader boards, and badges for tasks accomplished on the site. However, the concept of transforming a productinto a game runs much deeper than that in my mind.Taking a Step BackNow, these tools and platforms are crucial, but one would need to take a step further back first to explore why gamificationis supposed to work in the first place. Riding on the coattails of social media and the successes of gaming companies likeZynga and the like, people started realizing that if you took a non-gaming concept (like a brand), and started rewardingactions in both tangible and intangible ways -customers would receive incentives to engage more with your brand.Its a simple concept at its core but, in my opinion, it is flawed.One, it falls into a classic marketer trap - what I like to call the "dangle-a-carrot" hole where every campaign is led byincentives and not the brand or the messaging just to drive numbers and nothing else (an especially exacerbated situationnowadays with the increasing focus on short-term ROI). This does nothing for the brand and is at its worst an unsustainablemetrics booster and not much else.Two, as adoption of cookie-cutter gamification increases, fatigue sets in. As consumers are faced with the disparate badgesand rewards from all the brands that they are exposed to, novelty will wear off and along with it their interest as "gaming"will increasingly become a chore. In fact, I do believe we are already at the cusp of this as you see Foursquare, a pioneer ofsorts in gamification, constantly revamping and improving its badging system to keep it from malaise.So Whats the Problem?And I think thats the point. What is the problem that you are trying to solve? And how do you approach it. To be clear, I amnot a skeptic of gamification – but I feel that one has to ask a few questions before rushing headlong to gamify everythingyou see.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 81

Is your brand or product already fundamentally strong enough for consumers to want to interact with it? If so, gamification isa wonderful way to provide more avenues for your loyal and interested customers to further engage with you. If not, dontwaste your time and money – you have a much bigger problem that gamification will not be able to solve for you.The act of playing a game and investing time into earning stuff on your site or with your brand is just that on a consumerspart – an investment. And even if you have built the most wonderful, innovative mechanics around your brand for peoplewilling to do that – they would be investing in your game, not your brand.The next question to ask yourself: Are you willing to go beyond the simplest mechanics of badging and rewards, and actuallyinvest in the long term? Because, short campaigns aside, you will have to do that like it or not. It is a dedicated investment interms of thinking, imagining and management just to keep your "gamers" enthused and interested in the long term.Yes, gamification is a good solid concept (although I cant bring myself to say that its new), but approaching it with a one-size-fits-all solution is a mistake. Unfortunately, the gamification or social loyalty industry looks like its headed that way, sotread carefully.The Age of And - The mix is where the marketing alchemy comes inby Kathy Timko,The argument that ITV has missed its opportunity because of the Internets potential to deliver interactive ads to hundreds ofmillions is dramatically off the mark. I love this debate, because the idea that ITV is already over is demonstrably wrong.First of all, television remains the ultimate medium for building brands, and at every turn we can witness the Webs ―TV-envy.‖It seems the Web wants to be TV when it grows up. And the universe of TV viewers has never been too small for advertisers’interest. With about 100 million pay TV subscribers in the U.S., there are a lot of eyeballs to impress, hearts and minds toengage, and household purchase behaviors to influence. Already, Canoes ITV platform reaches 25 million of those households.This is 56% of all digital cable households and 25% of the total U.S. pay TV universe. ITV is just starting to ramp up.Secondly, national advertisers are embracing ITV.At the recent annual conference of the ANA, Bob Liodice, president and CEO of ANA, pointed to ITV as a top 10 priority for theindustry. Our enabled networks’ client rosters -- both those actively interested in as well as those already participating inITV -- encompass all of the largest advertiser categories, including CPG, pharmaceutical, financial services and insurance,entertainment, travel and automotive.The reality is that the Web is making progress in its efforts to be more TV-like, and TV is becoming more interactive andaccountable. The most well-respected voices I know say we live in ―The Age of And.‖Marketers constantly tell us that their priorities include the development of integrated, cross-platform touchpoints thatprovide different dimensions of brand experience at each connection. There is no such thing as a one-off approach inmarketing today. One must begin with a strong and well-considered philosophy, and a plan that strategically anchors everyelement of a campaign. At the core of every successful plan is the understanding that each platform must work in harmonywith others -- even more so today with the social Webs impact on media consumption.Integrated and holistic -- these are the characteristics of an effective modern marketing philosophy in the Age of And. Themix is where the marketing alchemy comes in. But singling out any one platform as old or new, better or worse, isshortsighted and counterproductive.Indeed, ITV is not -- and never was meant to be -- a stand-alone silo. Canoe is in the business of creating better television,dedicated to expanding relevant, measurable engagement with viewers and enabling national networks with a tapestry ofadvanced capabilities. We’re doing that now with in-ad and soon, in-program interactive experiences that make programmingand commercial messages more immersive, more social, more fun -- and yes, more accountable to advertisers.But were also expanding our services to networks with dynamic ad insertion for VOD. This will give networks new inventoryand endow advertisers with the ability to flexibly schedule advertising within cables coveted VOD content -- programmingthat viewers attentively watch on their own schedule.Although distinct products today, you can imagine the not-so-distant future where interactive ads are placed into time-shifted content. As we move forward building scale for advanced television, its important to recognize that ITV is only onefacet of an ever-growing lineup of solutions for advertisers.Lets face it; the argument that ITV is being replaced by the Internet echoes the broader ―TV is dead‖ declarations we heard afew years ago. The companies that founded Canoe do offer their services on Web-enabled devices -- but not becausetelevision as we know it is on the wane. On the contrary, traditional TV viewing continues to rise, and as of July, topped 146hours per person per month, according to Nielsen.Television remains the most powerful channel at our disposal. Everybody still loves to watch. They almost certainly alwayswill. Its just that now they can watch on several screens, everywhere and anywhere. But thats addition, not subtraction.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 82

Marketers recognize that emerging opportunities like advanced TV need to be supported, and that advertising in the 21stcentury is not a zero-sum game. In the Age of And, there is a role for every opportunity, and a place for every platform.Five Things You Should Stop Doing in 2012I recently got back from a months vacation — the longest Ive ever taken, and a shocking indulgence for an American. (Earlierthis summer, I was still fretting about how to pull off two weeks unplugged.) The distance, though, helped me hone in onwhats actually important to my professional career — and which make-work activities merely provide the illusion ofprogress. Inspired by HBR blogger Peter Bregmans idea of creating a "to ignore" list , here are the activities Im going to stopcold turkey in 2012 — and perhaps you should, too. 1. Responding Like a Trained Monkey. Every productivity expert in the world will tell you to check email at periodic intervals — say, every 90 minutes — rather than clicking "refresh" like a Pavlovian mutt. Of course, almost no one listens, because studies have shown emails "variable interval reinforcement schedule" is basically a slot machine for your brain. But spending a month away — and only checking email weekly — showed me how little really requires immediate response. In fact, nothing. A 90 minute wait wont kill anyone, and will allow you to accomplish something substantive during your workday. 2. Mindless Traditions. I recently invited a friend to a prime networking event. "Can I play it by ear?" she asked. "This is my last weekend to get holiday cards out and I havent mailed a single one. It is causing stress!" In the moment, not fulfilling an "obligation" (like sending holiday cards) can make you feel guilty. But if youre in search of professional advancement, is a holiday card (buried among the deluge) going to make a difference? If you want to connect, do something unusual — get in touch at a different time of year, or give your contacts a personal call, or even better, meet up face-to-face. You have to ask if your business traditions are generating the results you want. 3. Reading Annoying Things. I have nearly a dozen newspaper and magazine subscriptions, the result of alluring specials ($10 for an entire year!) and the compulsion not to miss out on crucial information. But after detoxing for a month, I was able to reflect on which publications actually refreshed me — and which felt like a duty. The New Yorker , even though its not a business publication, broadens my perspective and is a genuine pleasure to read. The pretentious tech publication with crazy layouts and too-small print? Not so much. Im weeding out and paring down to literary essentials. What subscriptions can you get rid of? 4. Work Thats Not Worth It. Early in my career, I was thrilled to win a five-year, quarter-million dollar contract. That is, until the reality set in that it was a government contract, filled with ridiculous reporting mechanisms, low reimbursement rates and administrative complexities that sucked the joy and profit out of the work. When budget cuts rolled around and my contract got whacked, it turned out to be a blessing. These days, Im eschewing any engagement, public or private, that looks like more trouble than its worth. 5. Making Things More Complicated Than They Should Be. A while back, a colleague approached me with an idea. She wanted me to be a part of a professional development event she was organizing in her city, featuring several speakers and consultants. She recommended biweekly check-in calls for the next eight months, leading up to the event. "Have you organized an event like this before?" I asked. "Can you actually get the participants? Why dont you test the demand first?" When none materialized, I realized Id saved myself nearly half a weeks work — in futile conference calls — by insisting the event had to be "real" before we invested in it. As Eric Ries points out in his new book The Lean Startup , developing the best code or building the best product in the world is meaningless if your customers dont end up wanting it. Instead, test early and often to ensure youre not wasting your time. What ideas should you test before youve gone too far?Eliminating these five activities is likely to save me hundreds of hours next year — time I can spend expanding my businessand doing things that matter. What are you going to stop doing? And how are you going to leverage all that extra time?Stop Competing to Be the BestWith Cyber Monday, the tablet wars kicked into full swing. Which one is the best? Is it the iPad? The Kindle? Who has the besttechnology? The best distribution? Whos the best overall? For most people, "being the best" is what competition is all about.So General Motors CEO Dan Akerson was simply echoing popular sentiment when, on the day the new GM went public, hethrew down the gauntlet: "May the best car win!" he told reporters. The phrase reflects an underlying belief about the natureof competition that feels so intuitively correct that it is almost never examined or questioned.But if you want to win, says Michael Porter, this is absolutely the wrong way to think about competition. In fact, itspractically a guarantee of mediocre performance. The first problem with the competition-to-be-the-best mindset is that, inthe vast majority of businesses, there is simply no such thing as "the best."Consider a business as prosaic as seating for airport waiting areas. You would think that there would be a "best" here —standardized, functional seating. Well you would be wrong. Different airports have different needs. Some want waitingpassengers to shop. They dont want seats that are too comfortable. Some need the flexibility to reconfigure waiting areas.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 83

They dont want long rows of fixed seats. Many airports have to watch their spending. But others — airports in the MiddleEast, for example — have snapped up luxury designs. Some airports value seats built to take extraordinary abuse. London-based OMK makes "prison-worthy" seating, the industrys highest standard, using self-sealing polyurethane that canwithstand a stabbing without showing the knife scar.If there is no "best" airport seat, now think about all of the industries in the economy. In how many does the idea of "being thebest" make real sense? The best hotel for one customer is not the best for another. The best sales encounter for onecustomer is not the best for another. There is no best car. There is no best art museum. No one best way to promoteenvironmental sustainability.Yet, its a pervasive idea. Management writers — and leaders seeking to inspire — regularly reinforce it by using colorfulmetaphors from warfare and sports. These lend emotion and drama to business competition. But, they are misleading.In war, there can be only one winner. Not so in business, where companies like WalMart and Target can thrive and co-exist,each offering a different kind of value to its customers. In sports, there is just one contest with one set of rules. Not so inbusiness, which is more complex and open-ended. Within an industry, there can be multiple contests, not just one, based onwhich needs are to be served. McDonalds is a winner in fast food, specifically fast burgers. But In-N-Out Burger thrives onslow burgers. Its customers are happy to wait ten minutes or more (an eternity by McDonalds stopwatch) for non-processed,fresh burgers cooked to order.Heres the problem: When rivals all pursue the "one best way" to compete, they find themselves on a collision course, trappedin a destructive, zero-sum competition that no one can win. Everyone in the industry follows the same advice. Companiesbenchmark each others practices and products. Customers, lacking meaningful choice, buy on price alone. Profitabilitydeteriorates.Instead, Porter urges a different kind of competition: compete to be unique. Focus on innovating to create superior value foryour chosen customers, not on imitating and matching rivals. Give customers real choice and price becomes only onecompetitive variable. But understand that doing this profitably means accepting limits and making tradeoffs — you cant meetevery need of every customer. Nothing is more absurd — and yet more widespread — than the belief that somehow you cando exactly what everyone else is doing and yet end up with superior results.Grasp the true nature of business competition and youll see that the performing arts provide a better analogy than war orsports. There can be many good singers or actors — each outstanding and successful in a distinctive way. Each finds andcreates an audience. The more good performers there are, the more audiences grow and the arts flourish. This approachproduces positive sum competition. Companies that do a good job can earn sustainable returns because they create morevalue. At the same time, customers benefit by getting real choice in how their needs are met.Whats your organizations underlying model of how competition works? Its a question well worth asking. If "best" is yourmodel, you will follow the herd. Copycat products and services will always make sense. Growth at any price will seemreasonable. Acquisitions will always look better than they really are. How you think about competition will define the choicesyou make and your ability to assess those choices critically.McDonalds Digital Promos Geotarget College KidsBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 84

Sure, many college students more or less subsist on fast food…but given the marketing barrages from a plethora of QSRs,even McDonald’s has to work at getting their attention and dollars in cost-effective ways.Recently, McDonald’s has been employing CampusLIVE’s Surge Marketing, a college-audience-specific platform that engagesstudents with games, challenges and content tied to chances to win prizes from brands.CampusLIVE, founded in 2008 by then-University of Massachusetts-Amherst student CEO Boris Revsin and fellow students, hasmore than 100,000 registered college students who regularly engage with the activities on its destination site throughschool-specific sites that enable geographic targeting. (Hundreds of these have been built, and the company aims eventuallyto build sites for nearly all of the approximately 4,300 colleges/universities in the U.S.)The company sends emails to students who match a brand’s desired targeting parameters to alert them to new challenges. Itgets paid only for documented successful engagements, and each marketer specifies a maximum number of students who canparticipate in a given campaign. This, says Revsin, enables marketers to plan and adhere to a specific budget, and alsoprovides an element of urgency for students to participate before the limit is reached. Students must use a Facebook ID tolog in and participate.For McDonald’s, CampusLIVE worked with Media Planning Group’s Mobext mobile marketing/communications arm to createcustomized challenges for two promotions targeted to select New England markets.The first, for McDonald’s’ new McCafé Peppermint Mocha espresso drink, was dubbed the ―Drizzle Draw‖ (referring to thechocolate drizzle topping the drink). It challenged students to use a graphics app to create their own drizzle designs on avirtual McDonald’s cup, and share them through Facebook and Twitter to get friends to vote for their entries (shown in agallery on the CampusLIVE site).The entry drawing the most votes won free McDonald’s coffee for a year, and the 50 top ―sharers‖ won $10 McDonald’s coffeegift certificates.During its nine-day participation window (Dec. 2-10), the campaign drew more than 25,000 unique votes, reports Revsin.A second -- the ―McSmile‖ campaign now underway -- challenges students to visit their closest McDonald’s location, use a $1-any-size promotion to buy a cup of coffee, take a photo with it, upload it to CampusLIVE, and share it to drum up votes, orsimply view the gallery and vote for their favorite photo.In this case, the Nov. 11-Dec. 31 contest offers a trip for two to Miami to the person whose photo garners the most votes, and$50 worth of free coffee to the top 10 sharers.Mobext Managing Director Phuc Truong says the CampusLIVE platform made sense for the two McDonald’s promotionsbecause of its guaranteed reach and activation and the ability to geotarget schools that have a McDonald’s location within aspecified proximity.Global Executives Treading Cautiously Into 12Levels of financial optimism among senior executives are plummeting, according to an annual survey by Omnicom Group’sDoremus and the Financial Times.Six out of 10 respondents expect further decline in the global economy over the next six months. And nearly half of them donot believe the economy will recover until or after 2013.Respondents were only slightly more optimistic about the global and local economics than they were in 2008, and maintainedthe same level of optimism regarding their industries and companies.This year, there were 628 respondents to the ninth annual Decision Dynamics survey, representing a mix of company sizes andindustries from North America, Europe and Asia.―As we see companies increase their spending, even at miniscule increments, we expect there will be a steady snail’s paceback to recovery,‖ said Hope Picker, the Doremus director of strategic research, in a statement. ―Barring any further disasters,natural or otherwise, this show of modest spending is a sign of life, and gratefully not life support.‖Only a quarter of the companies in the survey plan to hire this year while the same proportion expects their organization’semployment level to decrease. This is somewhat worse than the 2010 findings and very similar to the results from 2009.Low consumer confidence and U.S. and European debt issues will continue to impact more companies over the next six monthsor longer.Companies that operate globally are most likely to feel the fallout from some of the year’s global issues, namely: theEuropean debt crisis, U.S. debt/budget, Arab spring, and Japan disasters. There are also geographic differences, with Asianrespondents this year feeling the impact of European and U.S. economic issues.―Global business leaders have felt the repercussions of the European and U.S. debt crises, as well as global unemployment,battered consumer confidence, and a year filled with natural disasters,‖ said Daniel Rothman, director of research in theBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 85

Americas for the Financial Times, in a statement. ―As we enter 2012, the only sure fact for many companies is that visibilityremains poor.‖Marketers Struggle With Social MediaMarketers are struggling to fully integrate social into their overarching marketing strategies, according to a new report fromthe Chief Marketing Officer Council.Marketers are investing in social media. People are logging in and "liking" their favorite brands. But this is where thesynergies begin to weaken, according to the CMO Council in "The Variance in the Social Brand Experience."Social consumers indicate they are looking for exclusive experiences, savings, and perks from the brands they like. Butmarketers still believe that content and connection to peers are the primary drivers to likes and follows.The CMO Council study provides feedback from more than 1,300 consumers and 132 senior marketing executives. Lithium, aprovider of social customer solutions, has also offered insights into how brands like Sephora have created a competitiveadvantage through targeted social engagements and strategies.Brands that gain social business advantage in 2012 will be those that feed unmet appetites for deeper engagement with eachother and the brand. People are seeking more rewards with special offers, greater privilege, rank, and reputation. They wantbetter experiences with games, contests, and other online engagement apps.―Theres no question that social media is one of the most highly influential marketing engagement channels we’ve seen,‖according to the report. ―The constantly emerging nature of digital media has been pushing the engagement envelope forsome time, but what’s new and different about social media is that it’s now a two-way street.‖But in some cases, brands are missing the boat. They see the benefits of reaching out to people through social channels, butthey are not yet fully invested, according to the report. While 52% of marketers reported they believe their brands haveenjoyed greater influence thanks to their presence in social networks like Facebook, only 17% said social media is fullymeshed, aligned and integrated into the overall marketing mix.People say they engage with brands through channels like Facebook and other social networks largely to learn about newproducts (55%), enter unique promotions or contests, or to play games (65%) offered specifically -- and often exclusively -- through these channels. Most use social specifically to connect with other fans (25%) or to share positive experiences (32%).Importantly, few consumers turn to social to bad-mouth brands or complain about negative experiences. Instead, they useopen social communities to share more positive engagements and experiences.One case in point is Sephora’s ―Beauty Talk‖ community on its Web site. ―It was flooded with clients dying to talk about beautywith each other,‖ said Bridget Dolan, vice president of interactive media at Sephora. ―It was exactly what we wanted. What wefound was that clients were not only trying to talk with us -- they were trying to talk with each other. And they wereactually engaging in ways we had no idea they would.‖Marketers will do well to consider a new mindset for social in 2012, according to the report. Great support isn’t just somethingthat social customers expect, it can also build brand loyalty; 33% of consumers say that great online customer support keepsthem loyal. Social support is the perfect way to enable people to help each other with the immediacy they demand. It canalso significantly offset support costs.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 86

The top expectation that comes with a ―like‖ is to be eligible for exclusive offers (67%), followed by the opportunity tointeract with other customers who share a consumer’s own experiences (60%). Games and contests are also a big draw, with65% of people wanting to find them when making online brand connections, and 57% expecting them from brands onFacebook.For the most part, existing social media strategies are in place to support communications, but are not fully integrated intooverarching marketing strategies. According to the marketers surveyed, 20% admit that social media strategies are really justa loosely connected channel, and 23% admit that while they have some strategies brewing, there has been a general failureto launch.But without a doubt, social media is skyrocketing in importance as an overwhelming majority (80%) has moved the channel uptheir marketing priority list. This is demonstrated -- as the average social media following of the brands surveyed include224,472 Facebook fans, 2,600 LinkedIn connections, 11,780 Twitter followers, and a growing representation on emergingchannels like Google+. For the most part, these channels are being managed by an average of only three dedicated socialmedia resources within the marketing team.The majority of marketers (52%) believe their brands have a growing level of influence through social media channels, butmany (67%) are concerned that they don’t have the resources or time required to properly manage their social mediainvestments. Marketers are also increasingly concerned that they can’t measure or quantify the return or impact of socialmedia on the brand. As one marketing respondent summarized: ―We are worried about what we don’t know about social mediaand what we are missing.‖EA Sports Creating Real-World ExperiencesEA Sports is no longer tethered to the virtual world. The brand, known for its celebrity-driven sports games like Madden andthe Tiger Woods golf titles, is branching out into airports and cruise ships.―One of the overarching goals is to find a way to find unique ways to connect with consumers,‖ Chris Erb, senior director ofmarketing partnerships at EA, tells Marketing Daily. ―The airport is a great way from a physical brick-and-mortar way toconnect with consumers.‖This week, the company is opening its third ―EA Experience‖ airport venue in Salt Lake City (following Charlotte, N.C. andOklahoma City), and the company recently inked a deal with Carnival Cruise Lines to put EA-branded bars on all of thecompany’s cruise ships. The goal of the locations is to link the EA brand with real-world sports, Erb says.The stores, created in partnership with The Paradise Shops, feature amenities such as chairs and recharging stations fordigital devices, as well as a place to purchase gear from the local sports teams, and EA games and branded merchandise.Similarly, the bars on the boats provide a way for travelers to keep up with their favorite teams and sports while away.―Our goal is to create an experience in which we can let you come into our stores and catch you up on the latest sports,‖ Erbsays. ―If we can get good experiences at any time, that’s the upside for us.‖Ultimately, Erb says, the goal is to find ways to deepen engagement with consumers, wherever they may be. ―When you’re atour physical location, it’s about getting people to connect with our controllers,‖ he says. ―When you’re on Facebook andTwitter it’s not about saying things. It’s about being engaged through the process.‖Much of that engagement comes through outside partnerships, whether they be airport retail development companies, cruiselines or food brands such as Doritos (through which EA has offered exclusive content of its games through on-packagepromotions). ―I think we do the connectivity through our partners," Erb says. ―It’s really about finding partners that want togive consumers value or fund experiences for people.‖Of course, it’s also about making those experiences meaningful and relevant, with partners that make sense. First andforemost, the partners EA chooses have some sort of sports connection (like a Nike, Gillette or even Lowe’s, which is an NCAAsponsor). ―Sports consumers are bombarded with sports advertising and marketing,‖ Erb says. ―To reach those people we needto partner with brands that are relevant in those spaces.‖Moving forward, Erb says, the company will continue to evaluate its current initiatives (including the stores and bars) andcreate experiences that build positive associations with the brand, which, hopefully, will translate into sales.―[Next year] and beyond is about understanding what consumers think about what we’re bringing them and tweaking andexpanding that,‖ Erb says. ―It’s not about driving to the specific end goal of the sale. It’s about building the experience thatwill translate to the sales at some point.‖Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 87

Social Business Planning in 2012Today marks my two-year anniversary at Edelman, or what we affectionately like to refer to as an ―Edelversary‖. So much haschanged in the industry since joining the team here—we are truly working in a real-time business environment. We’ve seen―social‖ move from an item to be checked off the list from major brands to something they are genuinely grappling with interms of integrating at scale across the enterprise. At Edelman Digital, we’ve always approached social a bit differently fromothers—focusing on the fact that much if it revolves around human-to-human interactions (we now call this communitymanagement), but if social is to scale—it must begin to spill out of the marketing silo and truly influence how we do business.We believe a connected business is better positioned for the future than a business, which remains disconnected and nonadaptive.Today, we’re announcing a partnership with Edelman Consulting led by Mike Kuczowski, in which we are actively elevating ourservices around social business to meet what we believe will be the opportunity in the years to come. In order for a businessto truly extract value from social initiatives, we must consider not only marketing but how it impacts research anddevelopment, human resources, innovation, business intelligence and other facets of an organization which help drive abusiness forward. Michael’s team has deep experience solving complex business challenges while our digital team possessesincredible savvy and a global perspective for how social-digital operates at scale (folks like Michael Brito, Zena Weist, RobinHamman, Dave Fleet, & Chuck Hemann to name a few).Together, we’re looking forward to elevating the game for companies who truly wish to push their social initiatives beyondacquiring fans and followers. As an initial gesture, we are openly putting our approach out on the social web, which outlinesnot only our joint philosophy on social business planning but also, the methodology we use when working with clients. Webelieve that over the next ten years, most businesses will move past the ROI question of social—and get to work on doingbusiness in a connected age. This will require gradual if not steady change and a commitment to evolving business practices.We’re looking forward to partnering with likeminded organizations and individuals who see the world in a similar fashion.You can read more information on this initiative here. We’re excited to play our part in moving the discussion of socialbusiness from philosophy to action.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 88

Microsoft Mixes Social Networking With SearchAimed at students, the new network shows that combining two of the Webs most popular activities has broader potential.When a social networking service from Microsoft code-named Tulalip or Socl was accidentally made public in July, less than amonth after Google had launched Google+, the online rumor mill understandably began churning. The Microsoft site appearedto combine Web search with features familiar from Facebook and Twitter, neatly uniting the Webs two most successfulproducts.Back then, Microsoft hurriedly took down the Socl page and said it was an internal research project accidentally made public.Now, the service has reemerged as So.cl, and the team at Microsofts research labs has given Technology Review a preview.The rumors were right about So.cls form. Its a well-made reinvention of the basic design shared by the major social networks,centered on Microsofts Bing Web search engine. Most posts on the site start as queries typed into the search box at the topof the page. The top few results can be shared with friends, and images turned up through a Bing search can be turned into aslick collage to be shared. Regular text-based status updates and comments can be posted too, but friends on So.cl are morefollowers, in the model of Twitter.Lili Cheng, the Microsoft researcher who led development of So.cl, says the rumors were wrong about the social networksfunction. "The rumors were all that we were taking on Facebook, and thats not our goal," she says, "So.cl is really anexperimental research project focused on how social networking and search can be used for the purpose of learning."Cheng heads FUSE Labs, a division inside Microsofts research wing, Microsoft Research, which works on new ideas for socialwebsites and services. The division collaborates with other parts of Microsoft Research as well as the main business, forexample on a trial service that creates online Microsoft Office documents within Facebook.Cheng and colleagues got started on So.cl by thinking about how students use both Web search and social networking to findinformation for classes, and when working together, she says. "The tools that students use were each designed separately,"says Cheng. "Were trying to imagine how they could fit together and change the way learning happens."Cheng and her team have been working closely with students at the University of Washington, Syracuse University, and NewYork University to guide development and test drive So.cl. Today they will start growing the user base by allowing thosestudents to invite friends to join them in using So.cl. In coming months, the trial may open up even further, says Cheng.A walkthrough of whats currently happening on the site didnt show much evidence of students working on tasks like algebraassignments, but Cheng says she has seen math homework on So.cl.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 89

Rather, people were searching using phrases such as "sushi art" and "star wars steampunk" to curate well-designed collagesof images, and responding to one another with comments or collages, or their own slightly different take on the original. Thefun, evolving visual threads that result are very different from the text-centric threads on Facebook or Twitter."People are conversing through these rich shared queries," says Cheng. "I like allowing people to riff off of one another, andthis is one of the emerging behaviors that we need to learn from."Another novel feature is dubbed "video party." It allows a user to cue up and watch a playlist of YouTube videos, and theirfriends can join in and watch along with them. All the people taking part in a video party can add videos to the playlist andshare comments with other people there; Cheng says she hopes to add support for other video sites, such as Vimeo, in thefuture.Its hard to resist the parallel between the way So.cl is being tested and the story of Facebook, which was first available onlyto university students before it ate the world. So.cls novel features and their flexibility certainly seem competitive with thefeatures of existing social networks.Chengs desire to create a place where people can work together on information found online seems to be shared by thoseworking on Googles social network. As Google+ is connected with more and more of Googles other services, the company ispromoting productivity benefits like being able to share maps with friends when planning a trip or see social activity whenmanaging and sending e-mail.However, Cheng remains adamant that So.cl is about learning, and not a warm-up to the launch of a general-interest socialnetwork that will go up against Twitter and Facebook. "The project isnt specifically for formal learning, but learning as ageneral activity on any topic," she says, "[So.cl] is one way you might combine search and social networking around learning."Cheng isnt sure So.cl will evolve this way, though. She says another direction the project may take is to become a platformfor students and researchers to build and test new forms of social networks.Choosing the Right Social Technology VendorsMICHAEL BRITOFinding the right social media technology vendor is not easy. While the good news is that there are dozens of vendorsoffering ―white label‖ social business solutions, the bad news is that it makes the process for choosing one that much moredifficult. Additionally, many technology companies today are making acquisitions, so in the near future, the number ofvendors may dramatically decrease. That being said, there are several considerations that technology decision makers mustthink about before deploying a social application, like first understanding the company culture and leadership, the technologyfeature requirements, vendor support models, training and maintenance.Understand the Organization, Culture and LeadershipChoosing a technology vendor has to be a strategic decision. Organizations need to first understand what it is they are tryingto achieve before thinking about which technology application to deploy behind the firewall. Are they trying to streamlinecommunication between business units or geographies? Are they looking to roll out a collaboration application that willeventually replace their intranet? Or, are they planning to use Social CRM and weave it into their sales and marketinginitiatives? Whatever the case, it’s important to understand the culture of the organization and its leadership.Social business transformation requires a change in behavior. It requires organizational leadership to embrace the socialcustomer, tear down organizational silos, empower the organization to share knowledge across job functions andgeographies, and invest in technology that will help facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing. It’s more than lip service,too. These change management initiatives have to be driven by organizational leadership and practiced at every level in theorganization from senior leadership all the way down to a customer support agent. Otherwise, change will not occur. Thismeans that executives must not only talk about changing the organization but exemplify the behaviors that really dofacilitate and practice change.Technology will not change an organization’s culture. That has to be a decision from company leadership and then supportedby employees at all levels. What technology will do is help facilitate collaboration and communication across job functionsand geographies.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 90

Application Feature SetsCompanies need to choose technology vendors that do more than just provide the features and functionality needed fortoday’s dynamic business environment. They must also choose the vendors with features that may be needed in the future.For community related software, some important features to consider include the following: Support for internal groups, forums, profile creation Support for topical sub groups (private or open) Multi-language support for global companies Support for micro-blogging, general blogging, group messaging, wikis and chat Email support and integration Single sign-on (SSO) capabilities that integrate the platform with other internal registration databases as well as external profiles like Facebook and TwitterFeature sets for collaboration applications may include: Document sharing and control Task management, shared calendar Workflow and roles-based management Reporting analytics Self-service features that enable dragging and dropping of various widgets to allow for customization of each user’s interface Full set of APIs for integration with other internal and external applicationsSeveral technology vendors offer both community and collaboration feature sets. Many of them are also starting to build inSocial CRM functionality into their platforms and already have open APIs that integrate with traditional CRM applications. Thebenefit of this is that companies can use one vendor for everything, which is cost effective and easier to scale.Customer Support ModelsOne key consideration when choosing a technology vendor is their support model. Many vendors today have their supportteams overseas in other parts of the world. No matter how good a software application performs, there are always caseswhen support is needed to troubleshoot an existing problem. Having a support team eight or nine hours ahead can potentiallybe disastrous.Additionally, some technology providers may require a dedicated support staff per company or license, while others willprovide customer support for a fee. The cost of hiring support staff needs to be factored into the buying decision. Supportmay be in the form of human help or an automated support engine. And in some cases, there may be a need to have adedicated support person on site.Organizational TrainingTraining is another form of support and is imperative to help an organization adopt and implement new technology. Sometechnology vendors offer free training (in person or e-learning) that will help their customers get up to speed quickly. Insome cases, and depending on the size of the company, the vendor might offer paid training as well. This cost needs shouldalso be factored into the purchase decision.Maintenance ConsiderationsMaintenance models and cost efficiencies have a major impact on the performance and adaptability of most technologyvendors. When the application is hosted externally by the vendor, it’s vital that the software application be available onlineat all times. In most cases, uptime expectations are covered contractually under the ―service level agreement‖ (SLA) and rangefrom about 98% to 99.99%. Smart and innovative vendors are consistently improving their software applications, fixing bugsand releasing new versions to existing customers at no charge.Understand the Internal Technology SuiteBefore choosing any external technology vendor, it’s imperative to get a full understanding of the company’s existing internalinfrastructure. Several questions must be answered before a decision is made:What current applications are powering the Intranet/network?Can the existing network infrastructure support the technologies that are being considered?Is there enough network bandwidth to support the application? If not, how much is going to cost?Does IT have the resources (both human and technical) to support the integration and/or installation of the application?Can this solution be built in-house versus being outsourced to a vendor?ConclusionBefore jumping head first in choosing the right technology vendor, organizations need to listen, watch, understand andinterview the constituent base that will be using the technology internally. It’s important to understand their feedback,expectations, requirements and how it will be received by the people and teams that will be using it. Additionally, it’sBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 91

important to ensure that there is high involvement and buy in at the early stages of the initiative in order to establishcollaboration and avoid internal push back.It’s imperative to also initiate conversations with Legal, Human Resources, IT and Privacy teams early on in order tounderstand the limitations and potential risks that may be associated with the technology initiative. As with any newbusiness plan, companies need to do their due diligence and fully understand the risks involved with selecting, acquiring,integrating and installing social technologies behind the firewall.One thing companies should also consider is whether or not they should build or buy the technology they need. Mostcompanies do have the expertise internally to develop their own solution (i.e., engineering and IT). They also have theinfrastructure (server space, hosting, security, applications) to support and maintain the development of a robust application.The challenge with building the technology from scratch is timing and cost. These factors need to be considered beforemaking any technology decision.In most companies, it can take years to build a new social application — mainly because most IT and network engineeringteams are busy maintaining the company’s network and ensuring it’s safe from intrusion. Unless the initiative is a businesspriority, deploying a new social technology may even take a year or two to get started.Top Ten Reasons Why Large Companies Fail To Keep Their Best TalentWhether it’s a high-profile tech company like Yahoo!, or a more established conglomerate like GE or Home Depot, largecompanies have a hard time keeping their best and brightest in house. Recently, GigaOM discussed the troubles at Yahoo! witha flat stock price, vested options for some of their best people, and the apparent free flow of VC dollars luring away some oftheir best people to do the start-up thing again.Yet, Yahoo!, GE, Home Depot, and other large established companies have a tremendous advantage in retaining their top talentand don’t. I’ve seen the good and the bad things that large companies do in relation to talent management. Here’s my Top Tenlist of what large companies do to lose their top talent :1. Big Company Bureaucracy. This is probably the #1 reason we hear after the fact from disenchanted employees.However, it’s usually a reason that masks the real reason. No one likes rules that make no sense. But, when top talent iscomplaining along these lines, it’s usually a sign that they didn’t feel as if they had a say in these rules. They were simplytold to follow along and get with the program. No voice in the process and really talented people say ―check please.‖2. Failing to Find a Project for the Talent that Ignites Their Passion. Big companies have many moving parts — bydefinition. Therefore, they usually don’t have people going around to their best and brightest asking them if they’re enjoyingtheir current projects or if they want to work on something new that they’re really interested in which would help thecompany. HR people are usually too busy keeping up with other things to get into this. The bosses are also usually tapped outon time and this becomes a ―nice to have‖ rather than ―must have‖ conversation. However, unless you see it as a ―must have,‖say adios to some of your best people. Top talent isn’t driven by money and power, but by the opportunity to be a part ofsomething huge, that will change the world, and for which they are really passionate. Big companies usually never spend thetime to figure this out with those people.3. Poor Annual Performance Reviews. You would be amazed at how many companies do not do a very effective job atannual performance reviews. Or, if they have them, they are rushed through, with a form quickly filled out and sent off to HR,and back to real work. The impression this leaves with the employee is that my boss — and, therefore, the company — isn’treally interested in my long-term future here. If you’re talented enough, why stay? This one leads into #4….4. No Discussion around Career Development. Here’s a secret for most bosses: most employees don’t know what they’llbe doing in 5 years. In our experience, about less than 5% of people could tell you if you asked. However, everyone wants tohave a discussion with you about their future. Most bosses never engage with their employees about where they want to goin their careers — even the top talent. This represents a huge opportunity for you and your organization if you do bring it up.Our best clients have separate annual discussions with their employees — apart from their annual or bi-annual performancereview meetings — to discuss succession planning or career development. If your best people know that you think there’s apath for them going forward, they’ll be more likely to hang around.5. Shifting Whims/Strategic Priorities. I applaud companies trying to build an incubator or ―brickhouse‖ around theirtalent, by giving them new exciting projects to work on. The challenge for most organizations is not setting up a strategicpriority, like establishing an incubator, but sticking with it a year or two from now. Top talent hates to be ―jerked around.‖ Ifyou commit to a project that they will be heading up, you’ve got to give them enough opportunity to deliver what they’vepromised.6. Lack of Accountability and/or telling them how to do their Jobs.Although you can’t ―jerk around‖ top talent, it’s amistake to treat top talent leading a project as ―untouchable.‖ We’re not saying that you need to get into anyone’s businessor telling them what to do. However, top talent demands accountability from others and doesn’t mind being held accountablefor their projects. Therefore, have regular touch points with your best people as they work through their projects. They’llappreciate your insights/observations/suggestions — as long as they don’t spillover into preaching.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 92

7. Top Talent likes other Top Talent. What are the rest of the people around your top talent like? Many organizationskeep some people on the payroll that rationally shouldn’t be there. You’ll get a litany of rationales explaining why when youask. ―It’s too hard to find a replacement for him/her….‖ ―Now’s not the time….‖ However, doing exit interviews with the bestpeople leaving big companies you often hear how they were turned off by some of their former ―team mates.‖ If you want tokeep your best people, make sure they’re surrounded by other great people.8. The Missing Vision Thing. This might sound obvious, but is the future of your organization exciting? What strategy areyou executing? What is the vision you want this talented person to fulfill? Did they have a say/input into this vision? If theanswer is no, there’s work to do — and fast.9. Lack of Open-Mindedness. The best people want to share their ideas and have them listened to. However, a lot ofcompanies have a vision/strategy which they are trying to execute against — and, often find opposing voices to this strategyas an annoyance and a sign that someone’s not a ―team player.‖ If all the best people are leaving and disagreeing with thestrategy, you’re left with a bunch of ―yes‖ people saying the same things to each other. You’ve got to be able to listen toothers’ points of view — always incorporating the best parts of these new suggestions.10. Who’s the Boss? If a few people have recently quit at your company who report to the same boss, it’s likely not acoincidence. We’ll often get asked to come in and ―fix‖ someone who’s a great sales person, engineer, or is a founder, but whois driving everyone around them ―nuts.‖ We can try, but unfortunately, executive coaching usually only works 33% of the timein these cases. You’re better off trying to find another spot for them in the organization — or, at the very least, notoverseeing your high-potential talent that you want to keep.It’s never a one-way street. Top talent has to assume some responsibility as much as the organization. However, with thescarcity of talent — which will only increase in the next 5 years — Smart Organizations are ones who get out in front of theseten things, rather than wait for their people to come to them, asking to implement this list.Ten Issues Marketers Should Have on Their 2012 AgendaANA CEO Outlines Priorities for the Next YearCapture the Power of Personalization; Respect PrivacyMobile devices and social media have brought the ability to target ads to epic levels. But targeting brings challenges, such asensuring privacy. The industry has formed the Digital Advertising Alliance and synergized its mandate with the work of theNational Advertising Review Council. This self-regulatory program promotes display of the Advertising Icon to signify use ofonline behavioral advertising and adherence to our core principles. More than 350 companies have implemented the program,and the icon has been displayed online more than 3 trillion times.Agree to Universal Standards of Brand ValuationA crucial missing element of marketing is the value of the brands that we work so hard to create and strengthen. We needgenerally accepted brand valuation standards that can be applied across the industry. The ANA is collaborating with the 4As,Advertising Research Foundation, Marketing Accountability Standards Board and our brand-valuation partners at Interbrand,Core Brand and Millward Brown have begun an effort to address this.Advance Digital and Cross-Platform MeasurementThe ANA, 4As and Interactive Advertising Bureau have come together to improve cross-platform comparability throughenhanced digital metrics and standards. We have announced five principles of digital measurement, which represent thefoundation of 3MS -- Making Measurement Make Sense -- and a five-part measurement framework. The working group isnow tackling Phase 2, which includes launching a pilot of the "viewable impression"; establishing a measurement governancebody; and advancing GRP reporting requirements and a new classification system.Ensure Integration Across Expanding Media PlatformsInteractive TV is one of the newest and most dynamic opportunities for marketers. BrightLines 300-plus campaigns prove thatmarketers are leveraging interactive TV to raise the effectiveness of traditional-TV investments while advancing digital goals.Nationally scaled ITV has the potential to create another caliber of integrated advertising. The ANA will work with CanoeVentures to enable programming networks to enhance content and advertising, and to energize them with interactivity.Improve Processes With EfficienciesThere is a simple way to replace antiquated processes: common asset coding. Ad-ID produces an identifying code for eachadvertising asset, helps manage workflow, improve supply chain operations, and increases productivity and cost savings.Most important, it provides a foundation for industry-wide measurement across media platforms. Endorsed by all major tradegroups and used by more than 700 brands, Ad-ID makes it easy to streamline the supply chain.Optimize the Agency-Client RelationshipTwo steps have been taken to close the chasm between brands and agencies. On the procurement front, a task force willwork on the gaps in understanding, knowledge and value with clients, client marketing groups and external agencies. Agencysearch has also become a hot-button topic. With the 4As, we developed the Agency Search Principles and Best Practiceswhite paper to improve the process for client marketers and agency leaders.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 93

Develop 21st-Century Marketing SkillsConstant changes in marketing and advances in technology make professional development a necessity. But most marketingorganizations -- and I suspect agencies and media companies—lack comprehensive long-term strategies to enhanceperformance and capability. It takes money, time and commitment to elevate the skills of our most important asset: ourpeople.Focus on SustainabilityAs a major public force, marketing has a broader societal obligation than facilitating commerce. Within and beyond ourcommercial campaigns, we are committed to addressing an array of social issues that touch the health, safety and well-beingof our citizens and country. The ANA has formed a task force to establish guidelines for businesses to make the marketingsupply chain more sustainable.Prove the Value of MarketingOur industry consistently, aggressively addresses government efforts that threaten our freedoms. This year, our partnerscame together to create the Global Insights Study, which shows that marketing accounts for nearly 20 million U.S. jobs and$5.8 trillion in economic output. We will continue to communicate this data to congressional leaders to thwart all efforts totax advertising or deny full deductibility of expenses.Stop ICANNs Proposed Domain ProgramThe organization responsible for coordinating the technical management of this internet system is scheduled to launch a top-level domain expansion in January. A coalition of more than 100 marketers and trade associations opposes this plan. Itsjustification is flawed and its cost excessive. It will hurt consumers and damage brand equity. We urge the entire brandcommunity to demand that ICANN suspend this program.Enhance Your Agency-Client Relationships for The New NormalThe ongoing post-recessionary economic doldrums have affected everyone in the ad business: the holding companies and theindependents, the multi-nationals and the boutiques, the pure-plays and the 360-integrated. On top of impacting their bottomlines, the recession has also caused some seismic changes in Client-Agency relationships, leading to rockier and less stableconnections. Clients’ patience grows thinner in tougher times, and demand for better, and more measurable, performance andROI is the norm.But far from shying away from these realities, agencies today should be embracing the new normal for the long-termbenefits this performance-driven mindset will yield. The following are ten ways to drive stronger Agency-Client relationshipsfocused on mutual success. Some represent small adjustments to current approaches; others likely require more fundamentalchanges. Regardless of their appropriateness for today’s economic climate, these approaches are the new normal — relevanttoday and into the future.1. Stop developing ads; start developing business solutions.This may sound strange for a company that develops ads for a living, but you shouldn’t view yourselves as simply makingadvertising. You’re in the business of creative business solutions, and that approach is timelier than ever. Ads can be overlyclever, precious, and self-interested; business solutions are smart, holistically developed, and focused on driving sales.If you have this as your focus, you don’t ever get into those self-involved, outdated debates about logo sizes, fonts, jokes,etc. You don’t talk about design and layout like they’re languages the client can’t understand. You really listen to clients andstart to understand the real business challenges and goals that are behind your communications programs. When you do this,you may find new ways to help drive growth and meet goals that have nothing to do with traditional advertising.2. Collaboration makes ideas better (including with clients).You have to believe that no idea is born perfect — they all need a collaborative push and continuous optimization. Thismeans that clients help make ideas better as well. And even when you don’t like the content of the comment, your team’sefforts to develop solutions will no doubt improve the ideas, the work, and the outcome.3. The work can’t be called ―great‖ if it doesn’t work.If it doesn’t work, if it doesn’t move the needle, if it doesn’t achieve your objectives, then it cannot be deemed ―greatcreative,‖ pure and simple. Yes, there are tons of factors beyond the control of the communications program — and manycampaigns fail due to in-market dynamics that a) couldn’t be predicted or b) are way beyond its purview. Nevertheless,calling campaigns that don’t achieve their goals ―great‖ is just an apology. View greatness as something that is achieved, notgranted subjectively.Conversely, your agency (and especially anyone with a title that includes the word ―Creative‖ in it) should embrace and fall inlove with efficient-yet-ugly work as well. Email, search copy, and lead-gen forms are all just as important and just as―creative‖ as Super Bowl ads. The sooner everyone gets that, and the quicker everyone gets good at these things, the better.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 94

4. Focus on the bottom of the funnel.Advertising has traditionally viewed its role at the top of the purchase funnel, driving awareness, familiarity, and positiveopinion. However, with their average length of tenure down to less than 23 months, CMOs know they need to demonstrate in-market success before the sand in the hourglass empties. In these times, there’s nothing more important than driving low-funnel consideration and shopping activity. In addition, the bottom of the funnel is where analytics will help you trackperformance and optimize your plan.Every program you develop should think through consumer activity throughout the purchase funnel and seek to convertconsumers along the path towards purchase and re-purchase, un-blocking roadblocks along the way. This will have thecombined effect of a) helping connect your creative solutions to actual purchases and b) demonstrating to your clients yourunwavering interest in their bottom line.5. Be maniacal about measurement and Return-On-Investment.Don’t wait for your client to measure the results of the campaign or evaluate its success or failure — begin the processyourselves. Start every project asking the question, ―What problems are we solving?‖ Set up in advance what your program’sgoals are, determine what and how you’ll track them, and set up regular updates. Put someone in charge of timely (read:daily) updates and tracking. And don’t just celebrate and report when you’ve crushed your objectives — be equally outspokenwhen you’re below-goal, and use these experiences as learning and improvement opportunities.Demand of yourselves a continual striving for improvement of performance. Never give up on finding new, fresh approachesand vehicles to try — even if the client isn’t asking for them. And never execute any aspect of a campaign just because it’scool.6. Extend your focus to the point-of-sale.No matter who your day-to-day contacts are with the client, broaden your connections and relationships to those closest tothe sale and to where the client makes its money. In other words, amplify your contacts with and understanding of the salesforce, the dealers, the store managers, salespeople, etc. These are the folks closest to the consumer and who know the nittygritty about the marketplace. You can often find serious insights that can help drive communications. Plus, broadening youragency’s constituency is never a bad thing.For example, our Porsche Field team’s dealer visits led to the insight that the dealership could be intimidating, even to ourmost likely prospects. This was the kernel that led us to a test-drive program called ―First Mile,‖ that was designed to attractprospects with a low-risk, no-pressure driving opportunity.7. Display urgency, but radiate calm.In these days, clients won’t abide by a laid-back approach to anything. They want to see partners who are restless,constantly dissatisfied, and near neurotically driven to uncover issues or problems before they happen. However, don’tconfuse passion with panic. A client wants to know you’ve got it under control; that you’ll always be calm under pressure. Andthat, despite your restless, driven behavior, you’re rock-solid and dependable.8. Communication includes listening.One thing I know for sure is that no one knows all the answers; solving for complex business issues takes the right team,collaborating across disciplines, titles and companies. That includes agency and client. You can’t be effective without co-authorship, co-creation, and co-ownership with clients. So refrain from selling anything — discuss and listen to feedback.Because another thing I know for sure is that ideas have a way of getting better that way.So you should try to work in a process that features early collaboration — e.g., brainstorms, tissue sessions, and ―Big Idea‖workshops — in order to get client buy-in and commitment on broad ideas first. Also recognize that ―listening‖ means goingbeyond just hearing the words the clients are speaking. You have to attune your hearing to the music behind the lyrics, aswell…9. Always test.This needs to be a mantra during the development of every initiative and project you develop — ―What ideas or variables arewe testing?‖ Testing helps optimize your performance now as well as helping to drive better results for future efforts.10. Nothing beats a face-to-face.Everyone has tightened the spigot on expenses and, naturally, airfare, hotels, and dinners are a place to look. However, makesure you regularly head to out-of-town clients’ offices. It’s worth the investment to look a client in the eye, to feel the buzzat the offices, to walk the halls and make the rounds, and to grab some social time, if possible, as well. It’s the relationshipbuilding and insight gathering that drives smarter work now and better relationships later.As we all know, the new marketing world is a demanding place — and it demands that agencies adapt and change theirapproaches in managing and keeping clients. Nevertheless, adapting to this new business-focused, results-oriented mindsetwill deliver big opportunities for long-term gain. Have you uncovered a new normal you’d like to share?Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 95

Digital Works to Lift Brand Awareness and Sales -- Without Direct ResponseIts a Myth to Say We Cant Measure the Internets Role in In-Store PurchasesBy: Catherine Spurway-HeplerWhat better time than the holiday season to burst some popular digital retail-advertising myths? The beauty of digital is thatyou still have time to make last-minute changes to your campaign, if you need to.Myth 1:Its impossible for marketers and advertisers to measure the effect of consumers online activity on offline sales.Reality: Not true. Advanced in-store tracking can measure everything -- from increases in basket size and sales of items byhousehold segments -- and connect it to the performance of online video, rich media, display and other formats.For example, grocery retailer Supervalu recently partnered with Nielsen and my company, PointRoll, to measure Internet userswho shop in stores. The campaign featured banner ads within digital circulars in two formats -– standard display ads andexpandable ads -– with localized pricing and product information. In-store sales increases were three times higher with themore-engaging expandable ads than with static standard display ads.General Mills has received a lot of press about the marketing of its Betty Crocker products. To reach a new generation ofconsumers, General Mills stepped up its presence in 2011 at bettycrocker.com, on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as well as onmobile and within apps. The 1.4 million fans on the Betty Crocker Facebook page are affecting sales. In General Mills firstfiscal quarter, June through August, sales at Betty Crocker rose 5% from the same period in 2010.Myth 2: Marketers cant create locally targeted advertising for digital media, as they do with local newspaper and televisionads, to drive a target audience to nearby stores.Reality: Advanced application program interfaces (API) make local data scalable across digital media. This technology candigitize retailer print circulars to incorporate localized retailer promotions to shoppers. Consumers can be reached throughonline circulars, display advertising, search, Facebook and digital out-of-home ads. The technology can be customized toinclude store events, clearance items, inventory, catalogs, coupons, ratings and reviews and buying guides.Brands can use the data collected by advertising-technology partners to deliver ads locally at scale and in a more personalway than in television or print. Ford used Pandoras growing customer base to deliver iPhone ads that considered a listenerslocation and music preference while providing vehicle information, localized offers and a way to find the nearest Ford dealervia the phone.In addition, brands no longer need to think about that 15- or 30-second window before the start of online video as a home forrepurposed TV spots. This passive viewing can include interactive features and audience-relevant, localized messages thatare automatically assembled at run time. On Facebook, retailers can present local offers via geo-targeting.Myth 3: Digital advertising is most effective for direct-response retail campaigns.Reality: Digital retail advertising has proved effective in direct-response and brand-awareness campaigns. TJXs "excuse to goto Home Goods" didnt feature enhanced direct-product and pricing information to draw shoppers into stores, but it generatedword-of-mouth interest through social networking. Twitter users could tweet their reasons for visiting a store directly froman expandable banner ad.Bacardis holiday campaign, called "Unwrap the Night," is about personalized interactivity. The campaign mimics walking into ahouse party and uses Facebook data to show a users closest friends at the party, drink menus and a DJ booth. The result? Animmersive and personalized interactive experience that focuses on brand awareness.Recent research by KN Dimestore shows that users exposed to expandable banners ads are 34.4% more likely to recommendadvertised products, versus 25.1% with preroll online video and 10.9% with standard Flash banners. Formats like interactivepreroll can only increase performance, as will more relevant, dynamic Flash and interactive ads for PC display, mobile devicesand tablets.But whatever the format, efficiently delivered, locally tailored digital advertising will produce big results for major brandretailers this holiday season -- and with 45% of all retail sales expected to be web-influenced by 2014, according toeMarketer, in the future.7 Things Highly Productive People DoYou have more important things to focus on than, um, focusing. Get back on track with these tips.By Ilya PozinYou probably don’t want to admit it but you love distractions. In fact, just like monkeys, you get a shot of dopamine everytime something pulls you in another direction. Why do you think you check your email so much?Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 96

Want to be more productive and get your focus back? There are no secret tricks here… do one thing at a time. Stopmultitasking—it’s just another form of distraction.Easier said than done, I know.Recently I sat down with Tony Wong, aproject management blackbelt whose client list includes Toyota, Honda, and Disney, toname a few. He’s an expert in keeping people on task, so I thought he’d be a good person to ask.Here are his tips for staying productive:1. Work backwards from goals to milestones to tasks. Writing ―launch company website‖ at the top of your to-do list is a sure way to make sure you never get it done. Break down the work into smaller and smaller chunks until you have specific tasks that can be accomplished in a few hours or less: Sketch a wireframe, outline an introduction for the homepage video, etc. That’s how you set goals and actually succeed in crossing them off your list.2. Stop multi-tasking. No, seriously—stop. Switching from task to task quickly does not work. In fact, changing tasks more than 10 times in a day makes you dumber than being stoned. When you’re stoned, your IQ drops by five points. When you multitask, it drops by an average of 10 points, 15 for men, five for women (yes, men are three times as bad at multitasking than women).3. Be militant about eliminating distractions. Lock your door, put a sign up, turn off your phone, texts, email, and instant messaging. In fact, if you know you may sneak a peek at your email, set it to offline mode, or even turn off your Internet connection. Go to a quiet area and focus on completing one task.4. Schedule your email. Pick two or three times during the day when you’re going to use your email. Checking your email constantly throughout the day creates a ton of noise and kills your productivity.5. Use the phone. Email isn’t meant for conversations. Don’t reply more than twice to an email. Pick up the phone instead.6. Work on your own agenda. Don’t let something else set your day. Most people go right to their emails and start freaking out. You will end up at inbox-zero, but accomplish nothing. After you wake up, drink water so you rehydrate, eat a good breakfast to replenish your glucose, then set prioritized goals for the rest of your day.7. Work in 60 to 90 minute intervals. Your brain uses up more glucose than any other bodily activity. Typically you will have spent most of it after 60-90 minutes. (That’s why you feel so burned out after super long meetings.) So take a break: Get up, go for a walk, have a snack, do something completely different to recharge. And yes, that means you need an extra hour for breaks, not including lunch, so if you’re required to get eight hours of work done each day, plan to be there for 9.5-10 hours.Study Finds Google Wallet Could Leak Consumer Databy Laurie Sullivan , Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011Consumers typically dont like the idea of being targeted by ads based on behavior because they believe it violates theirprivacy. But a recent study from security firm ViaForensics on Google Wallet, the electronic payment system, suggestsconsumers could have concerns other than just being followed around the Internet and being targeted with ads.While Google Wallet does store credit card numbers securely and uses near field communication (NFC) to make thetransaction, it also leaves personal information easily accessible. ViaForensics researcher conducted the study on a rootedNFC-enabled Nexus S 4G phone, which means the analyst had control of portions of the device most thieves would not have. Iguess that would depend on whether the thief was a techno geek.The research suggests Google Wallet does a good job in safely storing passwords, but it does not encrypt credit card datasafely. It writes unencrypted database files containing payment transaction history, including account numbers, balances, andcredit limits.The application also created an image of a credit card that could provide data to carry out a "social-engineering attack"against the consumer or the provider. Connecting the data on the phone with data found online about the owner of the phone,such as an address, would make the thief well-armed, according to the report.Google does require a personal identifiable number (PIN) to gain access to information and authorize payments, noting theapplication locks after use and when the phone screen goes black. But "the amount of data that Google Wallet storesunencrypted on the device is significant," according to the research.The ViaForensics research made Google aware of the security holes. Google sent an updated build of Google Wallet foradditional testing, which the company explains in a summary. Some holes have been plugged.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 97

Use Jugaad to Innovate Faster, Cheaper, Better11:57 AM Thursday December 8, 2011by Navi Radjou, Jaideep Prabhu, and Simone Ahuja | Comments (43)We recently attended the World Economic Forums India Economic Summit 2011 in Mumbai, where we moderatedseveral panels and workshops on the topic of innovation. The experience gave us some insights into a unique approach toinnovation called jugaad, which entrepreneurs and enterprises are practicing in complex emerging markets like India.Jugaad is a Hindi word that loosely translates as "the gutsy art of overcoming harsh constraints by improvising an effectivesolution using limited resources." Jugaad is an antidote to the complexity of India: a country of mind-blogging diversity;pervasive scarcity of all kinds; and exploding interconnectivity (India is adding 10 million cellphone subscribers every month).This highly resource-constrained and chaotic environment inspires jugaad innovators — i.e., the Indian entrepreneurs andcorporations who practice jugaad to develop market-relevant products and services that are inherently affordable andsustainable. Jugaad innovators are modern-day alchemists who transmute adversity into opportunity, and in so doing createvalue for their organizations and communities. And while we first learned about jugaad while conducting field research inIndia over the past several years, weve found thatjugaad innovators exist around the world, including right here in the U.S.There are three aspects of jugaad that make it particularly effective. Specifically:Jugaad innovators innovate faster: Jugaad innovators dont use linear, pre-planned, time-consuming R&D processes. Rather,they rely heavily on rapid prototyping techniques — i.e., they collaborate intimately with customers and use their constantfeedback to zero in on the most relevant product features. For instance, Jane Chen and Rahul Panicker, Stanford graduatesand co-founders of Embrace, worked closely with village pediatricians and patients in rural India to iteratively optimize thedesign of their breakthrough portable infant warmer — which costs less than 5% of incubators sold in the West (which aretypically priced around $20,000).Jugaad innovators innovate cheaper: Jugaad innovators are very frugal. Rather than reinventing the wheel or splurging onexpensive R&D projects, they develop new solutions by building upon existing infrastructure and assets, as well as byrecombining existing solutions. In doing so, they can pass the cost savings on to their customers. For instance, YES Bank, oneof Indias leading private banks, has deployed a mobile payment solution that enables money transfer via cellphones withoutthe need for a bank account. This solution piggybacks on Indias existing robust mobile telephony infrastructure that extendsto the remotest of villages in India (a country where nearly 870 million people have cellphones, but 600 million or so do nothave a bank account).Jugaad innovators innovate better: Jugaad innovators recognize that consumers in emerging markets are low earners, buthigh yearners. As such, jugaad innovators attempt to meet customers high aspirations by developing solutions that are notonly affordable, but that also deliver superior value. In sum, they strive to deliver more (value) for less (cost). Take, forinstance, SELCO, an Indian renewable energy firm founded by the U.S.-educated Harish Hande. Recognizing the diverse needs ofthe Indian rural population, SELCO set out to personalize the value proposition of its solar lanterns to individual customers —be they a village midwife who doesnt want the toxic fumes of a kerosene lamp polluting her patients environment; arosebud collector looking for a modular lighting solution that can be repaired quickly in a remote location; or a vegetableseller who doesnt want to contend with the electrical outages that are typical across India. As a result, more than 115,000rural customers now use SELCOs solar lanterns — not only because they are affordable, but because they deliver superiorvalue by addressing customers unique needs.What makes jugaad innovators so adept at innovating faster, cheaper, and better? The answer lies in their unique mindset —characterized by two key attributes: adaptability and inclusivity.Jugaad innovators are highly adaptable: Indian entrepreneurs who practice jugaad are a resilient bunch: they continually findways to bounce back from the adversity that permeates every aspect of their lives. Jugaad innovators sense and respond torapid changes in their environment by dynamically reinventing their business models. For instance, Chen and Panicker, co-founders of Embrace, initially set out to design a fixed incubator at a low-cost — but once they discovered that Indian villagewomen preferred to hold their newborn babies close to their bodies, they quickly adapted their business model arounda portable infant warmer.Jugaad innovators are inclusive: In India, more than 800 million citizens lack access to healthcare, 600 million are unbanked,and 400 million live off the electricity grid. While most corporations view these marginal segments as beingunprofitable, jugaad innovators like YES Banks Rana Kapoor and SELCOs Harish Hande have invented inclusive businessmodels for profitably serving the millions who live on the margins of society. For these entrepreneurs, including the marginnot only provides for greater social good, it also makes great business sense.Interestingly, we have noticed that jugaad is practiced not only by Indian entrepreneurs and corporations, but also bysome pioneering multinationals in India. Take GE Healthcare, for instance,which used the flexible jugaad mindset to makehigh-quality cancer diagnosis and treatment accessible to underdeveloped communities across India. Until recently, India hadbeen importing the radioisotopes required for nuclear imaging such as PET/CT scans. This was not only unaffordable for manyrural hospitals, it was ineffective because the radioisotopes decay over time (in hours or even minutes), so they need to beadministered to the patient soon after theyre produced. GE Healthcare partnered with private diagnostic centers and airlineBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 98

companies to locally produce radioisotopes — and make deliveries on a just-in-time basis to small-town hospitals around thecountry. Now, with GE Healthcares frugal "pay-per-use" pricing model and just-in-time delivery mechanism, the supply ofradioisotopes has become affordable and dependable for many rural hospitals.The jugaad mindset — and its associated principles and practices — is increasingly relevant for companies worldwide who areseeking to grow in an increasingly complex and resource-constrainedbusiness environment. Unlike traditional, structuredinnovation methods that rely on time-consuming and expensive R&D processes, the more fluid jugaad approach deliversspeed, agility, and cost efficiencies. Jugaad is a "bottom up" innovation approach that provides organizations in both emergingand developed economies the key capabilities they need to succeed in a hypercompetitive and fast-moving world: frugality,inclusivity, collaboration, and adaptability.Is your organization using the jugaad approach — and its underlying principles — to innovate faster, cheaper, and better? Wedlike to hear about it in the comments section below.Take Control of Your To-Do ListHaving an unruly to-do list can be overwhelming. If you find yourself rushing around, but not actually getting anything done,try the following process:• Write it all down. Put everything on one list. Determine which tasks are easy and which are more difficult.• Do some easy things. Spend 15 minutes doing the easy tasks. Focus on speed: make the quick phone calls, shoot off the brief emails. Cross as many tasks off the list as you can.• Turn to a bigger task. Turn off your phone, close all the open windows on your computer, and focus on one of the more challenging tasks. Do this for 35 minutes without distraction.• Take a break. After 35 minutes, take a 10-minute break. Then return to step twoCrises in rich countries the major challenge for emerging economiesFor Assis Moreira and Alex Ribeiro | From Geneva and WashingtonThe sharp fall in industrial production in India, released yesterday, after similar data relating to Brazil and China, confirms thatthe major emerging economies are slowing, infected by the crisis in rich countries.Indias industrial output fell 5.1% in October compared to the same month of 2010, the first contraction in more than twoyears.Yesterday, Mexico announced that industrial production fell 0.54% in October compared to September, although stillhigh at 3.3% in the last 12 months.Last week, IBGE released figures showing that the Brazilian economy stagnated in the third quarter, compared with theprevious quarter, a sharp slowdown compared to the 7.5% growth seen in 2010. The index of industrial activity in Chinadropped to 49 in November from 50.4 in October, which already indicates contraction in the sector, the worst result since thebeginning of 2009. On Saturday, China also reported a sharp fall in its trade surplus in November, $ 17 billion to $ 14.5 billion."The situation [the emerging] tends to get worse, because the crisis is in Europe, USA and Japan, and the three together makeup 70% of the world," said the chief economist at the United Nations Agency for Trade and Development (UNCTAD ), HeinerFlassbeck."Emerging economies are far from immune to the crisis in the euro zone, especially in manufacturing," said Chris Williamson,chief economist at Markit UK-based consultancy that specializes in monitoring global industrial activity. Exports of goods areunder pressure because of low demand, especially the most indebted countries of Europe, which now apply new austeritymeasures.This slowdown is beginning to impact on projections for developing countries. The companys credit risk assessment FitchRatings lowered by 0.4 percentage point to 6.3%, its projection for growth of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) in 2012.For 2011, the growth projection is 6.7%, down from 8.4% in the last year.Collectively, the emerging economic growth slowed to about 6% in November, well below the first two digits of the year.Before the recession, the weak growth of emerging economies has not occurred since mid-2003. The slowdown has beenevident in Brazil, China and India, but also in economies like South Korea and Taiwan.The loss of dynamism in emerging economies is due on the one hand, the contagion of the crisis of Europe, which madeinvestors more risk averse. It is also a result, on the other hand, monetary and macroprudential policies more restrictiveimplemented by some countries, like Brazil, India and China, to contain inflationary pressures and address the emergence ofbubbles in their markets."It is every day less number of emerging economies that show some resistance," said chief strategist for emerging marketsbank Societe Generale, Benoit Anne.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 99

A rare positive exception is Turkey, which reported yesterday an increase of 8.4% in third quarter (see text below).Fears about the impact of lower growth in the developed world about the emerging intensified in August, and has onlyincreased since then. With the expansion of the richest 1% in the next moment, and little room for improvement for next year,the growth of emerging "inevitably will be contained for some time," Williamson said.The expectation in the markets is that most central banks in emerging markets will lower interest rates to promote growth,as Brazil has been doing. It is what is expected in India, where the maintenance of monetary tightening due to rising inflation,clearly affected the industrial activity in Asias third largest economy."Industrial production in China has also been falling, especially in heavy industry, which needs a lot of energy," says WangQinwei at Capital Economics in London. Chinese production grew 12.4%, 13.2% below the previous and the lowest level sincemid-2009. This was done for two reasons: the fall in exports and construction."The fall in November inflation, industrial production and investments made in the Chinese government to speak of prudentmonetary policy, but in practice has been relaxed," says the analyst.To Flassbeck, UNCTAD, the most affected will be emerging as the three major economies - Europe, USA and Japan - are almostrecession. The results were less bad in the U.S. in the third quarter as consumers started to use the savings. In Japan, theconsensus is that the stimuli for recovery of the tsunami disaster are already running out. And in Europe, the summit lastweek hit more spending cuts, which "makes the situation worse" in emerging countriesThe Institute of International Finance (IIF) continues to project strong growth in domestic demand in emerging markets in2012-13. Much of the force is "a long-term process of economic convergence." Emerging economies are in the process ofgrowing middle class.Forresters "Three Social Thunderstorms" At LeWebI didnt attend LeWeb this year, but judging by the chatter, one of the more discussed talks was given by Forresters CEO,George Colony who outlined three "thunderstorms" approaching the tech & business world. I just finished watching his talk,and thought it would be interesting to outline portions of his talk with my take layered on it:Thunderstorm 1: The Death of The WebYoull have to watch the video (above) to grasp the full intricacies of what George is putting forth, but essentially hes makinga call that app economies which have the potential to tap both processing power and the cloud, will change the Web andmove it away from a network/browser model to something which leverages devices, apps and the cloud in a more powerfulway.My Take: Scale & Sustainability vs. ExperienceI get what George is saying and claiming the death of anything gets headlines, but really what this will likely come down to isuser experience vs. sustainability and scale. Apps already show promise of providing better experiences thanbrowser/network, but a question remains how scalable it is for enterprises vs. consumers. While HTML 5 is already working ona more stable browser experience, apps are often dependent on OS systems. Whats more probable is that the Web as weknow it doesnt die—but loses dominance in the consumer area specifically. For businesses specifically, the demand will beformed around what model scales and can be sustained globally over time.Thunderstorm 2: Social SaturationSocial is running out of hours and people meaning there is finite demand to meet the current glut of social start-ups andnetworks competing for our attention, usage and loyalty. As a result, we are moving into a "post social" world in which we seethe demise of platforms like Foursquare which dont offer enough value to survive. The post social web will see new orevolved players who offer efficiency and value.My Take: Value Is In The Eye of The BeholderI think George is right on the bubble assessment but claiming that social platforms will move away from the Foursquares ofthe world to platforms which offer concrete effiiencies and value is debatable. Both Twitter and Facebook emerged andevolved as different tools from which they started. Essentially the free market will demand what happens here, but it islikely that the ones who succeed will look more like a Kickstarter over yet another photo/location sharing network.Thunderstorm 3: The EnterpriseGeorge cited that 72 percent of enterprises are either interested in or already implementing social technologies as part ofhow their business operates. He cited a number of players in the enterprise space such as Salesforce, IBM and Microsoft andhinted that these could evolve and new players could emerge as well. He also noted that one of the core reasons enterprisesare interested in social has a lot to do with their customers (the primary focus of enterprise social as he puts it).My Take: Social BusinessGeorge isnt just talking about the internal social enterprise, hes talking about extracting business value from social, likemore efficient employees, better business decisions made from data and data analysis, and improved products and servicesBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 100

informed by customers to give a few examples. Most organizations are in their infancy of figuring out how to get real valuefrom a newly connected environment and I agree that its going to take a changing of the guard over time but there aremassive opportunities. Hes essentially describing social business, which over the next 10 years will need to be executed upon.David Armano: Six Social Media Trends for 2012Each year at this time, I look forward and predict trends in social media for the coming year. But first, I look back atmypredictions from last year. Howd I do? Not bad.Social media continues to move forward toward business integration, a trend that I identified last year. In a joint studyfromBooz Allen and social platform developer Buddy Media, 57 percent of businesses surveyed plan to increase social mediaspending, while 38 percent of CEOs label social as a high priority.I was also partially accurate in predicting that Google would "strike back" in 2011. They did, with Google Plus, a formidableinitiative that acts as Googles "social layer" to the Web. Part social network and part social search, Google Plus has industryobservers scratching their heads, wondering if Facebook will be given a run for their money or if the service evolves intosomething complimentary in a highly social Web.I had one big swing-and-miss on Facebooks intrusion in the location-based services war. While Facebook still supportslocation tracking in a number of ways, it has not put Foursquare out of business. Foursquare still enjoys a niche audience ofhighly active participants who enjoy telling the world where they are and post pictures to prove it. It is however worth notingthat Facebook recently acquired location based network Gowalla, so continue to watch this space.So what can we expect in 2012 in a world that seems to grow ever connected by the hour? Here are six predictions to ponder,in no particular order:Convergence Emergence. For a glimpse into how social will further integrate with "real life," we can look at what CocaCola experimented with all the way back in 2010. Coke created an amusement park where participants could "swipe" theirRFID-equipped wristbands at kiosks, which posted to their Facebook account what they were doing and where. Also, as part ofa marketing campaign, Dominos Pizza posted feedback — unfiltered feedback — on a large billboard in Times Square, bringingtogether real opinions from real people pulled from a digital source and displayed in the real world. These types of "trans-media" experiences are likely to define "social" in the year to come.The Cult of Influence. In much the same way that Google has defined a system that rewards those who produce findablecontent, there is a race on to develop a system that will reward those who wield the most social influence. One particularplayer has emerged, Klout, determined to establish their platform as the authority of digital influence. Klouts attempt toconvert digital influence into business value underscores a much bigger movement which well continue to see play out in thenext year. To some degree everyone now has some digital influence (not just celebrities, academics, policy makers or thosewho sway public opinion). But for the next year, the cult of influence becomes less about consumer plays like Klout and moreabout the tools and techniques professionals use to "score" digital influence and actually harness, scale and measure theresults of it.Gamification Nation. No were not taking about video games. Rather, game-like qualities are emerging within a number ofsocial apps in your browser or mobile device. From levels, to leaderboards, to badges or points, rewards for participationabound. Its likely that the trend will have to evolve given how competition for our time and attention this gaming creates.Primarily, gamification has been used in consumer settings, but look for it in other areas from HR, to government, healthcareand even business management. Perhaps negotiating your next raise will be tied to your position on the companys digitalleaderboard.Social Sharing. Ideas, opinions, media, status updates are all part of what makes social media a powerful and often disruptiveforce. The media industry was one of the first to understand this, adding sharing options to content, which led to more pageviews and better status in search results. What comes next in social sharing is more closely aligned with e-commerce or webtransactions. For example, Sears allows a user to share a product or review with their networks directly from the site. Sharingthat vacation you just booked, or recommending a product, or service from any site to a social network is where sharing goesnext. We probably dont know what we are willing to share until we see the option to do it.Social Television. For many of us, watching television is already a social act, whether its talking to the person next to you, ortexting, tweeting, and calling friends about what youre watching. But television is about to become a social experience in abigger and broader sense. The X Factor nowallows voting via Twitter and highlights other social promotions, which encouragesviewers to tap social networks while they watch. Another way media consumption is becoming social comes from a networkcalled Get Glue which acts as something of a Foursquare for media. Participants can "check-in" to their favorite shows (orother forms of media) and collect stickers to tell the world what programs they love. Watch for more of this this year asratings rise for socially integrated shows.The Micro Economy. Lastly as we roll into 2012, watch for a more social approach to solving business problems through a sortof micro-economy. Kickstarter gives anyone with a project, the opportunity to get that initiative funded by those who chooseto (and patrons receive something in return). A crowdsourcing platform for would be inventors called Quirky lets the bestproduct ideas rise to the top and then helps them get produced and sold while the "inventor" takes a cut. Air BnB turns homesBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 101

into hotels and travelers into guests, providing both parties with an opportunity to make and save money. These examplesmay point to a new future reality where economic value is directly negotiated and exchanged between individuals overinstitutions.These are a few emerging trends which come to mind. As with anything, looking to the past often gives us clues for what maycome in the future. Please weigh in with your thoughts: where do you see "social" going in 2012?5 Ways to Spot a Bad Boss In An InterviewA boss can literally, make or break your career. Here are five ways to spot the bad ones before they become yours.A great boss can make you feel engaged and empowered at work, will keep you out of unnecessary office politics, and canidentify and grow your strengths. But a bad boss can make the most impressive job on paper (and salary) quickly unbearable.Not only will a bad boss make you dislike at least 80% of your week, your relationships might suffer, too. A recent studyconducted at Baylor University found that stress and tension caused by an abusive boss ―affects the marital relationship andsubsequently, the employee’s entire family.‖ Supervisor abuse isn’t always as blatant as a screaming temper tantrum; it caninclude taking personal anger out on you for no reason, dismissing your ideas in a meeting, or simply, being rude and criticalof your work, while offering no constructive ways to improve it. Whatever the exhibition of bad boss behavior, your work andpersonal life will suffer. Merideth Ferguson, PH.D., co-author of the study and assistant professor of management andentrepreneurship at Baylor explains that ―it may be that as supervisor abuse heightens tension in the relationship, theemployee is less motivated or able to engage in positive interactions with the partner and other family members.‖There are many ways to try and combat the effects of a bad boss, including confronting him or her directly to work towards aproductive solution, suggesting that you report to another supervisor, or soliciting the help of human resources. But none ofthose tactics gurantee improvement, and quite often, they’ll lead to more stress. The best solution is to spot a bad boss—before they become yours! Here are five ways to tell whether your interviewer is a future bad boss.1. Pronoun usage. Performance consultant John Brubaker says that the top verbal tell a boss can gives is in pronoun choiceand the context it is used. If your interviewer uses the term ―you‖ in communicating negative information ( such as, ―you willdeal with a lot of ambiguity‖), don’t expect the boss to be a mentor. If the boss chooses the word ―I‖ to describe thedepartment’s success—that’s a red flag. If the interviewer says ―we‖ in regards to a particular challenge the team or companyfaced, it may indicate that he or she deflects responsibility and places blame.2. Concern with your hobbies. There is a fine line between genuine relationship building, and fishing for information, so useyour discretion on this one. If you have an overall good impression of the potential boss it may be that he or she is trulyinterested in the fact that you are heavily involved in charity work, and is simply getting to know you. On the other hand, theinterviewer may be trying to determine whether you have too many commitments outside of work. The interviewer can’tlegally ask if you are married, or have kids, so digging into your personal life can be a clever way to understand just howavailable you are.3. They’re distracted. The era of email, Blackberries and smartphones have made it ―okay‖ for people to develop disrespectfulcommunication habits in the name of work. Particularly in a frenzied workplace, reading email while a person is speaking,multi-tasking on conference calls and checking the message behind that blinking Blackberry mid-conversation has becomethe norm of business communications. But, regardless of his or her role in the company, the interviewer should be striving tomake a good impression—which includes shutting down tech tools to give you undivided attention. If your interviewer isglancing at emails while you’re speaking, taking phone calls, or late to the interview, don’t expect a boss who will make timefor you.4. They can’t give you a straight answer. Caren Goldberg, Ph.D. is an HR professor at the Kogod School of Business at AmericanUniversity. She says a key ―tell‖ is vague answers to your questions. Listen for pauses, awkwardness, or overly-genericresponses when you inquire what happened to the person who held the position you are interviewing for, and/or what hascreated the need to hire. (For example, if you are told the person was a ―bad fit,‖ it may indicate that the workplace doesn’tspend much time on employee-development, and blames them when things don’t work out).You should also question turnover rates, how long people stay in given roles, and what their career path has been. All ofthese answers can indicate not only if the boss is one people want to work for, but whether pay is competitive, andemployees are given a career growth plan.5. They’ve got a record. Ask the potential boss how long he or she has been at the company, in the role, and where he or sheworked before coming to it to get a feel for his or management style, and whether it’s what you respond to. For example,bosses making a switch from a large corporation to a small company may lead with formality. On the other hand,entrepreneurs tend to be passionately involved in business, which can be a help or a hindrance, depending on your workstyle.Goldberg also recommends searching the site eBossWatch, where you read reviews that former employees have given to aboss. If you’re serious about the position, she also suggests reaching to the former employee whose spot you areinterviewing for, and asking for their take on the workplace. (LinkedIn makes this task easy to do). The former employee’srecount may not necessarily reflect your potential experience, but it can help you to determine whether his or her descriptionof the job and company ―jives‖ with what the potential boss said.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 102

Web no celular é o maior desejo das classes C, D e EBrasileiro quer web mobileFOTO: FolhaO que as classes C, D e E mais gostariam de ter no celular? A considerar uma pesquisa encomendada pelaFolha de S.Paulo àPlano CDE, a resposta está na internet.A consultoria entrevistou 891 pessoas ao redor do país, com renda familiar até R$ 3.181 por mês. Setenta e oito porcento delasdisseram que, se recebessem um aumento de R$ 500, gostariam de poder se conectar via celular.Ter um tocador de MP3 no aparelhos é o segundo item mais desejado, alcançando 73%. Depois vem câmera fotográfica (71%),Bluetooth (70%), filmadora (69%), acesso a e-mails (64%), SMS (63%), TV (60%) e rádio (53%).A maior parte das pessoas consultadas tem a câmera fotográfica dos aparelhos como função principal (70%), seguida peloSMS (68%), o tocador de MP3 (65%), o Bluetooth (61%) e a câmera filmadora (61%).Então aparecem rádio (52%), acesso a e-mails (40%), internet (35%) e jogos (24%).Why I Hire People Who FailA few weeks ago, I wrote about avoiding social media failures. I briefly mentioned our companys "Failure Wall" and wassurprised by the number of comments and questions I received about it. Whats the purpose? How does it work? And whatother kinds of things do you do in that crazy office of yours?The failure wall was part of our efforts to create a company culture where employees can take risks without fear of reprisal.As NPRs Here and Now reported earlier this year, we started by collecting inspirational quotes about failure. Among myfavorites:  "Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." – Winston Churchill  "I have not failed, Ive just found ten thousand ways that wont work." – Thomas Edison  "Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life." – Sophia LorenOne random Thursday night, I returned to our corporate headquarters afterhours with a bottle of wine and a box of acrylicpaints. My assistant and I used stencils to paint about three dozen such quotes onto a large white wall in our break room. Asfirst time stencilers, this project itself seemed destined to end up a byline on the (slightly gloppy) failure wall until wegratefully accepted some much-needed painting assistance from my wife.After we finished painting around 1:00AM, we fastened a dozen Sharpies to the wall alongside these simple instructions: (1)describe a time when you failed, (2) state what you learned, and (3) sign your name. To set the tone, I listed three of my ownmost memorable (and humbling) failures.In the beginning, the wall was met with surprise, curiosity and a bit of trepidation. We didnt ask anyone to contribute and wedidnt tell people why it was there, but the wall quickly filled up. Some of the entries are life lessons: "After 7 years ofpracticing, I quit playing violin in high school to fit in. Lesson learned — who cares what other people think." Some arefinancial mishaps: "I thought buying Yahoo at $485 a share was a good idea." Many are self-deprecating: "My successfulfailure is working in online marketing when I came to LA to work in showbiz." Some are more than a little amusing: "I thought itwas spelled fale."Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 103

Ive said this before but it bears repeating: success by failure is not an oxymoron. When you make a mistake, youre forced tolook back and find out exactly where you went wrong, and formulate a new plan for your next attempt. By contrast, whenyou succeed, you dont always know exactly what you did right that made you successful (often, its luck).We dont just encourage risk taking at our offices: we demand failure. If youre not failing every now and then, youre probablynot advancing. Mistakes are the predecessors to both innovation and success, so it is important to celebrate mistakes as acentral component of any culture. This kind of culture can only be created by example — it wont work if its forced orcontrived. A lively culture is nebulous, indefinable, ever-changing. Try to package it in a formal mission statement and youjust may suffocate it.The best way to shape culture is of course to focus on hiring the people who will ultimately make up that culture. Yet this isoften overlooked, replaced with corporate values, slogans, and mission statements. It took billions of years to create anddefine all of the worlds great cultures — through failure after failure — so it is with arrogance alone that we executives thinkwe can create and define one for our company. To be blunt, cultures are not created or defined by executives; they evolvearound the people who make up a company.I personally interview every candidate at our corporate headquarters. By the time a prospective employees resume reachesmy desk, the department heads are convinced that the candidate can do the job. But for each person we end up hiring, I stillend up interviewing countless other highly qualified candidates who were vying for the job. Im mainly looking for cultural fit,and there is no more important job for a CEO.If we hadnt hired people who cherish failures, my entries on the failure wall would be very lonely. Often when interviewing, Ipoke around and see if I can get the candidate to acknowledge a failure. Its a red flag to me if a candidate cant admit amistake with a bit of self-deprecating humor. The tendency to dodge direct questions with a Miss America-style answer mayindeed be a great asset to someone elses company, but its not a great fit for success at mine.Augmented Reality Apps Are The New QR CodesLast holiday season, QR codes, those pixilated packets of information, were everywhere. This season, they’re being out-shinedby augmented reality (AR). AR is finally going mainstream, but is it ready for the public? And are we ready for it?? Augmentedreality consumer applications have been around for a while— about as long as QR codes — and now that a majority ofAmericans have smartphones to access the technology, it has the potential to take off. Notice we say ―potential.‖Millennials are the tech-savviest generation yet, and even they are struggling with these new-fangled consumerenticements. There’s a learning curve. In the case of both QR codes and AR, the user needs to first download an app to theirphone to read the images. Once they have figured that out, they need to activate the app, focus on the particular image, and,in the case of AR, the app will generate an overlay presenting information or entertainment over the phone’s camera image.For example, this season Starbucks has winter images on its cups, and, using its AR app, coffee drinkers can bring thecharacters on the cup to life. Users can play with a friendly fox and watch ice skaters glide around their screens. It all soundsBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 104

pretty cool, right? But AR apps and QR codes aren’t winning over consumers, though they are getting plenty of mediaattention.In both cases, the technology can be a barrier. Even when Millennials realize they need to have an app to access AR features,they don’t always want to take the time to find the app and download it to their phone unless they know the payoff will beworth it. If they do download it and it doesn’t work as expected, their frustration mounts and they may avoid AR in the future.I’ve had issues with Starbucks’ app — it tells me to hold the phone steadier (after drinking strong coffee!) or to place the cupin brighter lighting — all just to see an animated critter romp around my screen. I finally gave up after spending far too muchtime fiddling with it. As a novelty, AR works to get customers interested (I don’t usually go to Starbucks, but wanted to testout the app), but there’s a danger that the user experience will fall flat and fail to improve one’s impression of the brand inthe end.It will take more than novelty for Millennials to bother to use AR on a regular basis.Some companies are making strides in the right direction. Macy’s, which has also made extensive use of QR codes, launched anAR program this year tied to the popular holiday newspaper editorial, ―Yes, Virginia.‖ When shoppers are in the store, they canuse the app to let kids interact with animated characters from the story. But Macy’s took it a step further, building in amechanism to let the users snap photos of the kids with Virginia, not only to have a memento of the experience but also tothen send the pictures as a holiday e-card to family and friends.Chobani yogurt launched an AR app at the same time it introduced its new kid-oriented line, Chobani Champions. Using theChamplify app, the product lid activates special AR games. But it’s not a one-off experience; kids can play the AR games toearn points and trophies, and the app has other fun activities that take advantage of smartphone technology that kids can dowithout needing a yogurt lid or AR, which means they can play anytime. It’s that sort of thoughtfully planned app that userswill keep on their phones and come back to, rather than deleting it once the novelty has worn off.When Millennials adopt new technology, they need to see how it fits in to their lives to make things more convenient or morefun. Social media made it easier to connect with friends, streaming video lets them enjoy entertainment on their ownschedules, but in most instances, AR has yet to prove its usefulness. Apps like LocalScope and Layar that are designed to helpusers find nearby points of interest are more difficult to use than Yelp. Most AR apps designed for entertainment are, so far,very limited, and nowhere near as fun as the regular games and videos available for smartphones.AR will draw Millennials’ attention based on the curiosity factor alone and can help build brand awareness, but brands needto put AR to work more wisely if they want deeper, more enduring engagement with customers.Top Trends To Keep In Mind In 12: Mediapost Engage MomsLolita CarricoA new year is upon us – and with it comes the pundits with their predictions about trends and what to expect in the upcomingyear. Since I’ve been in the trenches planning Q1 initiatives for clients, I’m sharing with my thoughts about moms, their topconcerns, and the trends we marketers should anticipate when looking forward to 2012.But before we touch on the trends for 2012, let’s recap the highlight of 2011 which will continue to play a big role in the NewYear. The most significant trend in ’11 has to be the incredible jump in smartphone usage among moms. In 2009, only 22% ofmoms owned a smartphone. That figure jumped to 62% this year: a whopping two-thirds of moms now own a smartphone andthe device is quickly becoming her primary ―screen‖ since she’s always on the go.In 2012, marketers will need to focus on how to effectively reach mom on her smartphone in meaningful and relevant ways.Most importantly, the key will be to rise above what is quickly becoming as cluttered as the web is now. A word of caution:push notifications have the potential to be the new ―pop-up‖ ad. Make sure this very effective touchpoint is managed wisely.Ok, so on to the subject at hand: 1. Bargain Hunting: As I’ve mentioned before, ―never pay retail‖ has become the mantra for moms. They’ve demonstrated their prowess in finding deals using favorite social media and mobile tools. Mom won’t pay full-price without first exhausting her resources – of which there are many. If Amazon’s brilliant campaign to push users out of stores and to the web with discounts as a lure is any indication, the trend to use bargains that shift and maintain loyalty will be important in 2012. 2. Going Green: The green movement isn’t new however in years past, moms have considered ―going green‖ cost prohibitive (remember the term ―Whole Paycheck‖?), so the trend appealed to a wealthier demographic. Today, Moms realize that ―going green‖ doesn’t mean breaking the bank. Continued education and messaging that green living goes hand-in-hand with a budget-conscious lifestyle will be big in 2012. On the flip side, when it comes to food, moms are willing to spend more -- especially since they’re working hard to save money elsewhere. More than three-quarters (78%) of U.S. families now purchase some organic foods and 48% of parents believe that organic products ―are healthier for me and my children‖ – so they’re paying more for thoseBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 105

products. We’ll continue to see shifts away from overly processed items and artificial ingredients and increased spending on healthier foods. 3. Education and Technology: As the debate over the quality of our school systems continues, more and more moms are turning to external supplements to enhance their children’s education. Number one of the list of teaching aids? Technology. Tablets and the infinite number of educational apps available on them, as well as game-changing resources like KhanAcademy.org (touted by Bill Gates as being on the leading edge of education), are taking the place of tutors and creating significant waves in the way we teach. In 2012, smart marketers will continue to connect the dots between technology and education to address the movement towards the rethinking of the way we educate our children.2012 has the potential to be one of the biggest years yet as far as significant shifts in the way moms interact with brandsand how they spend their hard-earned, but plentiful dollars. Brands can be integral in those shifts as long as they engagewith moms respectfully, smartly and in meaningful ways.10 Strategies For Building A Successful Social BusinessMark Fidelman is general manager and vice president of sales for the Americas forharmon.ie, which provides emailcollaboration software.It becomes clearer every day that corporations are facing some major decisions. They can either choose to be social or stickwith the status quo.They can either throw out the stuffy, traditional business playbook and adapt to the needs of today’s socially connectedconsumers, or risk extinction.Faced with adapt-or-die decisions, shareholders are counting on executives to integrate social technologies with corporateculture in order to meet the expectations of their customers. An integration plan that includes technology, people andstrategy. Unfortunately, the social enterprise is but a fantasy for most CEO’s, which is why there will be considerableexecutive turnover in the next few years.Whatever the reason, CEOs appear not to notice how their current and future customers are trampling over the old playbook,and rewriting it with their own rules – rules that shift power to the consumer. The few that are paying attention, thevisionaries, recognize that in order to adapt to their customers’ needs, they must restructure their organization to anticipateand deliver value on their customers’ terms.They are, in effect, preparing for the future social workplace. But why are the visionaries preparing for tomorrow’s workplacewhile the rest are left confused about whether the social enterprise is the right model? Well, for one, the playbook hasn’tbeen written. Second, most of the old guard do not have the will to restructure their companies (heck yes, change is difficult).Third, the ROI models are just starting to show results – which the late adopters need to fuel their investment in change.Still, the visionaries are playing offense, snapping up social playmakers and training others. They recognize where theproverbial puck is headed, and they’ve made plans. Here are 10 strategic plays based on interviews we’ve conducted withover 20 social business visionaries: #1: Replace Traditional Marketing with Content MarketingAs we well know, traditional marketing via TV, radio and print is slowly disappearing. It’s failing because consumers are tiredof the one-way broadcast. Instead, people want interaction and the chance to develop a relationship with the brand. EnterContent Marketing. Content created on SlideShare, YouTube, Flickr and corporate blogs is all easily shareable and interactive.Your TV is not. Online content is portable, traceable, findable and can be more effective in the long tail of context. Print mediais not. Smart visionaries are publishing high value content directly to its database of customers and in turn their socialnetworks. #2: Recruit a Chief Social EvangelistEarlier in the year I wrote about why every company needs a Robert Scoble. That Scoble personifies the type of individualevery company should have onstaff. His formula is simple. Produce or share quality content with his legions of followers inorder to create what psychologists call the herd effect.Admittedly, the visionaries are having trouble finding the right mix of social evangelist and industry expert. Some are trainingtheir current staff to be more social, while others are bringing in outsiders and training them on the industry.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 106

Interestingly, once the evangelist is on board, the visionaries realized they needed to strip their public relations departmentof their censorship duties. Social evangelists can’t be effective when every time they speak into the virtual microphonethey’re met with PR interference and a diluted message. ―It’s all about speed and getting content out there and not, we got toget PR or legal to review this and wait 24 hours to move forward,‖ emphasizes, Dell’s Chief Blogger, Lionel Menchaca. #3: Become Your Own Media PublisherIf the old traditional marketing playbook consists of X’s, O’s, and dotted lines, the new playbook resembles a rich tapestry ofcompany-generated content, designed to engage their customers.The visionaries are creating and self-publishing the tapestry of content, because now it’s viewed as a strategic asset. Theynow put as much thought and design into content as they do their products and services. And the visionaries are assigningthe Chief Social Evangelist to anchor the program, backed by a team of social reporters and a camera person.That is why the visionaries are scaling back their PR efforts. Ostensibly it’s to save money, but some whisper it’s because theycan’t connect the dots to revenue like they can with socialized content. Instead, visionaries are enlisting industry thoughtleaders to tell their brand’s story. #4: Use Social Analytics to Drive Key Strategic DecisionsThe visionaries are not measuring success by the number of press articles and earned media; they are measuring the impactand reach of each link, image, video and web page of every piece of content. And that’s just the beginning.Most of the visionaries are also setting up social listening and response war rooms to monitor conversations about theirbrand. They measure their product and brand sentiment, answer customer support questions, and listen to who is saying whatabout how their products and services are being used to detect patterns.Paul Cole, Vice President of Customer Operations Management at Cap Gemini used this approach to detect a new purchasingpattern for a global furniture retailer. ―It was a completely unknown, unrecognized pattern that allowed our client to thenshape communications to target and appeal to people who are looking to buy birthday presents, boosting revenue as aresult.‖Unlike the traditional means of measuring advertising or PR, social analytics will also make tomorrow easier to predict.Symantec’s Senior Manager of Digital Strategy, Tristan Bishop explains, ―At the end of every day, we use a summarydashboard to report out social metrics and share these reports based on sentiment trends by product, influencers andengagement.‖ They use that data to make predictions about their customers, competitors and product offerings. #5: Chief Marketing and Sales Officers will be Social or Become ObsoleteEarlier in the year I surveyed the Fortune 100 and found only 15 of the CMOs/CCOs had twitter accounts. Unfortunate, since theprimary owners of Social lay with the marketing team. Social absence also appears to be the case for VPs of Sales and ChiefRevenue/Sales Officers.The reason CMO’s need to be social is because traditional marketing has become less effective as people search for dialogue,and it will eventually be replaced with content marketing, brand communities, social campaigns and thought leadership.They’ll need to adapt quickly.For sales leaders, all business interest generated by marketing will need direct follow up and engagement. Sales will be morecollaborative and do less traditional selling with prospects in order to solve their problems and drive revenue. A sales leaderthat doesn’t understand the new social model will be unemployable. #6. Engage External Communities Formed Around Your Brand’s Value PropositionThe most significant opportunities for converting prospective customers into sales opportunities lie in solving the businessproblems of an industry. Now, and more so in the future, industry- specific communities are forming in part to help othermembers solve these same problems.Failing to participate and help to healthy communities will be detrimental to a company’s long-term business success. In thefuture, the health of a community will be prerequisite for a successful and growing business. Ignoring these communities andlooking the other way will be reckless. A healthy business and a sick community are not compatible. #7. Invest in Social Media Training and Certification―We got 10,000 people trained and certified in Social Media that can engage Dell customers,‖ explains Susan Beebe, Dell’s ChiefListener, ―but that’s not enough. We want to arm all of our employees with the information they need to have relevantconversations with customers.‖The days where PR and Legal control external conversations with customers is coming to an end. The visionaries recognizethat in order to stay engaged and be responsive with customers, the old rules need to be thrown out.Social Media policies supplemented with training and certification programs will replace today’s antiquated, corporatecommunication rules where PR dictates who and when employees can engage with people outside the organization.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 107

 #8. Deploy Social Platforms to Support Your Social Business StrategyAccording to the visionaries, the primary social business platforms companies are most using to support their social strategyare Microsoft’s SharePoint, Jive Software, Yammer, IBM’s Connections, Salesforce.com with Chatter and Drupal.It’s important to note that while these platforms can help enable organizations to be social, they do will not replace the needfor a coherent social strategy and seamless integration ofthese tools into current processes. As these solutions evolve, thevisionaries expect these platforms to better connect people with information in new andcontextual ways.Jeff Schick, VP of Social Software at IBM, expanded on this point: ―I see information being embedded or being leveragedwithin the context of the ways people work to socially augment messaging and real-time communication. Organizations thataggregate and create experiences for their employees in context, will be far effective in multiple dimensions of theirbusiness.‖ #9. Leverage Employees, Suppliers and Partners as Sources of InnovationIt is the responsibility of business to convert information into new ideas, that is, into new solutions. And it is the irresponsibleexecutive who doesn’t provide a frictionless platform for aggregating, discussing then bringing these ideas to market.Excuses don’t cut it anymore, as there are social business solutions like those from Spigit and BrightIdea that facilitate theideation process. From idea generation to idea refinement and implementation, the visionaries repeatedly stress that the keyto remaining competitive in a social business world is to nurture the innovation process.For example, the major innovations of the last 20 years were, to a large extent, the result of converting the new socialenvironment — the Internet — into myriad business opportunities. This resulted from a new platform that enabled the sharingof ideas (forums, blogs, wikis), greater transparency of the success (or lack thereof) of these ideas (after all, most everythingon the web is visible to everyone else on the Web), which gave rise to even better business ideas (after studying themistakes of the previous generation).A similar system can be cultivated and made more efficient within a business. To do that, companies need to focus on theright formula for success: Software infrastructure, idea transparency, the right incentives, and internal funding to bring ideasto market. #10. Re-focus Human Resources on Human ExperienceEmployee problems are dysfunctions of the corporation, and if left without correction, become degenerative diseases. But forthe social organization, and, above all, for human resources, they represent a major source of opportunity.Here’s how. In the future workplace, human resources will focus more on developing internal communities that are supportedby a social business platform. HR’s role will be to ensure the platform’s user experience, aesthetics, and collaborativeelements support the HR mission of employee recruiting, satisfaction and retainment. So if analytics and sentiment aboutemployee discontent is trending, HR can take meaningful steps to stop or learn from it.As Rachel Happe, Co-Founder & Principal, The Community Roundtable put it to me: ―Internal community management willbecome the human experience within an organization that parallels the digital user experience. With more interactionshappening online, this is a critical competency for companies to establish.‖So Let’s Review…The top 10 strategies for building a social business represent the most frequently cited transformations occurring within theworld’s most visionary organizations. Of course, mobile will be important; so will cloud computing. Interestingly, policiesaround the ownership of social information created on internal social business platforms is something the visionaries are juststarting to think about.Yet, much of the business community, including most mid-sized organizations, is not acting on these trends. Most businessesare proceeding on the belief that, at least as far as the future workplace goes, that it doesn’t matter — that they can counton business as usual simply because they are still profitable. But that’s not a safe assumption.Sometimes, the naysayers claim, new trends end up as fads, like Total Quality Management or Management by Consensus. Butsometimes new business trends are disruptive. So disruptive that entire industries are wiped out or forced into bankruptcy.Just think about how fast the retail software, music, video and book chains have vanished.Can a similar phenomenon happen to businesses that are not listening, engaging and nurturing their employees andcustomers? Perhaps, but it’s less likely to occur as quickly. In reality, the visionaries are still experimenting with socialbusiness principles. But their playbooks are rapidly coming together, and they are better than yours.How to Be a Social Media Power Influencer (And Why!)Last week, in writing about the top social media influencers I was struck by the sheer scale of connectivity that leadinginfluencers create for themselves. Chris Broganfor example has an astonishing 122,000 identifiable followers onTwitter (upfrom 115,000 last week) and strong followings on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google + where he has almost 67,000 followers.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 108

60,000 people subscribe to Mari Smith’s public updates on Facebook, along with approximately 77,000 identifiable people whofollow her on Twitter.Two things are remarkable about the numbers. The first is the scale. Chris Brogan has a pull or reach that is over 3,000 times more powerful than that of the average Twitteruser. Mari’s reach (or social pull) is 1800 times greater than the average Twitter user’s.The second is the fact that we can identify those 122,000 people through tools like PeekYou analytics. In building a web ofidentifiable people we’re also moving the point of connection in business from the corporation to the person and creatingmore opportunities for a more individual form of captialism where the person, the networked power of the individual, is thenew capital.To get a better handle on that I asked three of the social media power influencers about their network building and what itmeans to their businesses to have strong social media influence.The three are Mari, Pam Moore and Jason Falls.Jason is exceptional in having a very large average network size (13,000). That means the average network size of each of hisfollowers is 13,000. Mari – with a much larger following – has an average network size of 11,000. Pam Moore with anidentifiable following of around 41,000 has a reach, or social pull, approaching 1600, that is 1600 times the average Twitteruser.Q: I wanted to know when they decided that this was a goal for them – to grow a powerful network:Jason FallsMy focus on networking for business purposes began in earnest in late 2005 and early 2006. I was transitioning out of a nichearea of public relations into mainstream marketing and PR, and social media was beginning to percolate as a subject in thebroad marketing world. I’d used social media (blogging and social network platforms in particular) for personal reasons for along time and knew my way around.As I began to add professional contacts in the mainstream world, my network began to grow. It wasn’t until late 2007, early2008, however, that I started speaking at conferences and focusing my networking on influencers. That’s when I went from1,000 social contacts to 5K, 10K, etc. At BlogWorld & New Media Expo in the fall of 2007, I decided to target the power players,get introduced, ensure they knew who I was and I was working with brands and knew a thing or two. Every bit of mynetworking since has been targeted and purposeful.Mari SmithI joined Twitter in September 2007; I was already active on Facebook about four months prior to that. At the time, I wasrunning my business fulltime from the road, traveling the U.S. in an RV. I would share all manner of photos from my varioustravels and my network began to grow from there — people would tune in to find out which city I was in and what activities Iwas enjoying. I kept my growth milestones moderate at first, growing to my first 1,000 followers, then 2,000 and so on. I wasnever aggressive in pursuing followers, but I was proactive.Q: I asked what are they are most focused on?Pam Moore:I don’t like to focus on one network over the other. Instead I like to focus on an integrated strategy that leverages content toconnect with audiences with a goal of meeting both life and business objectives.How I use each of the following:Blog: Provide the best possible content I can to inspire and connect with target audiences.Twitter: Enables me to reach a large network of folks who enjoy and share my content with their friends. Also enables me tobuild communities that are taken offline and on to other social networks for further nurturing.LinkedIn: Where people validate what I do, what I have done and who I am.Facebook: Enables me to more intimately connect with people via my personal Facebook page, business page and privategroups.YouTube: Similar to my blog but in video format. It was a key success contributor while in startup mode.Google+: Similar to all of the above but enables me to connect with my most favorite, geeky friends.I get the highest number of qualified leads from LinkedIn. However, I have also received hot leads via Twitter DM andFacebook messages. I have been a member of LinkedIn for many years. I have a network size of 1700+ and know most all ofthe people I am connected to. I have over 50 recommendations from current and past colleagues and clients. The growth ofthis network has been 100% organic and a spill over from past employers, other social networks and life!Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 109

TweetChats: I host #GetRealChat on Tuesday 9pm ET. We average 12-18 million impressions for a single TweetChat. Thecommunity has grown substantially since January. We have had many guests including AT&T, Argyle Software, Klout,Webtrends, Kred, EmpireAvenue and many more. It enables me to connect with brands as well as give back to the communitywho has helped me. I have seen people join the tweet chat not knowing how to do a retweet. Many of these same people arenow leading communities, quitting their corporate gigs to pursue a life of their dreams.MS: Facebook has always been my ―first love‖ when it comes to social networks. I proactively, but slowly, built my friends tothe maximum of 5,000 over a period of approximately 18 months from 2007 to 2008. Once Facebook launched fan pages forbusinesses in late 2007, I also began to slowly build up a fan base. It wasn’t until 2009 that my fan page really took off,though. Now, with the recent introduction of the ―Subscribe‖ feature on personal profiles, I gathered over 60,000 subscribers injust 2.5 months and have passed the number of likes on my fan page (57k). Amazing. I’ve found the Subscribers to be thefastest growing social channel I’ve ever seen.Q: I wondered were there particular thresholds that were like waymarks where the network building started to grow orchange. Mari has some interesting points to make there:MS: Yes. On my Facebook personal profile, those thresholds were at every 1,000 friends – especially given I had been verydeliberate about hand-picking most all individuals with which to connect. I was deliberate in reaching out to manyinfluencers, authors, speakers, leaders and Internet marketers. On Twitter, the threshold seemed to be 10,000 followers – onceI got to that point, my growth, reach and impact was exponential. I saw some decent traction on Google+ too; I got up to30,000 followers fairly quickly (less than three months), but am still testing how G+ fits into the mix for my social mediamarketing plans.Q: I also asked what are the business gains from having this scale of network?JF: Credibility is the big thing. CEOs of some companies will call me back. Marketing managers of brands who pay a bit ofattention to Social MediaExplorer will take my calls. I’m not cold calling if they at least know my name. Micro-celebrity doeshave some benefits. Being recognized and given a head start on credibility is one of them.PM:1. 24/7 Market Research: One known fact about social media is there is always someone to talk to. I love the power of real-time conversation. If you have a question about anything, even at 2 am on a Saturday night you are guaranteed to get ahandful of solid opinions and suggestions within a few minutes at the tweet deck!2. Agility: Having an always on engaged network provides agility in brand awareness and time to market with newproducts or business ventures. As an example, our agency ZoomFactor is experiencing much growth as a result of socialmedia. We have a new business partner and are excited about how agile and accepting our audience is as we transition ourbrand and launch new services. We take them along with us each step of the way.3. Ability to establish authority. Because of the reach a solid network provides, it’s easier to establish authority in aspecific topic or content area. This of course assumes you have knowledge and real authority on the content area.4. Trusted Voice: Our ability to walk the walk, not just talk the talk helps us close deals and earn trust of new clientsbased on proven methodologies. By earning our clients trust earlier in the engagement cycle, we can more easily help thembecome a social business and integrate social media into their business versus simply hiring us to setup their Facebook page(which is what they usually initially think they need). th5. Hang with the right peeps. I always say that if you hang with 9 brokes you’re going to wind up being the 10 ! It’simportant people new to social media hang out with people who are going places. Don’t sit on your lonely Facebook pagewishing someone would ―like‖ and talk to you. Instead get out there and engage.MS: Three primary benefits that I enjoy: 1) the ability to help people out, share their content, and bring a spike in traffic to aquality post, new resource or tool, 2) greater opportunities to participate in – and speak at – online and in-person eventsaround the world, and 3) early invitations to beta test new platforms, tools, and apps.Is there much network crossover, i.e. people following you from Twitter to elsewhere?JF: People who follow me on Twitter inevitably try to connect with me elsewhere. I’m more choosy on other networks — Iwant high quality connections, not just passing acquaintances — but I have a fairly low threshold for who’s worth connectingto. I like being connected to a lot of people. It helps you drive more action when you need to.MS: Absolutely. I intentionally cross promote across my various social channels. At times, I’ll tweet out a permalink from aGoogle+ post to bring more people over to my Google+ profile. I do the same with the permalink of a post on my Facebook fanpage from time to time. I often say to my clients and students that, of all the social networks, Twitter is the easiest toproactively grow. Even though the relationships are non-reciprocal, when you follow people the majority will follow you back.Whereas on a Facebook page, it can be much slower to gain momentum – the act of liking other pages doesn’t create anincrease in your own likes. Page owners need to be creative in building a highly engaged community in order to grow theirnetwork.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 110

Advice to newbies?PM: Focus on the people. Relationships are the life raft of evolving technology change. Focus on the art of social media overthe science. Knowledge of the tools will come with time. Network growth will come with time. Invest your efforts inconnecting to real people, one person at a time. Focus on the heartbeat of social which is real people.JF: Make sure you’ve got substance to stand on. You can be popular and know everyone, but when they start reading yourmaterials, asking you to speak at events, look at your experience … if there’s little there to speak of, you’re going to be justanother follower to them. You’ve got to have a foundation of experience, wisdom, smarts, clients or something to solidifyyourself with influencers in your field. Then you can become one yourself. Those without substance don’t last long.MS: Be active every single day, if only for a few minutes a day. (Okay, you can take Sundays off if you wish, but that’s often avery active day on social networks. Plus, Sunday is Monday on the other side of the world!) During that time, 1) share qualitycontent, 2) engage back, and 3) proactively friend/follow a few more people. You can always do this via your mobile devicewhen away from your desk.Beyond The Dashboard: Online Advocacy And Offline SalesADOTAS – It’s the dirtiest secret in marketing today: As marketers, we know social networks and engagement haverevolutionized the way individuals evaluate and engage with brands – and ultimately choose what to buy. And as marketers,we’re terrified.Social media — from blogs and forums to networks like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube — have inserted a very powerful forceinto the buying process: peer-to-peer dialogue on a network scale. While shoppers always have been able to talk with a fewfriends and family members to seek out a product recommendation, today they can talk with experts on a specific product orservice anywhere in the world. They can find reviews of their prospective purchase in just seconds online and rapidlycompare features and prices for competing brands.So where does the terror enter the mix? How do you measure and quantify these discussions? Where are the most importantconversations taking place within the social grid, and how can marketers keep on top – let alone activate – the same? Thesheer pace of digital innovation has made it difficult for marketers to feel proactive and confident about how to measureprogress and what really matters to their brand portfolio.Furthering the fear factor is one matter of the discussion that may not be on the new marketing radar. My companyMotiveQuest’s analysis finds that as many as 90 percent of online conversations are not about brands at all — they are aboutcategories and the motivations that drive people within those categories. Dashboards and other numerical ways of measuringfavor in social media may help in calculating a brand’s reach, but marketers must dig deeper to learn what consumersactually are thinking and what really will persuade consumers to buy. Marketers then need to try to connect their brands tothose specific motivations. Dashboards won’t provide the intelligence that marketers need to capitalize on motivations in themarketplace — only listening where the conversations are really happening and analyzing the motivations behind the words— will do that.Stop Asking and Start ListeningThe best and only valid way to measure what is driving the market is to stop asking questions and start listening toconversations. In this new social environment, we can actually observe the buying behavior of consumers, rather than merelyasking them about their behavior. We can measure if, how and why people are talking about a product. Instead of asking themif they like it, we can measure the positive or negative words and context they are using. Perhaps of greatest importance, wecan observe individuals as they make recommendations to friends, acquaintances or even strangers in a group or forum.It turns out, not surprisingly, that the sorts of things people talk about around the kitchen table are the same sorts of thingsthey talk about online. Of course, social media conversations are just a sample of all conversations, but online forums enableus to overhear those networked conversations, which were already happening but which we had no way of listening in onbefore.A Stunning DiscoveryWe have previously noted the motivations that drive conversations in social networks are the real treasure to be mined bymarketers, because the more we explore online conversations and reveal the motivations that are common to all of us, themore effectively we can position our brand, and ourselves, to be unique. But the consequences of examining motivationsextend beyond brand positioning — they can be a precise and predictable indicator of future sales.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 111

To understand the correlation between social media and sales, we must first determine which aspects of online conversationswe should measure. Five years ago, MotiveQuest began working with statisticians at Northwestern University to examine allthe components of these conversations and attempt to find the most impactful elements.Our simple goal was to determine which elements in online conversations have the biggest influence on sales and marketshare. We looked at correlations and metrics related to such factors as the number of times a brand is mentioned, likeabilityof the product or service, and the power of influencers. We uncovered what ultimately became a stunning discovery: Thehighest correlation — and a direct, measurable correlation – between social-media conversations and offline sales occurredwhen people online went out of their way to pick a brand and recommend it to a friend. Statements like, ―I would recommendthe iPhone‖ — rather than, ―You might like the iPhone, Samsung or Nokia brands‖ — led to precise correlations with offlinesales.We began to linguistically pull together all the ways people talk about recommendations, and from these cues we developedan Online Promoter Score, an index of the strength of the online community’s recommendation of a brand.The Best Metric of a Brand’s HealthThe most important, unalterable finding that we drew from listening to and scoring the ways people recommend products isthat these recommendations — actual advocacy of a brand in online conversations — continue to correlate with offline salesin virtually every category. The type of product doesn’t matter; in these conversations, only the level of advocacy influencessales. The best metric of a brand’s health in online conversation, we were able to declare, is advocacy — the number ofindividuals actively promoting the brand.Note that advocacy measures the number of individuals making recommendations, not the number of conversations. Andfurther, understand that advocacy, not sentiment, offers the highest correlation with changes in market sales or shares.Finally, metrics must be based on insights — and insights are not gathered through an automated process; rather, they aredeveloped by applying hard work, thought and analysis.In our research for a national financial services company, we measured the number advocated a particular brand to otherpeople. Among those who discussed more than one brand, we assigned a score to their most favored brand.Our analysis showed, with statistical significance, that people’s willingness to advocate for the brand online is a leadingindicator of the brand’s new-customer acquisition. Even in relatively low-interest, low-engagement categories like personalfinance, then, what people say online allows us to predict shifts in consumer behavior offline.A Canary in the Coalmine for Market ShiftsAll this is not to say that the correlation between online advocacy and offline sales means that online advocacy necessarilycauses increased sales. What it does mean is that advocacy is an indicator of the offline and other unmeasured conversationsthat are going on around a product. The Online Promoter Score is the canary in the coalmine for brands, telling us something isgoing on in the real world, as well as in online conversations, that is boosting sales or forcing them to plummet.The power of listening for recommendations produced astonishing results for Sprint, the phone carrier. Sprint was losing asteady stream of customers to rivals AT&T, Verizon and TMobile, but it didn’t know why. MotiveQuest launched a project forSprint designed to find the reason and the solution. We built custom linguistic models to understand the essence of theconversation about the company online, categorizing those who posted their opinions in social media as current or formerSprint customers. We then aggregated carrier advocacy conversations — messages in which one brand was being activelyrecommended over another — to learn what drove recommendations and retention.We discovered that customers had three primary reasons for staying loyal to a carrier:1. Customer service2. Models3. CoverageSprint trailed competitors in all three areas. The company determined that its best opportunity resided in upgrading itscustomer service; we discovered that it was the biggest driver of carrier advocacy, ahead of models and coverage. Sprintimplemented a number of initiatives to revamp customer service, including the retooling of its programs and rewriting scriptsfor call centers based on the consumer expectations revealed in our research.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 112

Subsequently, a Consumer Reports satisfaction survey of carriers ranked Sprint second, and five months later, the AmericanCustomer Satisfaction Index ranked Sprint first in customer service. Most importantly, after listening to the advocacyconversations, Sprint’s reinvigorated customer service efforts pulled in 644,000 net subscribers in a single quarter, anastonishing turnaround from its loss of 565,000 during the same period the previous year. Six months later, it added 1.1 millionnet new customers in a quarter.The Secret of Boosting Online AdvocacyWhat, then, is the secret to boosting online advocacy for your brand? Above all, consider ways to create products andservices that are remarkable; inherently, that’s the best way to ensure people remark on them to each other. Social networksturbo-charge this process, accelerating good products to the forefront and quickly killing off products that aredisappointments.For your product to become remarkable, you should attach it to a core passion or movement in the marketplace in a three-step process:• First, identify what your best customers are most passionate about.• Then, figure out how you can be useful around that passion — how you become part of the movement.• Finally, create buzz-worthy products and services that help serve the passion. For instance, Apple created MacWorld, aconference that is little short of a religion for its advocates. MacWorld is a movement.Connect your brand to a passion, something people care about at their core, and you create the foundation for advocacy thatcan lead to higher sales offline and improved market share.How Online Publishers Should Approach Mobile Ad Networks (With Caution)Lets Not Make The Same Mistakes In Mobile That The Content Industries Did On The WebMobile networks are different than the Internet. Mobile networks know who we are, and mobile networks know where weare. This is not something sinister. This is something that is absolutely necessary so that mobile networks can do the job theywere created to do – reach us with phone calls and text message any place in the world that we happen to be.Mobile networks also differ from the Internet in that they are privately owned (ie: Sprint, Verizon Communications, AT&T andT-Mobile). And because they are privately owned, the endpoints of the network are controlled by, and visible to, the networkowners. We enter into contracts with these network owners and they supply us with devices that have a unique number.These unique numbers can be directly associated with individual people – you and I. These devices can also be locatedgeographically by triangulation between cell towers, or with even greater precision by using the Global Positioning System.On the Internet, in sharp contrast to mobile, anyone can buy a computer and connect it to the network without theinvolvement of our Internet Service Provider. And unlike mobile networks, the devices we choose to connect to the Internetbetray little or nothing about who we are, or where we are.As mobile networks have increased in speed and capacity, and feature phones have been obsolesced by Wi-Fi enabledsmartphones, mobile has emerged as a powerful distribution channel for content publishers. In fact, because mobile nowlooks and feels so much like the Web, content publishers have quite naturally presumed that mobile will accommodate anadvertising model that mimics the model on the Web.Yet demand for mobile advertising from premium brands is not keeping up with increased utilization of mobile websites andapplications. As a result, many publishers are being tempted to turn their inventory over to mobile advertising networks formonetization.A word of advice: Before we rush to embrace the introduction of ad networks in mobile, lets remember the lessons learnedon the web.Any website with a direct sales force can attest to the value destruction wrought by the intermediation of online advertisingnetworks. Even worse than the collapse of pricing power, the early and widespread utilization of ad networks by onlinepublishers facilitated the insertion of intermediariesinto the online advertising ecosystem. Trading on user data, these opaquethird parties now run rampant and have necessitated a self-regulatory regime, which, although robust and well intentioned,may still not be enough to keep Congress out of our business.It is crucial that we not let history repeat itself in mobile. At a minimum, we must at the outset strive to replicate the self-regulatory framework that weve put in place for the web. Additionally, publishers should seize this moment to adopt a muchmore muscular policy toward companies trying to insert themselves between our audiences and our content on mobileplatforms. If we knowingly choose to allow intermediaries to build businesses on our backs, lets take advantage of the factthat in these early days we still have the upper hand and demand some value in return.It is easy to presume that the advertising model for mobile will mimic the model on the web. But before we default to thatviewpoint, wouldnt it be wise to unleash our "inner Apple" and Think Different?Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 113

Lets envision a new model, where mobile isnt an isolated channel, planned and bought in a silo. Lets think of mobile as theconnection point between a customer and the physical world, and make it the hub for cross-platform programs. And lets startnow, while mobile advertising is still in its infancy. That way we could bypass all the intermediaries who have swamped theWeb ecosystem in favor a simple direct connection between audience, media and advertiser, plugging all the data leakageholes before they are even drilled.Twitter Just Fired A Cannonball At Facebook And Google+Twitter is revamping the service with personal Twitter profile pages, a new timeline that includes rich media and otherrelated information embedded into tweets, and easier search for information based on @ symbols (usernames) and hash tags.Talking at Twitters unfinished new headquarters building in San Francisco, founder Jack Dorsey and CEO Dick Costolo explainedthat the changes are meant to make Twitter more accessible to everybody.Their three goals: Expose the "universe within every tweet." Tweets arent just 140 characters -- theres also context like retweets and replies, and embedded content like videos, images, and songs. Today, accessing this material still feels like opening a "side drawer," said Costolo. Make Twitter less obscure to use. Today, the @ and # symbols are too obscure -- people dont know what they mean. This contributes to a lot of people visiting Twitter but not really participating actively. The redesign surfaces these symbols and makes them the gateway to find out more information about people and topics on the surface. Share it with everybody. The world has 7 billion people. Most of those people are "not yet on Twitter," said Costolo. The redesign will roll out to mobile devices simultaneously, and is streamlined to load up to 500% faster.The trick is doing this without adding too much complexity. As Dorsey put it, "simplification is the key here."Here are elements: Personal profile pages. Every Twitter user will get a new profile page that contains everything about them -- all their tweets, followers, favorites, images theyve uploaded, and so on. "Tell more compelling story for you." New home timeline. The new timeline page will embed everything about a particular tweet right in the tweet -- retweets, favorites, and added content. Twitter will also put an embed code into every tweet, so Web sites can take entire tweets and put them on Web pages, just as they do with YouTube videos and other content. #Discover. A new # option at the top of the page will take you to a list of interesting stories related to people youre following, or people Twitter thinks you might be interested in. (The relevance algorithm isnt that great yet -- the top two stories for me right now are about Ice Cube and Rick Perry, neither of whom Ive ever followed or tweeted about.) @ names are now the shortcut to people. A new @Connect item at the top of the Twitter home page will let you see everything that is happening related to your username -- all retweets, direct messages, and so on.Were also going to snap some photos of the new HQ building, which is still a big concrete block but has a ton of potential.(Great bones, as they say in real estate.)Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 114

Twitter Announces Redesign And New FeaturesOn Thursday Twitter announced a new design of their blog service as well as new features. Twitter’s creator returned to thecompany in March as an executive. The company said that when people first signed up to use Twitter it helped them discoverinformation of people’s interest based on their locations etc.Twittersenior executive, Satya Patel stated that it was not just a visual redesign but a conceptual one to make Twitter moreaccessible to billions of users. In the next few weeks the redesign of Twitter will go out globally. A section will be added toevery user account on Twitter called ―Stories.‖Stories show users content on Twitter that they may find interesting. CEO Dick Costolo said that it was the first step to startto surface rich content for people pouring into the platform for first time users. Twitter currently allows to users to broadcastmessage called ―Tweets‖ up to 140 characters in length.The company recently said that Twitter has over 100 million active users and the majority of its accounts are based overseas.The company now has over 700 employees who will move into the new headquarters in the middle of 2012. Twitter competeswith other social networks such as Facebook.Dont Short-Sell App Engagement -- Or Videoby Will Kassoy , Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011I’m with Greg Stuart. It might surprise you that I agree with the Mobile Marketing Association CEO in his pointed criticism ofnegative influences that still haunt mobile marketing. He made these criticisms in mid-November at the Mobile MarketingConference in L.A., saying that technology had not yet evolved enough to support the best consumer experience on mobiledevices.I’m in this business of mobile advertising. From my point of view, banner advertising on mobile networks or within a mobileapp does not fulfill the promise of this media. It clutters the user experience for an app and has terrible click through rates,most of which are caused by accidental clicks. That lacks value for an advertiser. We can do better to support the customerexperience and advertiser value.We are on the edge of a transformational change in mobile advertising. Coming from a history of 20 years in brandmanagement, I’ve seen a range of ad units in my career, but nothing compares to the effectiveness of video. The key,however, is how to present the video in an environment that is relevant, and present it to a user who is open and willing toreceive that message.I believe video is a big part of the answer. Mobile marketers need a video format that delivers dynamic advertising in largelyfree apps where consumers are open to receiving ad messages. But we’re behind the curve. To illustrate how far behind theindustry is with mobile video, I recently got an email from a prominent industry trade association for their mobile conference(not the MMA), and it included a video asset that took more than three minutes to load and buffer on my phone, before itactually froze. It was even more ironic that this marketing asset came from an industry association touting their insights foran upcoming mobile conference.Another area that causes a poor user experience in mobile is ―offer walls‖. Even though some powerful forces have worked tolimit these web pages, they persist. While providing good revenues in the short term to publishers, for advertisers, they canbe deceptive. Advertisers who are trying to find scale in mobile are attracted to it, but when you look at the user experience,we have found that they generally attract a consumer who’s looking to get something for free and are less valuableconsumers to the advertiser in the long term.Our research has found that users are 15-26x more likely to come back to an app, engage and monetize vs. leading ―offerwalls.‖ The main reasons: The right audience was served with access to the most relevant app, the video itself tells the storyof the app in a way that no other medium can, and we are not incentivizing the click to download. Therefore the userexperience is pure -- and advertisers are only getting engagement from users who are truly interested and engaged withtheir product.Offer walls persist because some app developers believe they promote affiliate offers, drive leads and increase appdistribution. All of this is true to some extent. But as consumers continue to be more sophisticated about their mobileexperience, the long-term cost of using offer walls must be equally weighed.The best way to promote and advertise mobile apps is by getting them in front of the right audience. Offer walls may claim todo that, but high quality mobile video ad networks will be more specific and in the end drive the best engagement. Unlessyou’re in the mobile business for the short term, there’s no other way to play it.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 115

Tech Trends: Increasing Traffic With HTML5 MicrodataPosted by Ben TruymanWe’re going to change things up a bit for this month’s Tech Trends post. Instead of quickly discussing a handful of new trendsin technology, the focus now will be on a single important topic. This month that topic is a hidden gem in HTML5called Microdata. When we hear about the capabilities of HTML5, we typically see things like Geolocation, CSS animations,mobile-compatibility, native audio/video support, or even 3D WebGL experiences — but rarely is there any discussion abouthow HTML5 can help drive more traffic to websites via search engines. This is where Microdata comes in and it’s going tofundamentally change the way we discover and consume content on the web.Microdata is a component of HTML5 aimed at adding more semantics and contextual information to existing content on apage. By doing so, Microdata provides others, like search engines or browsers, with more information about the contents of apage. This allows them to handle data in new and interesting ways. For example, a product detail page may list out aproduct’s SKU, pricing, reviews and availability — but there’s no real way for Google’s search engine crawlers to know exactlywhat that information means. With Microdata, we can explicitly tell Google how much our products cost and what rating ourusers gave it. But why would we want to do this?Introducing Rich SnippetsHave you ever used Google to find a tasty roast turkey recipe for the holidays? Or maybe you wanted to find some concerttickets at your favorite venue. You might notice Google’s not just giving you a list of blue links and descriptions for yoursearch results — you’re seeing enhanced search results that Google is calling Rich Snippets.For recipe searches, Google will try to give you an estimated total cook time and user rating for that recipe. Not only that, butGoogle will let you refine recipe results by ingredients, total cook time, and even total calories. For events like concerts,Google might list out the next few upcoming acts under a search result. Often times, this extra information is being poweredsimply by Microdata. It’s also very important to mention that if a user does refine their search results based on Microdata(such as a recipe by ingredients), only sites using Microdata will likely appear in the results. More simply put, if you’re notusing Microdata, you might not show up in a search results.So how important is this Microdata content in search results? Very important according to an eye-tracking study posted onthe SEOmoz blog. In the study, eye-tracking software was used to see where users’ attention was spent most on agiven search result page. The subjects of the study were asked to perform a handful of pizza-related queries on Google whilethe eye-tracking software tracked which search results the users’ eyes were focused on the most.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 116

The study concluded that users were much more interested in the enhanced results as opposed to the typical plain blue linkand description result. Users focused on things like pictures, videos, maps, and local place results. While the conclusion mightnot sound surprising, it was quite dramatic to see that, for once, the number one result was not always the most relevantresult for most users. Instead, users were much more interested in these enhanced results. After seeing this, it was prettyclear: Microdata will soon become an integral piece in any digital experience on the web.Implementing MicrodataThe first question I get about Microdata is ―how much is this going to cost me to implement?‖ This is the beauty of thesimplicity of Microdata: the cost of implementation is almost nothing. That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but not completely.Implementing Microdata on a new or existing page consists of adding a few extra bits of HTML, and that’s it! There’s no needto completely re-architect a page’s content to allow for someone like Google to pick up on this extra data. All that’s neededis some code that calls out certain pieces of content as being Microdata. There’s not much else to it than that.The next obvious question is ―what types of Microdata can we implement?‖ Recently, all of the major search engines (Google,Yahoo! and Bing) have partnered together to develop Schema.org which defines dozens of ―vocabularies‖ (or types ofMicrodata) that may be eventually supported by these search engines. For the time being, however, Google has stated theyonly support a handful of these Microdata types which include: reviews, people, products, businesses and organizations,recipes, events, music, and video content. If your website has any of these types of content, you’re eligible for a Microdataimplementation.What’s the Catch?It’s important to note one caveat with Microdata. Just as we’re used to with search engines, we don’t control how our contentis ranked or displayed. That is to say, just because Microdata is implemented on a page doesn’t guarantee Google will displaythat content in its search results. However, I think it’s safe to assume a search engine like Google would be more inclined toshow its Rich Snippets rather than not.Beyond Search ResultsOver the next few years, we can anticipate Microdata support to become more expansive by allowing more types of data tobe crawled and surfaced in search result pages. But that’s just the beginning. Imagine having the power to query this type ofdata with just our voices and a smartphone. With technologies like Android’s voice search or Apple’s Siri, we might soon beginto see Microdata affecting the display and relevancy of the results these technologies provide. In addition to mobile, wecould begin to see desktop browsers begin to acknowledge certain pieces of Microdata. For example, a browser viewing asite using the ―Event‖ Microdata could add a concert to your calendar with a single click of the mouse. Or maybe add a personto your address book if they’re using the ―Person‖ Microdata.This is all a part of the Semantic Web movement or ―Web 3.0‖ as coined by Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web.That’s to say, the creator of the web views technologies like Microdata as being the future of the web itself. Although, withall of the more flashy demonstrations of HTML5, Microdata is a technology your’e not likely to see discussed widely. But I cansay with confidence that its significance over the next few years will soon prove its value. So why not get ahead of the curvewhile we still can?Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 117

SEO: Obstacles, Opportunities and the FuturePosted by Richard DeedeLast night I had the pleasure of speaking to the Chicago Interactive Design and Development group (CIDD) about SEO.The audience was made up of a wide variety of people with diverse knowledge and backgrounds, so tailoring the discussiontowards one particular skill set was not possible. Instead I started by talking about the foundation of SEO and how the searchengines work and a brief history of what the search engines algorithms are based upon.The primary content of the presentation focused around the basics steps someone should take when trying to optimize theirwebsite, but the fun part came once we took at look at the future of SEO.When it comes to site optimization there are 3 essential steps I discussed last night.1) Technical optimization – Ensuring that your site is free of roadblocks for search engines and is able to be crawled quickly and easily.2) Content Optimization – Once the site is fully crawlable, you want to present content in meaningful manner that includes keywords that users are looking for.3) Offsite Optimization – We want to drive traffic and spiders to the site from external sources. These sources would preferably be of high quality and related content to our website.Now these steps are just a high level overview of what should be done to optimize your site for organic search, but they arethe essential foundation of what has be shown to be an effective SEO strategy.The closing portion of the presentation focused on the future of SEO and where it could be headed. The important thing tonote about SEO is that it is constantly evolving and adapting to the changing world and new technology. It is critical to stayon top of the latest technology and web trends as there is a good chance that if it catches on, then Google will find a way toincorporate it in to its search results or algorithm in some way or another. Two emerging trends that we looked at are:Real-Time SearchGoogle is now incorporating up to the minute information pulled directly from sites like Twitter. This shows that the searchengines are aware of the increasing demand for information on demand. The question is how can this be leveraged for yoursite? Does your site have consistently fresh, up-to-date content that could be a potential source of information that thesearch engines could pull in to their organic search results? Even if the content isn’t directly on your site, maintaining a socialnetworking presence on a site like twitter can allow you to not only have your main site appear in search results, but alsoyour twitter feed. Search engine optimization continues to expand well beyond the standard web page result. It’s a matter ofoptimizing all of your site assets to take advantage of these changes.Mobile SearchMobile devices are quickly over taking the PC as the primary computing platform in this country which means more peopleare now using their smart phone to access the web than ever before. The algorithm for mobile search results is differentfrom the standard algorithm with an increased focus on location based information. Does your business have a physicalBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 118

address? If so, are you making this information readily available to search engines so you can get the most of mobile search?Mobile search best practices will typically follow standard best practices with a heavy reliance on HTML text, but it’s theslight differences that are still being uncovered that can make all the difference in how your site performs in mobile search.What other trends are you seeing? Or what SEO questions have you scratching your head lately? We had lots of question anda nice long conversation after presentations last night. Feel free to comment down below to turn this post into more of adiscussion as well!The Horses MouthJim SternePeople do the strangest things when you dont know what theyre doing.This was brought home to me at the conferences I spoke at over the past two months in Seattle, Vancouver, New York,Philadelphia, Melbourne, and London. At each conference, one or more of the presenters mentioned the necessity to stepaway from the numbers and go talk to real customers.The first, worst enemy of analysis is averages. The average number of people who click a certain button, the average bouncerate, the average number of 404s - all useless. Of course, a big spike or a big drop in any average is cause for alarm andreview, but the average itself is meaningless.The next, worst enemy of analysis is climbing into your own head and staying there. Humans like to create mental models ofthe world. Its useful. Its convenient. It helps us remember where we left our keys and what our uncle-in-laws second wifemight like for Christmas.But when we create a mental model of the marketplace, we make decisions based on a photograph instead of keeping oureyes on the movie. Its like driving with intermittent stills from Google Street View on the windshield instead of seeing thelandscape in real time.Whats an analytics manager to do?Field trip!Get your team to peel their eyes off the numbers and look into the eyes of customers. Deducing what people are doing basedon their footprints is much easier if you get the chance to speak with them as well.The expectant mother is curious about strollers and looks at a few on her iPhone while in line at the grocery store. She thengoes to the department store to get a feel for the quality and durability of the strollers she likes. While there, she looks onher iPad for other features she should be asking about. When satisfied, she heads home to compare, contrast, and shop priceonline. Finally, she heads back to the store with her stepfather because he wants to buy it for her today.From a numbers perspective, you have three different people visiting your online properties in three different segments ofthe sales cycle, and one buyer walking into your retail store with a credit card at the ready. You cannot deduce this veryunderstandable, human behavior purely by the numbers.Invest in a tool that lets you see what people actually did on your website; something like Tealeaf, ClickTale, or BMC End UserExperience Management. Watch the mouse as it darts back and forth, hesitates over a drop-down menu, and then strikes!Invest in a focus group. Yes, it may seem silly to bring a bunch of people together and lock them in a conference room untilthey tell you what you want to hear... and it is! Instead, gather some of your customers for a conversation and listen to them.Not in a quantitative way, just in a get-to-know-you, qualitative way.Conduct formal interviews. Kristin Zhivago is a master of calling up customers and asking open-ended questions that yieldinsight instead of numbers. She has years of experience in the tech sector and can ask your customers about their use ofsocial media (or of your products) and their first-hand experience of your company. She finds out their needs and theirexpectations - the first factor of customer satisfaction.Observe your customers in their natural habitat. Shari Cleary, vice president of strategic insights and research at ViacomEntertainment Group likes to conduct ethnographic studies. The company sends researchers into peoples homes and hangsout with them. Thats the only way to know how people really watch Comedy Central or Spike TV. Are they really listening totheir iPods while watching TV, texting their friends, and playing Angry Birds on their iPads at the same time?Remember, youre not the target audience. They dont know what you know, they dont think like you think, and they canmultitask like you wouldnt believe.Making assumptions about your customers as if they were you is wrong. Making assumptions about your customers as if theywere you and basing those assumptions on numerical averages is business suicide. TweetWhere am I? › Home › Column › Analytics › Verifying Business ValueBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 119

Asking Better QuestionsJim Sterne | November 10, 2011When Ryan Caplan, CEO, ColdLight Solutions, spoke at last weeks Web Analytics Association Symposium in Philadelphia, heshared a Harvard Business Review article that was well worth repeating. On a side note, if you have the chance to see Ryanspeak, do yourself a favor and spend the time. Hes smart, funny, and knows his stuff.The article in question was a blog post by Judith Ross called "How to Ask Better Questions" and, as Ryan did for us in person, Iwill summarize for you in print.Judith advises us to ask questions that "inspire people to think in new ways, expand their range of vision, and enable them tocontribute more to the organization."Heres Judiths (paraphrased) list of what makes for great questions. You can recognize the most effective and empoweringquestions because they:  Create clarity. Delve into the problem to see it from more sides. Get the person youre working with to reveal more and thereby understand the problem better herself.  Improve working relations. Rather than putting people on the spot, frame the question in a way that proves you are on their side. Instead of, "Why did the project fail?" ask, "What can we do better next time?"  Help people think analytically and critically. "What are the consequences of going this route?" "What other benefits might we garner?"  Inspire people to reflect and see things in a fresh, unpredictable way. These questions get people to see things rationally rather than emotionally. They encourage lateral thinking. "What if we approach this issue from the other end?"  Encourage breakthrough thinking. Waaay out-of-the-box thinking. "Can that be done in any other way?"  Challenge assumptions. What if...the budget were different?...there were fewer restrictions?...we had to get it done sooner?  Create ownership of solutions. Ask questions that give the problem identifier authority over the process.Consistent asking of empowering questions changes corporate culture and gets people taking on more responsibility forproblems, solutions, and responsibility for outcomes. It lets those around you feel more valuable.Judith Ross post delves into asking open-ended questions as a management style for teasing insight out of employees. Wecan learn from this to ask better questions of the data we collect.And beyond just thinking about how to get more insights from the data youre collecting, dont forget to help the people inyour organization feel more insightful and train them to ask better questions as well. Everybody wins.Many thanks to Ryan Caplan for the pointer. It inspired me to think in new ways, expand my range of vision, and contributemore to my readers.Trick QuestionsJim SterneAnalysts are problem solvers. They are Sudoku workers. They are detective novel readers. They enjoy puzzles. In fact, theyenjoy puzzles so much that its easy to distract them from their core job of providing organizational and customer insight.Take a simple question:"Can you tell me how many people retweeted this comment, didnt click on the link, and used the special promotion codeanyway?"The typical marketing analyst immediately starts thinking about how to collect the data, how to join tweet stream info toclick-throughs and shopping cart data, and what the dashboard should look like. They were tricked into doing too much workthats going to have too little value at the cost of their real work.Trick questions will trip you up every time. Here are three typical trick questions. See how well you fair. (Answers below.)Trick Question No. 1A disabled airplane falls from the sky and comes to rest directly on the point where Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan meet.Where do they bury the survivors?Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 120

Trick Question No. 2Youre driving a bus up 7th Avenue in New York. At 27th Street, four students get on from the Fashion Institute of Technology.At 29th, three doctors get on from Doctors Without Borders and two get off at the very next stop for St. Judes ChildrensResearch. At 35th Street, six freshly groomed riders get on from the Eyebrow Threading Salon and three of the FIT studentsget off at 38th Street for FedEx Shipping Center. All of the remaining doctors get off at 40th Street to go to the GarmentCenter Congregation. Whats the name of the bus driver?Trick Question No. 3Youre out bear hunting with some friends and one morning you leave your camp site and head due south for five miles. Youthen turn due west, spot a bear, and shoot it. You haul your prize five miles back to your camp site and call it a day. Whatcolor is the bear?The first question is an example of misdirection. You do not bury survivors. They walk away. I feel that conversion rate isanother example of misdirection.Dont get me wrong - conversion rates are very important to monitor and master all other things being equal. But all otherthings are never equal. If you just spent a metric boatload of money on a display ad campaign, then your traffic is going to goup and your conversion is going to drop precipitously and the unwary conversion expert will be left wondering whathappened to the shopping cart navigation.The second question is an example of analyzing the available data before knowing what you are solving for. The name of thebus driver is deeply buried at the very beginning of the question by all that data about the stops and the passengers. That,and the fact that 7th Avenue in New York is one-way and runs north-to-south. Tricked you!The point of this one is to know the business problem that needs work before jumping into a vat of data just for the fun of it.Yes, you can API all of the tweets you like, but when all is said and done, what is the business value of knowing that theworlds record is 7,196 tweets per second?Dont get caught up in the thrill of analyzing the data at the expense of solving real problems.These first two questions are best served verbally. Hearing "Where did they bury the survivors?" is very different from readingit. One glance back at the bus driver question and you are not amused. The answer is obvious. Hearing the question is adifferent kettle of fish.But the third question about the bear is not so easy. Curiously, it actually does contain all the information you need todetermine that the bear is white. You just need to use a little lateral thinking and some high school geometry.There is only one place on Earth where you can head due south for five miles, due west for five miles, and then walk fivemiles back to camp. An equilateral triangle has three equal length legs and equal angles of 60 degrees. That precludesheading due south and due west...except at the North Pole, where legs of equal length and angles of equal degree prevail.Ergo, your bear is white.In a recent post on online behavior called Web Analytics Tools: Question Generation Machines, Yahoo Web Analytics AccountManager Emer Kirrane wrote that the most important question in web analytics is "Why?""Web Analytics is not about the tool (though not every vendor may concede this). It is about collecting, slicing, manipulatingand attempting to understand data, and then using your findings to improve your website, your customers experience, yourrevenue and so on."Sadly, those who do not understand marketing analytics continue to "...use statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts - forsupport rather than for illumination." (Andrew Lang) Those analysts who feel too junior to the task, succumb to the whiles ofinquisitors and never come into their own as insight generators.For them, the solution is in the response, "I would be delighted to help you accomplish your goals. But first, I need to knowwhat your goals are.""Why?" it turns out, is the inverse of a trick question.Chief Analytical OfficerJim SterneBack in 2005, Bob Chatham, then at Forrester Research, spoke at an eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in London. He goteverybodys attention when he predicted that people who were in "web analytics" today, would find themselves in businessintelligence tomorrow and, eventually, the C-suite.Bob talked about the data warehouse people striving to answer Big Questions with Big Data on the one hand and indulging inpattern recognition and discovery on the other.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 121

Web analysts are a different breed, he said. Web analysts are interested in optimizing specific functions: get more traffic,attract more valuable traffic, optimize landing pages, improve conversion, grow lifetime value, etc.When web analysts, indoctrinated in the arts of process optimization, turned their attention to the massive corporate datawarehouse, they would look for more processes to optimize. After optimizing prospect acquisition, lead management,persuasion, and conversion, web analysts would look at product development, product delivery, customer service, and more -and end up with a front row seat on what it would take to optimize the whole company. The eMetrics audience thought hewas wonderful.In July of 2010, I wrote a blog post called "What if Analysts Ran the Show?" In it, I introduced Craig Sullivan, formerly themanager of digital and usability at LOVEFiLM.com and now at auto glass repair giant Belron.Craig grabbed multivariate testing tools and A/B split testing methods with gusto and went to town. He was the first to admitthat he didnt have the answers, but he had really good questions and a testing methodology that couldnt be beat. He hasmastered the fine art of online persuasion through the automated manipulation of text and visual elements. "I can run testson ten thousand lab rats on my websites whenever I like. Its exhilarating."And then Craig turned his testing tools on the call center. What sort of music should be on hold? Should the voice intoninghow important your call is be male or female? Craig is on his way to integrating multiple touchpoints.That brings me to the story of Joe Megibow. Joe built avionics systems at EDS and then moved to helping Ernst & Youngclients get organized. He then joined a technology company called Tealeaf, assisting its clients to monitor and manage onlinecustomer experience. When calls came in, customer service reps could see where the caller ran into trouble on their website.One of Joes old college friends hired him to run the Tealeaf implementation at Hotels.com. Joe dove into the practical side ofmatching systems monitoring with web analytics. The company did so well that it was acquired by Expedia and things goteven more interesting for Mr. Megibow.Joe went from vice president of customer experience and online marketing at Hotels.com to vice president of global analyticsand optimization at Expedia, to vice president of mobile and e-commerce optimization. Last month, Joe told me it was time toupdate his keynote bio on the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit website because he was just made vice president andgeneral manager for all of Expedia in the U.S.Bob Chatham was right. The person with a clear understanding of where the data comes from and how the data can be usedto improve the business, will rise to the top. Of course, being wicked smart and contagiously enthusiastic helps, but thelesson is that our relationship with data is changing - for the good.THE NEW SOCIAL ORDERMarian SalzmanDoes the notion of ―me time‖ almost always mean ―we time‖ in this decidedly social age (even if me plus one or more isvirtual)?I wonder what Greta Garbo (who infamously crafted a reluctant catchphrase in the movie Grand Hotel: ―I want to be alone‖)would think of alone time circa 2011? Later in life she discounted the plea and said, ―I never said, ‘I want to be alone.’ I onlysaid, ‘I want to be left alone.’‖ More recently, Andy Rooney’s emotional farewell included both a nod to his desire to be leftalone and a shoutout to the broad public who reached out to him all kinds of ways, including email.Regardless of whether you’re an American icon, an aging starlet or a fatigued social media stalwart, one thing is clear: We arenever really alone, or left alone, anymore. Our society (socialiety?) has succumbed to a full-on state of codependence. Weupload photos of ourselves in dressing rooms to solicit opinions from friends, we collaborate in the office over clouds andtexts and Skype calls. We come home from lunch, dinner or a date and broadcast our thoughts to our extended socialnetworks. We can’t seem to keep anything to ourselves anymore; nothing is sacred, private or not worth sharing. (Women postwhen they’re fertile, men post about their erectile dysfunction; dysfunctional families duke out their differences on Twitterand Facebook—and we all grin when we see one another and feign lack of knowledge about someone’s intimacies, eventhough we know all. Or know all they’ve posted.) Though it’s hard to imagine life without social media, there actually was atime when we weren’t clued in to what an ex–college boyfriend ate for dinner.There was also a time when, say, your spouse would go into the bank or the store and leave you sitting there, maybescanning radio stations and staring at the scenery out the car window. Now, we bury ourselves in our smartphones for fear ofdoing nothing; we are codependent on our yearning to know about others and we’re positively addicted to our gadgets and tostaying connected. You can’t even be alone on a plane anymore, because many flights now offer in-flight Wi-Fi to keep usconnected from 35,000 feet. I’m grateful for the connectedness—I just did a quick hit-and-run to Silicon Valley for aninnovations conference and needed my Sky-Wi-Fi, but part of me craves the transcontinental flight of yesteryear, whennobody could find me for a blissful six or seven hours and I could read a book, catch up on some magazine articles, get somework done sans interruptions or maybe, just maybe, veg out. (That’s something else that died with all this connectivity—myability to play eggplant and think and do and communicate nothing.)Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 122

And all this ―we time‖ is starting from the cradle. Sure, it’s a cliché to say, ―We’re born alone, and we’ll die alone,‖ but is thatreally true these days? A friend of mine was tweeting within 30 minutes of giving birth, and her son had an email account anda full social life before he’d been through his first box of Pampers. Every moment of our life is now brought to you byFacebook, Twitter and YouTube. Is anything sacred anymore? Social commentator Jesse Kornbluth recently wrote in the LosAngeles Times that he once had a boss who told him, ―The real test of a relationship is how quickly you can get out of bedafter making love to check your email.‖We’ve seen all this screenaged existence backfire on those who spend less time alone than anyone: celebrities. KimKardashian’s recent nuptials fail had many calling for a boycott of her family’s reality show. It’s hard to salvage credibilitywhen you publicize every moment of your life; maybe the backlash against her quickie divorce separation annulment wouldhave stung less if she had gotten married in private, and without a supposed payday that beat winning Lotto. Weirder still isthat all these calls for privacy are taking place in the least private of places: online.The case for codependence is at its apex in our growing ―like‖ culture. We can’t seem to go anywhere or do anything withoutasking the opinion of friends or agreeing to like everything from our local yogurt shop to a childhood friend’s son’s band. Theconstant search for approval has made us needier than ever; there used to be a small panel of experts who you summonedwhen you were going to see a film or eat at the latest restaurant downtown, but now everybody is an expert and everyopinion counts in a culture that is constantly seeking validity. Although there are some great things about our fullytransparent approach to life (as a response to bad business practices, it’s great), do we really have to tell each othereverything? Are we really that afraid to keep our thoughts and beliefs to ourselves?The case for some solo time is going to be made in the years to come. Connection fatigue is going to lead to full-onexhaustion. It’s not surprising that places such as Bhutan and Myanmar are becoming hot destinations for people searchingfor something a bit more enlightened and decidedly more disconnected. But I’m afraid that many of us are experiencing lifethrough others’ photos and that real ―experiences‖ are becoming fewer and further between.One area of life where flying solo is becoming the new normal is in nurturing life itself: parenting. We’re seeing more peoplechoosing to be a single parent. More than one of my friends, in fact, has commented that solo parenting is easier than theconstant negotiations between partner parents over everything from religion to how strict is strict enough.In terms of every other endeavor I can think of, though, we are never really alone for long. The quest for companionship hasgone 2.0 to include thoughts and opinions and shared moments from people we might know only casually. Do we really knoweveryone in our social networks? Some people reject friend requests from people they don’t know; others report that they’vemade genuine friendships with folks they met online.But is our pursuit for anything but ―me time‖ causing our constant need for connection to outweigh the ability to create real,lasting relationships? Are we going to go the way of Garbo, incognito and requesting a life led offscreen, and offline? I’mcalling for some balance between codependence and being left alone: a day a week without social media, a spin class spentwithout a cellphone on the handlebars, and a dressing room foray where I try things on, completely alone and withoutjudgment or the eyes of social media.I’m thinking about Zappos these days, and its new social shopping endeavor called RNKD that will, according toAdvertisingAge, ask users to ―share what they wear by uploading photos of their clothes and then tagging them by brand‖ in the hopesof securing badges through an assigned rank. For loyal brandlings, the reward will be access to products and discounts. Sigh.Doesn’t that seem like too much trouble? Why on earth would we want to do that? Are we really willing to sacrifice ourprivacy to secure deep discounts from our favorite brands?In this new social order, look for ―me time‖ to be the most coveted and exotic luxury brand there is—regardless of rank,discount or number of Facebook friends.Test Your Innovation IQEveryone knows that innovation means coming up with the next great idea in your industry, right? Actually, there’s a lot moreto it than that. Test your ability to separate innovation fact from fiction by answering the following questions true or false:1. Innovation is the act of coming up with new and creative ideas.2. Innovation is a random process.3. Innovation is the exclusive realm of a few naturally talented people.4. The biggest obstacle to innovation is a lack of organizational resources and know-how.5. The most important type of innovation involves bringing new products and services to market.6. Teaching employees to think creatively will guarantee innovation.7. The most powerful way to trigger your brain is to simply ask it a question.8. Most companies pursue incremental rather than disruptive innovation.9. Most companies are not structured to innovate.10. Listening to your customers is a great way to innovate.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 123

Answers:1. False. In business, innovation is the act of applying knowledge, new or old, to the creation of new processes, products, andservices that have value for at least one of your stakeholder groups. The key word here is applying. Generating creative ideasis certainly part of the process. But in order to produce true innovation, you have to actually do something different that hasvalue.2. False. Innovation is a discipline that can (and should) be planned, measured, and managed. If left to chance, it won’t happen.3. False. Everyone has the power to innovate by letting their brain wander, explore, connect, and see the world differently.The problem is that we’re all running so fast that we fail to make time for the activities that allow our brains to see patternsand make connections. Such as pausing and wondering….what if?4. False. In most organizations, the biggest obstacle to innovation is what people already know to be true about theircustomers, markets, and business. Whenever you’re absolutely, positively sure you’re right, any chance at meaningfulinnovation goes out the window.5. False. It’s certainly important to bring new products and services to market. But the most important form of innovation, andthe #1 challenge for today’s business leaders may really be reinventing the way we manage ourselves and our companies.6. False. New ideas are a dime a dozen. The hard part is turning those ideas into new products and services that customersvalue and are willing to pay for — a process that requires knowledge about what your customers want and need, coupledwith implementation.7. True. Ask a question and the brain responds instinctually to get closure. The key with innovation is to ask questions thatopen people to possibilities, new ways of looking at the same data, and new interpretations of the same old thing.8. True. Most companies focus on using internally generated ideas to produce slightly better products (incrementalinnovation). Then they strive to get those slightly better products to market as quickly and as cost-effectively as possible.This approach is quicker and cheaper than disruptive innovation. But it rarely generates the results that lead to sustainablemarket leadership.9. True. Most organizations are physically set up with accounting in one area, marketing in another, and management off byitself. Employees rarely interact with other departments unless they need something to get their jobs done. And leaders anddepartments often withhold information, believing that it puts them in a position of power. Innovation requires teamwork,communication and collaboration, not isolated silos.10. Trick question! The answer is ―it depends.‖ Research shows that customers can be a good source of ideas for improvingexisting products and services — if you’re looking to achieve incremental innovation. However, by itself, customer research isnot sufficient for generating disruptive innovation because it only uncovers expressed, or known, customer needs. Disruptiveinnovation solves problems that customers didn’t even know they had or were unable to clearly articulate to themselves ortheir vendors. It redefines the market at a very fundamental level or, in many cases, creates a new market.If you got 8 or more correct answers, give yourself a pat on the back. If you scored between 4 and 7, I recommend some moreresearch and work on these critical leadership skills. If you scored less than 4, wake up and smell the burnt coffee! Get somehelp.If you’re not constantly looking to improve your products, services, systems, and managerial processes, you will fall behind.And once you fall behind, it can be very difficult and often impossible to catch up!Cutting Through the Remarketing Clutter With Real Time Bidding (RTB)Jeff GreenHave you ever gone to a marketing companys website and you still cant figure out what that business does? After fiveminutes on the site, you leave wondering, what do they actually do?Since the display landscape has changed dramatically in the past few years, this happens more than ever in the displayecosystem, and the plethora of solutions out there for accessing real-time bidding (RTB) inventory can be confusing.There is a meaningful segment of marketers that say in effect - there is so much hype and so much incomprehensible talkingin RTB that Ill stick to what I know. But let me say emphatically, that would be a mistake.RTB is worth it.Every marketer should be buying RTB display remarketing. I suspect some of you read that last sentence and want to give amoment of silence for the part of you that died once upon a time when you tried to make some display effort of yesteryearwork. Keep that justified, skeptical, and cautious guard up as we look at why this can be different.First, RTB gives marketers the opportunities to look at hundreds of billions of impressions per month and only bid on thosethat are interesting to them.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 124

Second, since the auction is fairly transparent with lots of metadata, there is both room and need for technology companiesto build unique optimization and bidding technologies. So huge amounts of intelligence and data can be layered into thisenvironment (more than any other marketing channel - on or offline).Third, RTB is hundreds and often thousands of percentage points more effective than display was three years ago, even withthe very best tech of that day. As a result, forget about every experience you had with display before because the world isdifferent now. And finally, because every marketer can easily access so many impressions, display RTB remarketing is thelowest hanging fruit in all of online advertising.Chances are youve dialed in your search dollars. Of course, there is always room for improvement. Search deserves anddemands attention, but for most marketers they are asking - what more can I do? In almost all cases, RTB display andremarketing is the clear answer.The next question: how do I get access to all of these hundreds of billions of RTB impression views?To begin, a word of caution - whenever someone says they buy RTB display, press them further for more details. In somecases theyre buying direct from one of the exchanges with no proprietary bidding technology of their own. Other timestheyre convinced that buying direct is optimal. Ive been asked by more than one advertiser, "Why would I use a DSP when Ican buy from the ad exchanges myself?"If youre new to the world of display, it may not sound like theres much of a difference. Both can work to access RTBinventory. But if youre looking to take your display campaigns to the next level, lets break down the advantages of using abidding technology like a demand-side platform (DSP).All exchanges operate differently, but in most cases you can access cheaper inventory when buying through the exchangesAPI via a DSP. This may seem counterintuitive, but impressions can actually be cheaper by using a DSP than buying directthrough a UI of an exchange. Nevertheless, I would never base your decision solely on where to get the cheapest impressions.The question you should be asking is where you can get the most cost-effective inventory, performance, and access to theusers you want to message to. Display is like search on this issue. Being in position number nine on any given keyword willalways be cheaper than position number two, but it is most likely not as valuable even when weighting in the cost. Similarly,DSPs may bid more aggressively for the impressions that have a propensity to convert. The granularity of the biddingfeatures and the targeting of which impressions to buy is the real differentiator. In short, the tech that good DSPs have maycome with a cost, but it can and should create more value than it costs.Second is the difference in reach. Rather than buy direct from one exchange, DSPs integrate with all of the major adexchanges. The more reach, the more efficient a campaign can work at scale. Recency and frequency matters tremendouslywith remessaging, so 6 million sites allow you to find those users much faster while the data is still relevant, than say what100,000 sites can do.One could try to overcome this by buying from all of the exchanges individually, but in addition to being an operational mess,you wouldnt be able to have a universal frequency cap and make holistic decisions. The advantage of buying from all theexchanges on one platform is that the data and insights that a DSP gets in one exchange are applied to the buying decisionsacross all the other exchanges in real time. You cant do this manually.Also, direct and DSP have very different value props on optimization. A good DSP is going to help you see how display andremarketing fits into your holistic marketing efforts. They are also going to optimize impressions using data from otherchannels and insights from all of the exchanges in one central place. The exchanges themselves really cant offer any of that.Lastly, demand-side platforms are named accordingly, because they only represent the interests of the advertiser. DSPs areincentivized to only buy the impressions that matter and to buy them at the best possible price. They represent you. Not themarket or their inventory.A good DSP is going to be upfront with you about cost. It will create more value than it costs, and it is the best way to grabthe lowest hanging fruit in online advertising - RTB remarketing.Social Media ROI Remains a High Priority for Marketersby Erik Sass,Coming to grips with the return-on-investment from social media marketing is a high priority for marketers, according to asurvey of 362 marketing executives by Lenskold Group -- but that doesn’t mean they’re confident in their ability to do so.Overall 77% of marketers are using social media to promote their business, a proportion that holds true across businesseslarge and small, Lenskold found. Within this group, 55% (42% of the total sample) said they considered measurement of socialmedia efforts to be a high priority. The most popular reason, cited by 65% of marketers who said it’s a high priority (or 27.5%of the total sample) was the need to improve effectiveness, while 59% (25% of the total sample) said they ―need to improveintegration with other marketing.‖Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 125

Among the 45% who said measuring social media is not a high priority, 39% (17.6% of the total sample) said it’s because theyare ―still testing and experimenting on a small scale.‖ Meanwhile 18% said it’s because their social media budget is too low towarrant measurement, 9% said it’s because management doesn’t ask for measurement, and 8% said because they don’t thinkthe right tools for measurement exist.However, even among those who make it a high priority, confidence in ability to measure social media effectively is fairlylow: just 19% of respondents who say it’s a high priority said they felt they had a strong ability to measure ROI, and 18% saidthey can measure incremental sales from social media marketing. That compares to 43% who said they feel confident in theirability to measure engagement or participation, and 32% who said they can measure prospects or leads generated.3 Online Advertising Trends To Watch In 12by Cella M. IrvineIt’s that time of year again, when people like me hold forth on where we’ve been as an industry this past year, and wherewe’re headed. When you think about it, of course, it’s a little silly to assume that come Jan. 1, the focus of a whole industrysuddenly shifts at midnight when the ball drops. In my mind, the key themes and issues for digital advertising in 2012 look alot like the ones we grappled with in 2011. The same things that excited us about digital in 2011 will see us into the new year.But, technology evolves at a breakneck pace these days, and with every new capability comes a new opportunity to engage.After all, delivering good advertising (and by ―good,‖ I mean relevant) is really about harnessing a moment. It’s aboutharnessing the user’s intent at the very instant he’s looking for information, looking to find an answer, or looking to solve aproblem. We’re all at our most receptive to advertising when it’s consistent with what’s on our mind at a given time. Andtechnology allows us to understand what’s on the user’s mind and match it with a relevant message from an advertiser.Making that connection – on every platform and in every context – will continue to drive the direction of digital advertising inthe coming year.There are other macro-level dynamics at work here, too.SOCIAL ON THE RISE: Audiences are changing, for good: The so-called ―digital natives‖ are growing up fast, and we need tochange our approach to engaging them. This generation’s social-media adoption is broad and deep. Digital natives turn tofriends and family as a primary source of authority, and call for transparency after witnessing a great deal of corporate andinstitutional incompetence and corruption (think Enron, Tyco, etc.). Digital-native consumers will expect that what is of mostvalue to them will come to them, from friends or networks, rather than from sources they search out. As a result of this shift,social-media ad revenues have skyrocketed, and are predicted to reach $8 billion next year. But if brands want to make thatmoney really work for them, they can’t just throw any old social-media strategy to the wall and see what sticks. They neednew ad formats that push those Facebook pages and Twitter feeds to consumers in a relevant context, as opposed to pullingthem away to social sites. In the right context, social can work with content to add significant value for the consumer, ratherthan eliciting useless ―Likes‖ that advertisers struggle to monetize.VIDEO IS ROLLING: As they say, when you’re looking for answers, you should always ―follow the money,‖ and that definitelyholds true in advertising. If your first stop on the money trail is social, then video is close behind. Video – beyond pre-roll andin-stream – is dynamically innovating our space. In 2011, we have seen online video emerge as the fastest-growing digital adformat. In 2012, we will see online video that is more creative, engaging, and useful. Advertisers are no longer simply takingwhat works on TV and placing it online. We are seeing a revolution in video, with more creative content coming directly fromusers, which helps brands develop a more meaningful engagement with consumers. At Vibrant, our approach is bringing sight,sound and motion together to deliver an immersive, user-initiated experience that is delivering compelling results foradvertisers.SMARTER ANALYTICS: Behind the scenes, as ads grow more dynamic and multifunctional every day, marketers who need todemonstrate ROI continue the search for better metrics. After all, the best campaigns are interactive, offering users utility andentertainment via search boxes, news tickers, and gaming portals. So advertisers are looking more closely at userbehavior with pre- and post-click data that gives them more mileage from their campaigns. Finally, we’re seeing a burst ofnew technologies that can more clearly measure reader engagement and retention, and I think there will be a continuedinterest in gathering and analyzing data that can go beyond CTRs and counting clicks. With these results available, we will seethat all content is not created equal, and that despite the recent increase of volume of content, results will come fromplacements in better quality environments.Social, video, and measurement: That’s what I think 2012 will be about. These elements played an important role in what we’vedone in 2011 and drive the direction of the innovation and creative possibilities digital advertising is capable of achieving inthe coming year. And we’ll be using technology to connect with consumers in better, more relevant, more sophisticated waysthat serve both advertisers and consumers.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 126

More QR Codes In Store (And Elsewhere) For 12by Aaron BaarGet used to seeing more of those QR codes on product packaging, advertisements and everywhere else.According to a new survey of more than 500 marketers commissioned by AT&T, 88% plan to increase their mobile marketingprograms over the next year, with mobile apps (those appearing on smartphones) and mobile barcodes topping the list ofstrategies they’re interested in deploying. (Only a little more than half are currently using them as part of their mobilestrategy.)The main driver among marketers to adopt QR codes into their mobile strategy is consumer engagement, says Mobeen Khan,chief marketing officer and executive director of AT&T Mobility Solutions. ―What a barcode allows you to do is connect thatoffline world to the online world,‖ Khan tells Marketing Daily. ―As soon as the consumer scans that barcode, you’re getting anengagement.‖At the same time, several other factors also contribute to a rising interest among marketers for barcodes, Khan says. First isthe rapid adoption of tablets and smartphones among consumers. At the same time, consumer understanding and acceptanceof such codes is increasing. And finally, marketers are beginning to understand how to make the experience richer forconsumers.―The consumer usage was not very thoughtful in early campaigns and it pushed the initial users off,‖ Khan says. ―Now we areat a point where companies are educating the market about what is a good experience and what are the best practices.‖Moreover, two-thirds of respondents said they expected mobile barcodes to drive the innovation in overall mobile marketingnext year, and 80% said they believe the tactic can increase brand awareness and customer engagement. The biggest factorsto consider when creating these programs: consumer demand, security and cost. But what it all comes down to in the end,Khan says, is the value of the consumer experience.―The consumers are engaging a lot more with these barcodes,‖ he says. ―If the consumer experience is good, you are morethan likely to use the scanner more and more for other products and other engagements than if you had a real badexperience.‖Goodbye QR Codes, Hello Near Field Communication?by Tim SupplesAnother day, another technology being called ―THE‖ thing to have this year. Discussion around Near Field Communication (NFC)technology in smartphones has been bubbling for months if not years, coming to a head recently with Google’s officialsupport of NFC and their dropping of QR code support in the Google Places service.NFC has the potential to be very useful for marketing and engagement, but is it all that different from existing solutions?What is NFC?Near Field Communication is a short range wireless technology that is based around a passive, non-powered source and an―initiator‖ device (i.e. your smartphone). The passive device is very similar to RFID, containing ultra-slim circuitry that isactually powered by the radio frequency field of your NFC-enabled smartphone.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 127

When your smartphone is placed within 2 inches of an NFC-tagged item, such as a sticker or poster, the NFC technology in yourphone reads information from the item. From there, the possibilities are endless and only limited by the services that chooseto integrate NFC capabilities.What can be done with NFC right now?The big application that everyone is watching is mobile payments. With properly secured applications, you could purchasespecific items or even pay at the register as normal just by waving your smartphone at a special pad or sticker. This hasobvious benefits at a tradeshow or other type of event, providing a possible counterpart or even replacement to theSquaremobile payment system I previously wrote about.Google is hard at work creating infrastructure to support NFC use. They are working with VeriFone to test NFC mobile paymentin New York and San Francisco. NFC tags have also replaced QR codes in their small business marketing kits, which are builtaround Google’s Places service that is integrated into every Google product (Search, Maps, etc).Beyond the payment infrastructure and casual information transfer, NFC doesn’t have many practical marketing applicationsalready created. The challenge is that this technology is just hitting mainstream and it seems most are still figuring out whatto do with it, if anything. This means that if you want to do something with NFC beyond a web URL or other simple information,you’ll need to develop your own mobile software applications to suit your use case.How is this different from using QR codes for marketing?NFC offers many of the same capabilities that QR codes do, primarily centered around embedding important information like aweb address or other pertinent text. This isn’t just limited to your www.yourwebsite.com though, as the creative ones will findmore engaging uses.These can be a URL that leads to a special discount page, a unique YouTube video designed just for the customers who scanthat code, or any number of other engaging tactics. Due to how the phone ―collects‖ these tags for reference later, a―scavenger hunt‖ type activity would lend itself well to NFC.For marketing purposes, the difference between QR codes and NFC comes down to usability. If you hadn’t seen it yet, Icoveredall about QR codes extensively in a previous post. As noted there, one of the roadblocks to QR code usage is publicknowledge about how to use a QR code and the software needed on their smartphone.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 128

NFC removes most of that barrier. An NFC-enabled phone has the capability to react automatically to an NFC tag, with nomanual action required by the user. However, users can choose to disable NFC and it is possible not all phones will have NFCenabled out of the box, so this is still not a truly seamless experience. Check out the video below for an idea of how NFCworks in application.The ChallengesWhile NFC is easier to use than QR codes, the general public will still largely be unaware of what it is or how to use it. You’restill going to have to have a little flyer in place at least telling people what to do, and include a ―Works with NEWsmartphones‖ disclaimer.On that note, it is also important to mention that there are very few smartphones out currently with NFC technology. TheSamsung Nexus S, designed closely with Google, is the prime example and more are expected later this year and in 2012. It isalso unknown if the ever popular iPhone will get NFC in its next update.How to get startedSo you’ve decided that you want to give NFC a shot and you understand the basics of how it all works. To get started youneed NFC tags, a device capable of programming the NFC tags, and the software necessary to program the tags. There are ahandful of options for this, but again this is a new technology for personal use and its accessibility will change over time.Our friends at ReadWriteWeb recently put together a post on how to write your own NFC tags, with lots of great resources. Apopular vendor noted there istouchatag, who offers a few different NFC packages in their store to get you started as well.Either of these should work for most people’s needs, but if you come across another option or even a marketing firm thatoffers NFC as part of their services, drop us a comment!How are you going to use NFC?Now that you’re up to speed on NFC, how do you plan to incorporate this into your marketing, if at all? What are you excited orconcerned about regarding NFC? Leave us a comment!Andy SchichterDo you think companies who use QR codes in advertisements will switch to NFC in the near future? With all the time andmoney they’ve spent investing in QR codes, I’m not so sure they will be willing to jump ship just yet. Also, like you said peopledon’t really know NFC, and QR codes are just becoming accepted by the masses. I think QR codes will be around for a while, butman does NFC look cool!Interesting… I’d be interested to see if there are costs associated with creating a printable item with NFC capability, andinterested to see if the NFC scanning tech is open-source or not – both will have significant impact on the adoption rate ofusers and app developers.Like QR Codes, there’s going to be a cool-down period for some time before people get familiar with this, I’d give it 3 yearsbefore NFC becomes cost-effective as an option for corporate marketing spend.All 3 have their uses and functions.The main differentiator with NFC and RFIC is that both parties need equipment, plus proximity to one another. It removes thelearning curve but not the adaptation curve.With QR Codes, the recipient would need the app and a smartphone and a little know-how, but no additional equipment andcan read the code from far away if they can get a good focus on it. It removes a level of physical requirements but not thelearning curve or the adaptation curve.It just depends on the needs of the activity, really. It does seem like NFC and RFID need more investment than QR codes, whichuses the web and not chips.This post was not plagiarized, by the way. Both posts the anonymous commenter mentioned were properly written andreferenced. You can check this on http://www.plagiarismchecker.com/Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 129

Andy – I think QR codes are still better suited for general advertising. QR codes can be put on anything, anywhere and as longas your phone’s camera can snap the whole code, it works! With NFC, you obviously have to be up close and its best suited forinteractive situations.Reuben – There are definitely costs with creating NFC, more than QR codes (since anyone with a printer can create a QR code).Though, as you see in some of the links in my article, the cost of the NFC tag kits isn’t bad. And as NFC becomes moremainstream, the costs will drop of course.I’m not sure if you would categorize NFC as open source. Anyone with the right skills can develop mobile apps that use the NFCcapabilities in a phone, which should include programming NFC tags.Emily – thanks for the comment!For those interested in NFC, here’s an article with some information from Google’s annual trade conference called I/O.http://androidandme.com/2011/05/news/google-will-take-nfc-to-the-next-level-with-ice-cream-sandwich/Good article, and we agree. NFC is very likely to replace QR codes in the few years. We just published an article about it inrelation to the advertising and digital out-of-home space. Here’s the link if you’re interested in learning more:http://www.screenmediadaily.com/marketing-near-field-mobile-communication-nfc-nxp-digital-signage-out-of-home-place-based-media-advertising-bilboards-posters-0629908.shtmlImplementing Digital Is a PhilosophyAugustine FouBack in March, I wrote a column called "Digital Is a Philosophy" to introduce the concept. Over the subsequent months, clientsand students have asked me about how to make that philosophy real and actually implement it. So I have paraphrased a fewquestions and collected some of my responses together below.1. What does "Digital Is a Philosophy" mean? Historically, we defined "digital" as the online channel or online marketing tactics.This was fine. But because of it, marketers have distinguished between it and the offline channel and between digital tacticsand traditional advertising tactics. "Digital" has always been the "poor stepchild" to traditional brand advertising in terms ofthe large disparity in the funds allocated; most large advertisers still spend the vast majority of their marketing dollars in"traditional" ways (see "The Grand Digital Canyon")."Digital Is a Philosophy" means that instead of thinking of digital as the channel, we think of it as a set of guiding principlesthat can help make all advertising and marketing better, no matter if they are offline or online. These insights are derivedfrom modern users needs, habits, and expectations, as evidenced by their actions in digital channels. Users are empoweredwith information; they have access to information at all times; and they can consult peers and independent experts to informtheir own purchase decisions. In this way, the balance of power has drastically shifted away from the advertiser to thewould-be customer. These changes necessitate changes to the way advertising is done - "push" ads no longer work and areno longer tolerated by users. They "pull" for the information when they want it. So by defining "digital" differently - not as theonline channel but as a "philosophy" - we can use the insights and guiding principles to make all advertising better.2. A top digital challenge is measurement and ROI. How does this philosophy help? Digital is inherently and beautifullymeasurable. Compared to the one-way forms of media such as TV, print, and radio, digital provides instant feedback loops -like when people click on a banner ad, type in a search, or share something on social networks. There are lots more things tomeasure and these metrics are based on what users actually do. This contrasts with the metrics of traditional advertising,which have to do with how far and wide the ad was supposedly broadcast - i.e., "reach and frequency." "Digital Is a Philosophy"implies a focus on the user and the actions they take, especially in relation to advertisers ads or marketing activities. Forexample, do users actually go online to search for more information after they get inspired by a TV ad? Do they actually buysomething? Do they tell their friends about a product they love? These are all detectable in digital channels.These metrics also correlate to return on investment (ROI). They may not necessarily be able to specify exact, absolute ROI,but they can provide relative ROI. Did one marketing activity drive more of the desired consumer actions than another? If so, itdelivered better relative ROI. These metrics are also what I would call "hard" metrics - e.g., clicks, click-through rates, numberof visits to the website, etc. - versus "soft" metrics - e.g., brand favorability or perception. These metrics can be the unifyingway to gauge the effectiveness of marketing tactics no matter online or offline because modern users will go online to doadditional research no matter what ad or channel inspired them to do so. Digital is a philosophy means a focus on useractions and these actions are the metrics that can be used to gauge the relative ROI of marketing activities across allchannels.3. How do we convince "finance" to shift more dollars to "digital"? Finance will obviously be focused on ROI and metrics. Thekey is to introduce a new set of metrics, like we said above, and show how they correlate to business impact and ROI. In thepast, it was sufficient to cite just reach and frequency because if the ad got shown to more people more often, there usuallywas a lift in sales. However, today, due to oversaturation of ads and modern users ignoring all "interruption media," justshowing the ads more frequently does not necessarily translate into any business impact (see "Facebook Ad Metrics andBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 130

Benchmarks"). However, if we focus on the actions of the users - e.g., did they go search for more information about yourproduct after seeing an ad - then we can draw a much more direct correlation between the marketing activity and thepotential business impact - users going to make the purchase. And we can compare the relative impact of various marketingtactics, no matter what channel. Once we can compare the impact of various marketing tactics in an apples-to-apple way,finance will easily be able to shift spend among the tactics to the ones that are driving the greatest ROI.4. Weve got a lot of "digital" activities already going on. But they dont seem to work together and were not really seeingnoticeable results yet. What do we do? The other benefit of "Digital Is a Philosophy" is that you can now look across all tacticsand all channels and compare their relative business impact and ROI based on the common metric of user actions. It alsoimplies a focus on the needs of the customer - what information do they need, what are they searching for, where are theygetting the information they need, etc. These needs (see "Missing Link Marketing") are also readily revealed through theiractions in digital channels. For example, are the customers not aware of the product or service? In most cases, they areaware. There is something else further down the purchase funnel that is keeping them from moving all the way down to thepurchase. Once these "missing links" have been determined, the advertiser can plot these needs on the Unified Marketingframework and also plot their marketing activities. This will reveal whether there are redundant marketing activities orwhether there are gaps and opportunities. In this way, when you look across all marketing tactics and channels and have away to not only determine what activities are needed, what are redundant, and also which are most impactful, you will havea way to synergize your marketing activities and optimize until you see noticeable impact.How to Know When You Should Advertise to Tablet UsersHowie Jacobson,New data suggests that tablet computers are changing the way we search, shop, and play online. If you advertise on AdWords,more and more of your prospects will be finding you via iPads and other tablets. To reach and influence these prospects, youneed to understand when, where and how they use the Internet - and adjust your advertising strategies to accommodatethem.Device Search Volume by Time of DayGoogle search data released in September, 2011 shows that search volume on smartphones, tablets, and desktop computersvaries by time of day. As tablets gain in popularity to become our "third screen", our browsing habits on smartphones anddesktops shifts to accommodate the new medium.Desktops are used predominantly during business hours. Usage rises at 9am and falls at 6pm, with a small spike around 8pm.Smartphone usage increases throughout the day, spiking during the morning and evening commute and in the evening. Tabletsget a rest during the day, but are used intensively in the evening.Tablet Usage StudyThe Google Mobile Ads team then conducted and reported the results of a 2-week-long diary study that explored how, when,and where users interacted with their tablets. The unsurprising punch line: tablets are overwhelmingly for for personal use.But thats not the only difference. Tablets appear to be the ultimate multi-task device, with over 40% of tablet use coincidingwith some other activity like watching TV, cooking, eating, and even getting dressed (thankfully, the published study did notget into personal hygiene or amorous activities).During the week, tablet use tends to be "short burst"; checking email, playing a game, and watching YouTube "video snacks", toborrow Vidsense.com CEO Jaffer Alis memorable phrase. On weekends, the activities expand to fit the larger chunks of freetime: watching whole movies and TV shows.Tablets are not as mobile as mobile phones outside the home; most respondents report leaving their tablets at home whenthey go to work (tablets do go on vacations and business trips, however).Within the home, tablets seem to follow us everywhere; the couch, the kitchen, the table, the bedroom. Respondents listen tomusic and search (for recipes?) in the kitchen. They check email on the couch and in bed, and Facebook everywhere but thekitchen.More and more consumers are using tablets as "real world interface devices"; browsing and shopping online, searching forlocal businesses, and managing finances. Almost 20% of tablet-based activities are also carried out on desktops andsmartphones, suggesting that the search funnel has just become hyper-dimensional. A consumer might begin browsing ontheir desktop and complete the purchase on their tablet in the privacy and convenience of their living room.Implications for Search MarketingIf you advertise on Google, assume that your prospects are seeing your ads on tablets as well as desktops and phones. Ifyoure running campaigns according to Googles default settings, youre already showing ads on all three devices so you cansee actual data for each device.From the All Campaigns view in AdWords, click the Segment button and select Device from the drop-down list:Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 131

Now you can see the data for each campaign broken out by device type. In the screenshot below, the campaign is targetingdesktops and tablets, but not smartphones:While there are many fewer searches and clicks, the CTR from tablet traffic is twice as high as that from desktops, while theconversion rate is about one third lower. This advertiser might examine their landing page on a tablet, looking for clues andideas about how to improve the conversion rate for those visitors.Separate Campaigns by DeviceIf youre seeing significant traffic from tablet users, you should create a separate campaign just for that device. Heres why:your landing page may work for desktops but not tablets. Or your ads may be too attractive to tablet users, therebydelivering unqualified prospects to your landing page. Either way, you need the ability to tweak your campaign for eachtraffic stream separately.Bid by DeviceOnce youve separated your traffic streams, you can now raise or lower bids by device as well as keyword or placement. Inthe screenshot above, suppose the value of a conversion were £2.50. The desktop traffic comes in lower, at £2.17, but thetablet traffic is too expensive, at £3.12 per conversion. While you tweak ads and landing pages, you should lower the CPC bidso that each click approaches break-even ROI. Your ads will appear lower on the page, perhaps in position 5 or 6 instead ofposition 2.4, while you experiment to raise the quality of your traffic/conversion funnel.Create Ads and Landing Pages Based on ContextWhen I write a search ad, I visualize my prospect during the seven seconds leading up to their search. In the past, I saw themat their computer: wanting, worrying, wondering. Now, in the age of the iPad, I need to expand the range of my imagination. Ismy prospect sitting on the couch watching Glee on Hulu, wondering if Brittanys lion hat is available from Hot Topic? Or havethey just tapped away from a Facebook chat about last nights episode to do the search??Can you see how putting yourself in your prospects shoes (or slippers) can help you craft much more relevant ads andlanding pages?Also, consider your prospects time frame. Tablets are multitask machines; you may have less time to get and keep theirattention even than on a desktop. And the ad that does catch their eye and the landing page that turns attention into interestand action may have to be more interactive and casual than if you were appealing to desktop users.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 132

Study Time Dimensions to Optimize Your CampaignsFinally, given what we know about device usage by time of day and day of the week, you can see how those variables affectcampaign performance in the AdWords dimensions tab. You may find that some campaigns should be turned off at certaintimes, while others should have their bids lowered or raised to achieve maximum ROI.While the Google search volume data and tablet diary study are fascinating and useful as starting points, you should makethese decisions based solely on the real results in your own AdWords account. In my next article, Ill dive into the dimensionstab and day parting in detail.Digital Is a Philosophy: A New Looking Glass for Common Digital TacticsAugustine Fou | Contact AugustineFollowing last months column on "Implementing Digital Is a Philosophy," lets explore how "digital" can also provide a newperspective on various digital tactics that are widely used today.Search Marketing to Search as ResearchInstead of thinking of search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) as just other ways of driving moretraffic to your website, what if we thought of "search as research"? See the charts and examples here: Search As Research.The keyword "chocolate covered cherries" has the most search volume around Christmas while "chocolate coveredstrawberries" has the most searches around Valentines Day. This can inform demand planning and product manufacturing fora company like Godiva. @GlennGabe shared another interesting example where "baby bedding" has more than 16 times thesearch volume of "infant bedding." By selecting the right synonym, the site enabled a lot more of the right customers to findtheir products. Finally, looking at Google related search or Google Instant, users can see what others are searching for, foreach keyword or phrase. These insights can not only help in content creation or tailoring marketing messages, but can alsoprovide continuous customer research as these searches evolve over time to reflect the information needs of targetcustomers.Social Media Marketing to Social AmplificationInstead of thinking of social media sites as another place to shout your brand message at people and their friends, what if wethought of it as "social amplification"? If you have a good product and there is a reason for people to talk about you - e.g., acompetitive difference or competitive advantage - then they may talk about you. Obviously, its well proven that brandsshouldnt manipulate people to talk about them or pay people to do so. And further, they will probably not use the words youwant them to use (i.e., approved brand terms). But good or bad, they will talk about you. And when they talk about you insocial media, it sticks and will be visible to all. Think about the positive examples of JetBlue amplifying its launch of#AllYouCanJetPass on Twitter and Netflix getting feedback from its 2.1 million fans on Facebook; or think about the negativeexamples of "Motrin moms" or "Dominos."Social amplification goes well beyond just the typical social media sites du jour. Positive reviews of Canons digital camerason Amazon will continue to pay dividends for Canon whether or not it has any marketing campaign going on. Positive reviewson Yelp help new diners discover a restaurant even if it had no marketing budget. So instead of just sticking banner ads onFacebook, what if the restaurant politely asked for reviews, which then become permanent, indexed by search engines, andprovide continuous free, "marketing-like" benefits to the restaurant?Mobile Marketing to Universal Access and AdvocacyInstead of thinking of mobile marketing as a way to spam people 24/7 just because they have their mobile devices with themat all times, what if we thought of it as a way to serve customers wherever and whenever they need it? And in doing so, earntheir advocacy. Mobile marketing has been one of the fastest growing areas of digital marketing. But too many advertisersare still thinking of it as a way to push out mobile display ads or SMS marketing messages. The problem is that manyconsumers see these tactics as even more of an invasion of privacy - e.g., when they get an unsolicited text message to theircellphones, even if its from a vendor they already buy from.What if a manufacturer of a home theatre system provided something useful like a "how-to video" that was properly searchengine-optimized and also optimized for mobile devices. A user standing in a store might find that video via their mobiledevice and decide to buy one system over another similar one because the useful video showed them how to install and wireit up properly. Finally, when users check in (e.g., on Foursquare) at their favorite restaurant or update their status with a ravereview of it, their friends and others who follow them may become aware of the restaurant where other forms of marketingmay not have reached them. And further, if the poster is respected as a foodie who knows the best restaurants, thosefollowers may even put that restaurant in their consideration set right away. Few ads these days have that kind of power.If loyalty and advocacy can impact the awareness and even the consideration of new potential customers, then we can eventurn the typically linear purchase funnel into a cycle -- see the chart "Unified Marketing Framework." The mobile devices thatenable modern users to be always connected, always informed, and always on can now play a significant role in drivingawareness that even the most targeted push ads cannot.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 133

ConclusionGiven how the landscape has been changed by digital and how modern users habits and expectations have been permanentlychanged as well, its worth taking a fresh look at the above marketing tactics and seeing how you would do them differentlyif you thought about it from this new perspective.Brands face "big data" testNEW YORK: Many brand owners are struggling to make the maximum use of "big data", but firms like Unilever, General Electricand AstraZeneca are rapidly developing their capabilities in this area.EMC, the consultancy, partnered with Toluna Research and Kaggle to poll 497 data scientists and business intelligenceprofessionals in China, France, Germany, India, the UK and US.Just one third of the companies represented were perceived as effectively leveraging the array of information availableacross digital platforms to implement better decisions.Unilever, the FMCG giant, recently formed a tie-up with Capgemini, the consultancy, covering global business intelligence. Thisdeal includes the creation of an "Enterprise Data Warehouse" offering real-time data on its customers, markets andoperations."This programme is one of our top strategic initiatives," Willem Eelman, Unilevers global chief information officer, said. "It willtransform the way our businesses around the world access and use information, bringing enhanced insight and consistency."Only 38% of EMCs interviewees "strongly agreed" that their firm draws on big data to learn about consumers, and an evenmore modest 17% concurred that all employees could run experiments on the material accrued."Part of the duty of a data scientist is to promote the data-driven culture," said Monica Rogati, senior data scientist atLinkedIn. "The way to do that is by exposing the data and making it relevant to everyone in the company, and showing themwhat you can do with it."While 37% of the survey panel "very frequently" worked alongside business management, figures fell to 31% for marketingteams, 29% concerning sales departments and 28% for strategic planners.General Electric, the conglomerate, has been building company-wide tools providing staff with greater capabilities, but alsounderstands the potential risks."Security has become more important … Were attacked every day, as is everybody," said Greg Simpson, GEs chief technologyofficer. "We do use external services - for example, we use external chat services from Cisco. But there is a certain type ofdata were not comfortable putting in the cloud."When discussing barriers to progress, a shortage of skills and training posted 32% among EMCs panel, the same score as alack of resources, while 14% of those questioned blamed sub-optimal organisational structures.In a bid to expand its strengths in this discipline, AstraZeneca, the pharma firm, has allied with HealthCore, part of Wellpoint,an approach yielding mutual benefits."By working together, we all get access to a broader, richer data environment, and we can work together on creating state-of-the-art access tools and real-world methodologies," said Mark Lelinski, AstraZenecas VP, global marketing.Google Adds Graphical Math Calculator To Search ResultsBarry SchwartzGoogle announced their answer to Wolfram Alpha‘s advanced math skills with math graphing functionality on Google searchresults.All you need to do is type basic and complex math functions into the Google search box and Google will return neat graphics.From basic charts for sin(x) to more complex graphs for x/2, (x/2)^2, ln(x), cos(pi*x/5).Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 134

Of course, Google gets their ‘geek on’ by showing off their math skills:Did I mention you can zoom into these charts?This is Google’s graphical calculator, right on the search page.The 20 Best New Startups Of 20111/21 Simple wants to get rid of bank fees altogether and become a whole new mobile bank.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 135

Founders: Alex Payne, Josh Reich and Shamir KarkalFunding: Raised $10 million in August and has raised ~$13 million to date.What it is: People keep their money in more than one place and they get charged a lot of money by every bank. Simple(formerly called BankSimple) wants to merge all accounts into one and do away with fees by splitting the net interestbetween all of the banks involved.Its partnering with Visa to create one, ultimate credit card that connects to all of its partner banks and 40,000 fee-free ATMsIt opened its beta a few weeks ago and will officially launch in 2012.Lytro raised $50 million pre-launch to make the first "shoot now, focus later" cameraImage: LytroFounder: Dr. Ren NgFunding: $50 million from Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock Partners, NEA and K9 Ventures, and other angelsWhat it is: Lytro is the first light field camera that allows you to "shoot now and focus later."Heres how it works: 1) Take a picture 2) Upload it 3) Click on a blurry section that youd like to highlight 4) Watch the imageinstantly shift focus from 2D to 3D.Try it out. Click on different parts of the tree below to focus on different areasBetterworks raised a round at a $100 million valuation to create an employee rewards network for small businessesFounders: Paige Craig and Sizhao "Zao" YangFunding: $8 million from Redpoint VenturesWhat it is: Betterworks is an employee rewards network for small businesses. Instead of having to scout out great deals foremployees, small businesses and startups can use BetterWorks to offer their staff deals at local gyms, restaurants and more.BetterWorks secures the partnerships, and all employees in its network can buy the deals, no matter which small businessthey work for or how many of their fellow employees sign up.Zaarly launched at Startup Weekend LA earlier this year. It raised $14 million so anyone can hire a minion or sell things toneighborsBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 136

Ian Hunter, Bo Fishback and Eric Koester cofounded ZaarlyImage: ZaarlyFounders: Eric Koester, Bo Fishback, Ian HunterFunding: $1 million seed round, $14.1 million Series A from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sands Capital Ventures, AshtonKutcher, SV Angel, CMEA, Venture51, Crunchfund, Mark Ecko, and Artists and InstigatorWhat it is: Zaarly is a local marketplace for real-time requests. Need chips at your party in five minutes? Find a neighbor onZaarly who will do it now. Think Craigslist meets Twitter.Turntable.fm raised $7 million this summer so users could DJ and listen to music in chat rooms with friendsFounders: Seth Goldstein, Billy ChasenFunding: $7 million led by Union Square VenturesWhat it is: Turntable.fm is a way to listen to music online with groups of people. Users can join chat rooms and battle tobecome a DJ in a socially-integrated experience.Oink is a new app from Digg founder Kevin Rose that already has 100,000 users.Founder: Kevin RoseFunding: Parent company Milk raised $1.5 million from angel investorsWhat it is: Oink is a recommendation app that lets you rate items at the venues you visit, like hamburgers and coffees.For more information, heres a walkthrough of Oink.General Assembly opened up a startup school in NYC earlier this year and it just announced another campus in London.Image: Dan Frommer, Business InsiderBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 137

Founders: Adam Pritzker, Jake Schwartz, Brad Hargreaves, and Matt BrimerFunding: $4.25 million plus other unattributed amounts from Yuri Milner and othersWhat it is: General Assembly is a school for entrepreneurs with courses taught by the community and cheap desks to rentoffice space.The founders believe school is important but feel traditional universities arent training students to succeed in the 21stcentury. Prtizker says General Assembly fills that void by focusing on collaboration and innovation instead of lectures.―People always talk about Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg all dropping out [of university]. The reality is they allthought of those ideas in college,‖ Pritzker tells Financial Times.Giftly is a way for anyone to buy a gift card to any store in the world, even ones that arent nearby.Founder: Tim BentleyFunding: Giftly has a few million in funding; Thrive Capital and Dave Tisch are investorsWhat it is: Giftly offers a way for anyone to buy a gift card to any store in the world, even ones that arent nearby.Gift cards are designed by the gifter and sent via email. The recipient opens the email and unlocks the payment when theyrein the store. Money (a refund for the purchase) is sent to his or her bank account.GetAround is like Airbnb for cars. Rent your vehicles to neighbors when youre not using themFounders: Elliot Kroo and Jessica ScorpioFunding: $3.4 million from CrunchFund, Netflix founder Marc Randolph, Time Warner’s largest shareholder Vivi Nevo, RedpointVentures, and others.What it is: Car rental service for you and your neighbors. Rent cars from each other instead of from Hertz.Skillshare turns any place into a classroom and turns anyone into a teacherBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 138

Michael-Karnjanaprakorn, SkillShare cofounderFounders: Mike Karnjanaprakorn and Malcolm OngFunding: $3.1 million round from Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital.What it is: Skillshare is a way to learn anything from anyone. People post what they want to teach on Skillshare and then finda venue. Other Skillshare users can sign up to attend the course and pay for tickets.Fab is a flash sales site for design and home decor. It launched six months ago and already has 1,000,000 registered usersFounders: Jason Goldberg and Bradford ShellhammerFunding: $11.3 million to date; raised $7.7 million in AugustWhat it is: Fab is a flash sales design and home decor site. It has scaled quickly with smart marketing and a viral invitescheme. The members-only site asks you to invite three friends before giving you access to its sales.It sells really unique things too, like iPhone covers made from newspaper clippings.Codecademy is a fun, easy way to learn basic JavaScript onlineFounders: Zach Sims and Ryan BubinskiFunding: $2.5 million led by Union Square VenturesWhat it is: An online programming tutorial. Its an easy way to learn JavaScript, starting with the spelling of your name.Sphero is a robotic ball that can be controlled by your phoneFounders: Adam Wilson and Ian BernsteinFunding: Parent company Orbotix has raised $6 millionBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 139

What it is: "Its the size of a tennis ball with a little robot inside that can be guided around," explains Foundry Groups BradFeld. "Its fabulous for dogs and cats. Give it to an eight-year-old boy or girl and they wont let go of it. You can imagine themilitary applications for something like that too."Goodsie is one of the easiest, cheapest ways to create a good-looking e-commerce siteImage: Valerie Caviness PhotographyFounders: Jonathan Marcus, David Marcus, and Jack ZerbyFunding: $3 Million+ in funding led by Alex Zubillaga of the Rhone Group. Additional angel investors include Dave Morin of Path,David Tisch of TechStars, Vimeo founder Jake Lodwick, Joey Levin of Mindspark, and John Foley of Barnes & Noble.What it is: An incredibly easy to use e-commerce site. Goodsie makes setting up stores very similar to setting up Wordpressblogs.Users choose from multiple layout options, color pallets, background patterns, and typography without ever having to muck incode.After writing about Goodsies launch, I tried the service myself. Within a week I shut down my Yahoo e-commerce siteand switched to Goodsie instead. The site looks better and is much easier to manage now.Chloe + Isabel turns all of its users into mini jewelry entrepreneursChantel Waterbury is the foudner of Chloe + IsabelFounders: Chantel WaterburyFunding: $8.5 million Series A round led by General Catalyst Partners. First Round Capitaland other Chloe + Isabel seedinvestors participated.What it is: Chloe + Isabel is a jewelry startup that turns each of its users into mini entrepreneurs.Users are encouraged to sell the Chloe + Isabel jewelry lines to friends and at house parties. Chloe + Isabel designs andcreates the jewelry, provides online training for its users/salespeople, gives them marketing tools and helps them build e-boutiques.SoJo Studios is like Zynga for the real world; it partners with charities. Plant a tree in the game and youll plant a tree in reallife.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 140

Founder: Lincoln BrownFunding: $8 million; Ellen DeGeneres is an investor; so is at least one other A-list celebrity. Warner Brothers is affiliated withSoJo Studios; Ester Dyson and Dave Morinare on its advisory team.What it is: SoJo stands for Social Joy. Browns mission is to get people to play online games that actually impact the realworld. In Zyngas games, users build fake farms and landscapes. In SoJos WeTopia, most actions have some sort of real world,charity-driven effect.Instead of virtual currency, SoJos users earn Joy and they can spend it on projects like planting trees or giving schools cleanwater. Whenever Joy is spent on a project, SoJo gives one of its partnering charities money to accomplish the task, or asimilar task, in real life.Heres Ellen promoting it on her show (this advertorial crashed SoJos site):Warby Parker is taking on Luxottica. It sells designer and prescription glasses at discounted ratesImage: Warby ParkerFounders: David Gilboa, Neil Blumenthal, Andrew Hunt and Jeffrey RaiderFunding: $13.5 million total; $12 million Series A led by Tiger Global.What it is: Warby Parker is a prescription glasses online discount retailer. There are other online glasses retailers, butinvestors excitement for New York-based Warby Parker seems to stem from its early traction and the big industry it disrupts."Its an overnight sensation which is very attractive," says an investor. "It came out of the gate fast and hard and solves a realproblem. No one has been able to cut Luxottica [the force behind LensCrafters and Sunglass Hut] out of the market yet."WeWork Labs is a startup incubator in New York City that houses more than 50 entrepreneurs.Founders: Matt Shampine, Jesse Middleton, and Adam NeumannFunding: Backed by WeWork and some of its sponsors.What it is: WeWork Labs is New York Citys newest stomping grounds for aspiring entrepreneurs.For $250/month, founders and freelancers with backgrounds ranging from PR and marketing to IT and biz dev can rent desks.The founders hope sticking talented people in a room together for months at a time will lead to great new startups.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 141

The Verge just launched and its already breaking tech news storiesImage: The VergeFounders: Joshua Topolsky and Marty Moe in partnership with Vox Media and its CEO Jim BankoffFunding: Backed by Vox MediaWhat it is: The Verge is the newest, buzziest tech blog and its already breaking news. "The Verges mission is to offerbreaking news coverage and in-depth reporting, product information, and community content via a unified, modern platform."Kogeto Dot lets you shoot 360-degree videos with your iPhoneImage: KogetoFounders: Jeff Glasse and David SosnowFunding: Raised $120,514 on Kickstarter from 1,023 backersWhat it is: Kogeto has been around for a little bit, but it launched its latest, coolest gadget, Kogeto Dot, this year.Kogeto Dot lets iPhone users shoot 360 degree videos on their phones. Its the ultimate (and smallest) panoramic camera.Who Are the Top 10 Influencers in Social Media?Who are the top social media influencers? As the social web evolves rapidly it’s clear that some influencers have the samereach and pull as media outlets. Individuals matter in a way that’s never been possible before. I’ve been discussing withpersonal data specialists PeekYou how we can understand this phenomenon better. PeekYou’s mission is to render the webinto a gallery of identifiable people. So instead of those well known but mostly obscurenames out there, you start to get thereal measure of people. How influential are the people you deal with?PeekYou have created a ―social media audience‖ metric to help you find out. I will be using it to analyze what topicsinfluential people discuss. But here I want to discuss with you what the metric means and how it applies to a set of wellknown social media influencers.The social media audience metric measures people by the strength of their identifiable networks. It’s all about people, who inyour networks are identifiable, who in your followers is out there contributing and building their own networks?It can be used by brands to understand the pulling power of social media experts or by people to understand the scale andreach of their audience.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 142

Note in the table below (I’ll be posting more next week) the strong showing of Scott Monty, head of social at Ford. Anothernotable feature is the extent to which major social media figures are aligned or affiliated with a major outlet or platform, likeAnn Handley at MarketingProfs, Jason Falls at Social MediaExplorer, and Mari Smith, the Facebook marketing expert.There are different ways to assess reach and in the table you see it measured as ―pull‖. To quote PeekYou: Simply put, if anindividual has a Pull of 10x, that means that the audience the individual in question could reach is at least ten times greaterthan that of the average social media user.In other words, if someone with a Pull of 10x posted a Tweet, it would receive the same audience coverage as 10 averagepeople tweeting the same message.The essence of the pull metric however is a person’s identifiable audience – The Identified Consumer Count. You might note atthis stage that we are talking exclusively about a Twitter audience. The assumption is a blogger with pull can amplify his orher own message substantially through Twitter. But there are other factors, like Facebook followers, and we’ll come to those.A person’s identifiable audience is the number of people within a following who can actually be identified, that is they followsomeone, people follow them and they share information about themselves online. They are real.The audience is expressed as an absolute number and as a ratio.To quote PeekYou:The Consumer Ratio is the ratio of verifiable, addressable users to non-verifiable. The ―non‖ are identified in our reporting asfalling under one of three broad categories: Private consumers (people with private settings, whichPeekYou never indexes),businesses and other organizations (brands, corporate profiles, apps, charities, government agencies, etc.), and unidentifiedprofiles (either not connected to a real-world identity in any way, or spam bots).Are these consumers influential, and are these consumers’ followers listening?PeekAnalytics measures not only the size of the consumer audience, but their quality in terms of their network size, socialparticipation and their ability to spread a message further. In this table we’ve summarised pull, total audience, identifiedconsumer count, and consumer ratio.15 Ways to Bring Social Media to EventsBy Ekaterina WalterDo you host events or informal gatherings?Social media enables event attendees to connect in powerful ways. Social media can help promote events and empowerattendees to share.This article will reveal 15 ways you can infuse social media into your events.Creating Pre-Event Buzz#1: Registration BuzzYou don’t have to wait until the day of your event to create a buzz—it can start at the registration stage. Services suchas Eventbrite let your attendees share the event with their networks as they register.#2: Sharing BuzzEncourage your attendees to share details of your event early by offering incentives for spreading the word. MeteorSolutions helps you to incentivize your event by offering rewards for sharing your content.The Online Marketing Summit 2012 is offering the chance to win a free trip to San Diego by sharing their event.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 143

OMS is giving away a free trip to San Diego for spreading the word about the event.South by Southwest (SXSW) goes one step further with SXSocial, their own registrant tool which allows attendees to get toknow like-minded users and exchange messages before the event.The entire front page of the TEDx SoMa Event is dedicated to pre-registering and sharing information about the next event: alltheir blogs, Twitter feed, Facebook fans, Flickr and YouTube channels are up there to excite next year’s attendees, with yourattention directed towards the large ‘pre-register’ button. TEDxSoMa does a good job at highlighting their content socially, as well as the opportunities to share their content.Make sure all your event promotions include pre-agreed hashtags in prominent positions to encourage people to start usingthem early when they talk about your event. You don’t want two or three variations getting coined as it will be much harderto follow conversation threads.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 144

OMS features their events hashtag up front and center.Once you’ve got your speakers lined up you can include their profiles—and Twitter handles—on your website and otherpromotions, which will help your audience get to know them if they don’t already and even start suggesting questions andtopics that might help your speakers gauge the audience better.#3: Event-Shaping BuzzSXSW has always been active in asking attendees for their views to help shape events, with 30% of their programming chosenby attendees. Without going to these lengths, you can use PollDaddy and TwtPoll to conduct simple polls before your event. SXSW crowd is buzzing with excitement.#4: Rumor BuzzIn 2009 a rumor flew around Twitter that comedian Dave Chappell would be playing a secret midnight show at Portland’sPioneer Square. No-one was able to confirm or deny the rumor, so it just kept running until 5,000 people had showed up.Midnight came and went, and no Dave Chappell. Still, people kept arriving. Had the Twitter rumor just been a massive hoax? At1 am, just as everyone was starting to think they’d been victims of a Twitter con, Dave Chappell walked on stage andrewarded the crowd with an impromptu gig.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 145

Rumors of surprise special guests or exciting prizes can help to invigorate your event and get people talking. Crowd going crazy when the Dave Chappelle rumor is confirmed by his appearance.Keeping Attendees Informed#5: Use QR Codes for Ad-Hoc PresentationsNowadays it doesn’t matter how ad-hoc your event is. Even if it’s being held outside with no traditional conference facilities,you can use QR codes to share your presentation without a projector by uploading your presentation to Slideshare, thencreating a QR code that points to the presentation. Print an image of the code and anyone with a smartphone can scan it andgo straight to the presentation. Example of QR codes used to download a presentation.#6: Collect All of Your Speakers’ Blogs in One PlaceHow do you keep your attendees up to date with all your speakers’ news, whether before, during or after the event?With Netvibes, you can use the RSS feeds from their blogs to create a dashboard of all their latest posts.Netvibes can also be used to round up Twitter conversations, which is particularly useful at large events if there are severaldifferent hashtags being used.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 146

Netvibes conversation feed.Helping Attendees Share Information#7: Twitter BackchannelsThere’s no need to stick to the rigid format of talking, then opening up to questions from the audience. With a Twitterbackchannel run on something like Tweetwally, not only can the audience provide commentary on the talks, but also non-attendees canfollow along on Twitter.There can be issues around this, though: running commentary behind the speaker can be distracting and as the format isn’tcensored, comments could go off-topic or even turn negative. A good solution is to have a screen up in a communal areaawayfrom the live events, with marshals collecting comments and feedback to put to the speaker at an appropriate time.#8: Sharing ImagesBy setting up an official Flickr page and using small prizes and incentives to encourage participants to upload their ownphotos, you can quickly build a great unofficial photo record of the event, which you can use again in future promotions.#9: Sharing LocationsEncourage attendees to check in using Foursquare at different locations around the venue by rewarding them with discounts,special offers and other incentives. Not only can everyone see which booths are popular, but also you can encourage themtoexplore locations that they might otherwise have missed.Absent Attendees#10: Open Up Your Event to Virtual AttendeesIf you don’t want space to limit your attendance, consider opening your event up to virtual attendees.The 2011 Blog World and New Media Expo is selling virtual tickets for anyone not able to physically get to LA. BlogWorld is offering recordings of presentations for a smaller fee to those who cant attend.Some events, such as the 2011 International Freelancers Day Conference go one step further and are entirely virtual, withspeakers recording sessions miles apart, cutting the need for a conference venue, travel or accommodation. Virtual attendeescan ask questions via Twitter or Facebook, or comment on events using hashtags to create what is potentially a globalconversation.#11: Video StreamingLive recording is the keystone to a virtual event. UStream, Facebook or a dedicated YouTube channel can enable you to streamevents live, either in whole or in part. This is particularly valuable at large events where attendees are never going to getaround to all the talks. If you’re going to do this on a large scale, it’s worth investing in dedicated recording equipment and aseparate Internet connection, as you’ll be using a lot of bandwidth.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 147

Energize Your Event#12: QR Code Scavenger HuntsHow can you make visiting your booth more fun and stand out in a busy venue? This year’s Comic-Con in San Diego used QRcodes to create a Voltron-themed scavenger hunt for fans to win prizes. At the same event, BBC America ran their own DoctorWho QR game to encourage attendees to visit all of their Doctor Who exhibits, with the chance to win related prize-packs. Comic-Con is always buzzing with activity. Doctor Who QR game.Reward your attendees for sharing blog posts, weblogs and photo galleriesat your event with prizes and discounts.The MarketingProf’s B2B Forum offered free tickets to next year’s event for the best content posted to their blog.After the Event#13: Publish Your Twitter WallIf you have a whole lot of media you don’t know what to do with, try using Storify to collect Tweets, videos and photos andembed them in your website or share them through social media.#14: Give Access to All of Your Talks With Links to VideosYou can make your website the main place for post-event catch-up by using Ustream and YouTube to embed video of yourbiggest events. This can also serve as a great marketing tool for next year’s event.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 148

Make sure you have an email sign-up (you can use AWeber or MailChimp) on the same page to capture interest, and you caneven get ahead of the game by offering incentives for early interest. X.commerce is a new and innovative distribution channel.#15: Publish Your PresentationsYou can use Slideshare to reach a whole new audience beyond your own website and help convince new audiences to sign upfor next year’s event.What do you think? How have you promoted your event? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.DATA CRUNCHED: How email deluge makes workers go postalExperts say information overload is damaging mental health and impacting productivity. Picture: ThinkStockTHE culture of modern business needs to change with workers drowning under a deluge of emails and information, expertshave warned.Corporations are failing to help staff cope with the technological barrage, daily meetings and constant connection, leading torising levels of stress and psychological illness and costing billions in lost productivity. Psychologists and experts say the information glut is becoming a major issue for firms who are searching for realisticanswers to the problem.A recent report, commissioned by Hitachi Data Systems, found 40 per cent of companies in Australia and New Zealand aresuffering from the information glut, up from 34 per cent two years ago.The report also found 81 per cent of companies surveyed now considered it important to manage data growth, up from 68 percent two years ago.Dr Ben Searle, senior lecturer of Psychology at Macquarie University, said information overload was now a major source ofpsychological illness in the workplace and is expected to become an increasing problem.Common solutions offered by managers such as only checking emails at certain times during the day were difficult toimplement and often did not work.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 149

―These solutions won’t work if your company doesn’t embrace it,‖ Dr Searle said. ―If a culture exists where a reply to an emailis expected straight away, it will not work.‖He said changes needed to be part of company policies handed down to workers from the top.Marc Peter, director of technology at LexisNexis which conducted an International Workplace Productivity study last year, saidmany employees were reaching ―breaking point‖ with the amount of information they receive and there was a huge need foremployers to step in and help.Mr Peter said most workers admit data overload is causing their quality of work to suffer, making them feel demoralised andlooking for guidance from employers.―There are two key drivers for information overload," he said. "A lot of the information is irrelevant for the person who isreceiving it and the second one is there is an inability of systems and processes in organisations to manage informationefficiently.‖Scroll down for tips to cope with information overloadMost workers receive an average of 36 emails a day and huge volumes of other information. Add to this social media, instantmessenger, daily meetings and the ever-present telephone plus the arrival of new technologies which employees areexpected embrace to stay ahead of the game.Macquarie Universitys Dr Searle said trying to straddle all these technologies is a productivity killer and could lead to furtherstress.―Switching from iPad, to smartphone, to laptop can increase stress,‖ he said. ―And if you are working on a complex task it isimportant to remove yourself from interruptions.‖Are you drowning in data? Tell us some of your best coping tips belowHitachi Data Systems general manager Neville Vincent said while Australians worked incredibly hard in the developedeconomies they were probably one of the least productive."We are verging on an information disorder, beyond an information glut," Mr Vincent said."To use the gluttony/obesity analogy, people have recognised that they are putting on weight, from an additional informationmismanagement perspective."But they are not actually doing anything about it."Solutions offered are often a combination of data-management technology, willpower, and embracing some commonprinciples, such as only checking emails twice a day.The inescapable data delugeBeing unable to escape information is another source of ―information rage‖.A survey last month by news.com.au found one in four people say they ―can’t escape‖ working on their own time, mostly dueto work emails being synched to smartphones.The survey also revealed constant interruptions and meetings were impacting their productivity.Of 31,260 respondents, 30 per cent said their top wish to boost their own productivity would be to work away from constantinterruptions, while another one in four said ―fewer meetings‖.Dr Searle said these constant interruptions are one of the biggest productivity killers and causes of severe stress.How to survive: Focus, Filter and ForgetManagement consultants McKinsey urge workers to embrace three principles to deal with data overload: find time to focus,filter out noise and forget about work when you can.Finding time to think and having alone time is one of the most important coping mechanisms. Conversely, multitasking is aterrible coping mechanism.―A body of scientific evidence demonstrates fairly conclusively that multitasking makes human beings less productive, lesscreative, and less able to make good decisions,‖ says the article.Filtering out the noise by shutting down e-mail, closing web browsers and having phone calls go automatically to voice mailcan also help, they say.According to Mr Peter the three ways organisations can help is through investment into information management and decidehow information is filtered, train employees and providing the tools and workflow and productivity technology.Tips to avoid choking on emails1. Cull reading material ruthlessly. Throw out anything you don’t need to read.2. Focus on the quality of information, rather than quantity.3. Set a time limit before using the internet. Only look up information you need.4. Set rules for your emails so they are automatically organised into a relevant folder as soon as you receive them.4. Planning a project or campaign often means trying to assimilate lots of data in different formats and from different sources. It’s often easier to organise this data visually – like a spider diagram or mind map.5. Check emails and voicemails twice a day, at most.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 150

6. Delete unwanted emails immediately.7. Take regular breaks. Walk away from the machines. Giving the brain downtime to process information is a critical element of learning and thinking creatively.MAGNAGLOBAL MEDIA OWNERS ADVERTISING REVENUE FORECAST:BRICs and Sports Will Help Global Advertising Revenues to Grow In 2012New York, December 5, 2011 – MAGNAGLOBAL, a division of IPG Mediabrands, released updated Global Advertising Forecasts,showing media owners’ revenue growth for 2011 and 2012 to be slower than previously projected, but still resilient.Key Findings  2011 global growth is revised down to +4.7% (downgraded by -0.5%), totaling $427 billion.  2012 global growth is revised to +5.0% (downgraded by -1.5%), totaling $449 billion.  Quadrennial events, combined with the scale and dynamism of the BRIC countries will help sustain global growth despite worsening economic outlook. They contribute to 45% of the global growth in 2011.  Internet will become the second biggest media category in 2011, reaching a 20% global market share in 2012.  China will become the second largest advertising market in 2012, outgrowing Japan.  2011: The SlowdownIn 2011, media suppliers around the world will see their advertising revenues grow by +4.7% to total $427 billion (constant USD2010 basis). That estimate is down slightly (-0.5%) from our +5.2% forecast published in June 2011, due to the softening ofsome markets in the second half of the year. Our media suppliers advertising revenue projection includes: television (pay andfree), Internet (search, display, video, mobile), newspapers, magazines, radio, cinema and out-of-home (traditional and digital).It excludes direct marketing categories such as direct mail or traditional "yellow page" directories. We monitor mediasuppliers’ revenues in 63 markets (including all major markets), representing more than 95% of the world’s economy.The geography of growth. More than ever, emerging economies drove global advertising revenue growth in 2011, posting anaverage +15.0% growth during the year. Among these developing economies, Latin America posted the strongest growth rates,averaging +13.2%, closely followed by Central and Eastern Europe (+13.0%). Developed markets, meanwhile, grew at muchslower rates, such as +1.6% in Western Europe and +3.1% in North America, due to a number of factors including: a strong 2010comparison (revenues were up +8.2% compared with 2009); macro-economic slow-down and persistent financialuncertainties; the absence of major sporting events or U.S. elections; and natural disasters in Asia. Among individual countries,the strongest growth rates came from: Argentina (+37.9% in the context of a strong inflationary economic growth), China(+22.5%), Kazakhstan (+25.6%), Russia (+20.4%), India (+15%) and Brazil (+10.2%). Eleven countries (out of the 63 analyzed byMAGNAGLOBAL) suffered a decline in advertising revenues, including countries in Southern Europe hit by protracted economicturmoil and political instability (Greece: -19.3%; Portugal: -6.9%; Spain: -6.3%; Italy: -2.5%); emerging markets temporarilydestabilized by the Arab Spring (Egypt -21%); and Asian countries hit by natural disasters (Japan -2.0%, Thailand: -2.0%). Manyof the large markets of Western Europe and North America wound up in the middle, typically showing low single-digit growth(UK: +1.8%; Germany: +3.0%; U.S.: +2.9%).Among media categories, television, an unexpected winner in 2010 (+12.7%), continued to show strength in 2011, despite theabsence of cyclical sporting events or elections in the U.S. Broadcasters’ advertising revenues grew +4.8% to $175 billion, in2011, maintaining TV’s leadership with a 41.0% market share globally. Strong audience levels and audience measurementimprovements – such as the integration of time-shifted DVR viewing into ratings for the first time (e.g. France) – made themedium attractive. Out-of-home (OOH) media fared even better. Including cinema, OOH grew +6.4% globally, driven by theincremental revenues generated through digital billboards (+19.9%), which have rolled out in various parts of continentalEurope and Asia. Other traditional media categories, however, had a tougher year. Radio grew only +2.2%; newspapers’revenues were down -2.4% and magazines declined -0.9%. Declining circulation, shrinking readership, Internet competition andshort term media buying patterns (which penalizes monthly magazines), all contributed to print’s decline in developedmarkets. Things are different in emerging markets, however, where literacy is still increasing and broadband access is stillrelatively low. In those markets, magazines are growing along with the middle class, and there is enough advertising demandfor every media beyond TV to benefit. Overall, print advertising revenues are up by high single digit percentage points inemerging markets.The big winner of 2011, however, was Internet media. Total Internet advertising revenues increased +16.9% to $78.5 billion.While Display subcategories increased +15%, Paid Search reaped the benefits of usage growth and algorithm improvements toreclaim its position as the largest digital revenue driver (+19%). Within Display, online video continues to show impressivegrowth (+58.5%), reaching $4.7 billion in revenues. Pre- and mid-rolls in online videos now generate 6% of total Internetadvertising revenues and one percent (1.1%) of global advertising revenues. Even more than online video sharing specialists,TV broadcasters offering free, ad-funded online ―catch-up‖ of long-form, full-length episodes are driving category growth.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 151

Overall, coming after a strong 2010 and in a poor macro-economic context, media suppliers displayed a resilient performancein 2011. But the global market is barely back to where it was in 2007 ($423 billion in constant USD), and still smaller in the caseof Western Europe (2007: $112 billion, 2011: $106 billion). This reflects that media costs that are still low from a historicalperspective.2012: The BRIC EngineFor 2012, we now forecast media owners’ advertising revenues to grow by +5.0% to $449 billion. This is -1.5% below ourprevious prediction published in June 2011 (+6.5%).This downward revision is due to deteriorating macro-economic perspectives. Our forecast model is based on current, officialeconomic forecasts that are generally predicting weaker – but still positive – growth next year. However, the uncertaintyremains high, especially in Europe. In September, the IMF reduced its global output forecast (real GDP growth) from +4.5% to+4.0%. Although that forecast suggests the world economy would still grow, it’s an awkward average between emergingeconomies that are growing at healthy rates and developed economies that are still sputtering (average +1.9%, US: +1.8%). Inlate November, OECD revised its own global output forecast to +3.4% (including +1.6% for OECD countries and only +0.2% for theEuro area) warning that 4Q11 and 1Q12 could tip negative in most European countries, in line with 3Q11 slowdown. Greece, Italyand Portugal, in particular, are now expected to suffer full-year recessions in 2012. Other economic indicators (industrialproduction, personal consumption and business confidence) have been similarly downgraded in recent months and someindependent forecasters have expressed increasingly gloomier views.Despite the worsening economic outlook, we are still projecting a positive growth rate based on a few factors: First, the well-known ―quadrennial‖ cyclical driver is back, and we believe it will be stronger than ever. Theincremental ad spend generated by major sporting events (London Summer Olympics, Poland/Ukraine European SoccerChampionship) and the U.S. Presidential Elections will bring an additional +1% to +2% on top of organic revenue growth acrossmarkets. In the U.S., Political and Olympic (P&O) money will account for three billion dollars of incremental ad spend, mostly ontelevision ($2.4 billion related to the Elections, $600 million generated by Olympic Broadcasts). Meanwhile, major sportingevents will help in European markets that are otherwise hit by economic stagnation, such as the UK (which is hosting theOlympics, although the games are broadcast on the ad-free BCC) and Italy (where the Games and Soccer tournament willmostly be broadcast by RAI, one of the few European public television groups still allowed to carry a full, all-day advertisingload). Second, big emerging countries will increase their share of global economic and advertising influence. At the end of2012, emerging markets will represent 24% of global advertising revenues (compared with 7% in 1999) and the four BRICcountries alone will account for 14% (compared with 3% in 1999). Adding scale to dynamism, the BRIC markets have thecapacity to offset part or all of the Western weakness. The four BRIC markets equated to only 10% of Western Europe’sadvertising revenues in 1999. That ratio will grow to 59% by the end of 2012, and by 2016 the BRIC countries will almost matchthe size of Western Europe (94%). The BRIC countries contributed to 45% of the global market growth in 2011 ($9 billion out of$19 billion). With a growing proportion of the BRIC countries’ population adopting Western-style media consumption patterns,and with Western and local brands competing for top-of-mind among the emerging middle class, media demand is in excessof supply and inflation reigns. BRIC countries lag behind the global average advertising spend per capita ($80) – Russia: $70,Brazil: $60; China: $21, and India: $4. With such structural factors, we expect advertising spending and revenues in thosemarkets to keep growing faster than the general economy, supporting global revenues in their wake. Thirdly, some lessons learned in 2009 may help avoid a replay. Some major advertisers, e.g. in FMCG, have sinceadmitted that they may have over-reacted back then by cutting advertising expenditures too hard and too quickly, harmingtheir brands. We believe that this time, even if sales forecasts are being revised downwards, marketers will remember thatmarket shares are subject to losses or gains, including – and perhaps even more so – during a recession, as consumersreconsider their choices. In addition, the Western advertising market is still smaller than five years ago, which means pricesand net costs per thousand - despite some inflation in 2010-2011 - are still competitive and attractive by long term standards.Therefore, brands in various sectors have both the incentive and capacity to invest smartly to boost or defend their marketshares.In 2012, advertising revenues will grow by +12.4% in emerging economies, with Latin America still leading the charge (+13.0%)followed by Central and Eastern Europe (slowing down at +7.7%). Asia Pacific will re-accelerate to +8.3% due to the recoveryof Japan and the continued growth of China. Western Europe will slow down at +1.1%. The sports driver will not be enough tooffset recession in many European countries: Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland will decrease again (between -2% and -6%); Italyand France will be flat at best. UK and Germany will grow below +2%.The biggest growth rates of 2012 will come from Argentina (+26.4%), Ukraine (+21.0%), Indonesia (+16.0%), China (+16.1%), Brazil(+12.0%), India (+13.5%) and Russia (+9.6%).In terms of media market share, Internet will grow by 11.2% and outrank newspapers to become the second biggest mediacategory globally, accounting for nearly 20% of global advertising dollars (19.5% at $87.4 billion). The category already standsat 23% in both North America and Western Europe (where it even takes the #1 spot in a few markets, such as the UK).Television will receive the bulk of the ―quadrennial‖ bonanza and will benefit from the typical concentration of advertisersinto leading media at the expense of secondary media during harsh times. TV will grow by +6.7% globally to $187.1 billion.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 152

Newspaper and magazine revenues will shrink by an average -1.0% and -1.3% respectively, with much deeper drops in Westernmarkets, where circulation losses of 2011 will be reflected in 2012 ad pricing. Radio will grow by +1.6% to $30.4 billion. OOH willalso benefit from the ―quadrennial‖ events and the roll-out of new digital (+6.3% to $28.3 billion) platforms. In the UK, theinnovative upfront auction process conducted last summer to allocate the most premium London inventory during the Gamesdid not quite meet the high expectations, but the industry is still expected to grow healthily next year.China Takes the #2 SpotChina’s advertising market is expected to continue outperforming its already impressive economic growth in 2012, with a+16.1% growth. At $33.3 billion, China will become the second biggest advertising market, ahead of Japan, now third at $32.1billion. Germany remains the fourth biggest market, some distance behind ($25 billion). Other top 10 markets are – in order -UK, France, Brazil, Canada, Australia and Italy. Russia will enter the top 10 in 2013, at the expense of Italy. Chart 1: Top 10 advertising in 2012 (constant USD 2010) Rank Country USD % 1 United States 152,887 34.0% 2 China 33,258 7.4% 3 Japan 32,113 7.2% 4 Germany 24,769 5.5% 5 United Kingdom 19,619 4.4% 6 France 14,582 3.2% 7 Brazil 13,134 2.9% 8 Canada 12,384 2.8% 9 Australia 12,167 2.7% 10 Italy 11,337 2.5% Top 10 326,250 72.7% Grand total (63 countries) 449,019 100.0% Chart 2: Global Media Owners Advertising Revenues (2006-2013) Chart 3: Global Advertising Growth by Media Category (2011-2012)Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 153

Social Media - Its Not About TechnologyAccording to Pew Research, Baby Boomers and older folks using social media has increased enormously in 2010 and itcontinues to grow into 2011. The 55 to 64 and 65+ age groups are catching up to younger demos. In fact, it’s the 65+ age groupthat has grown the most in the past two years, increasing by 49%. At more than 100 million strong, baby boomer and oldercustomers (born before 1965) are the single largest consumer group in America, and they are the wealthiest, best educatedand most sophisticated of purchasers. With more disposable income than any population in America, they are, in fact, asauthor David Wolfe coined them the ―New Customer Majority."Baby Boomers created the technology we enjoy today. Steve Jobs of Apple, Bill Gates from Microsoft, Larry Ellison of Oracleand Sir Timothy John ―Tim‖ Berners-Lee, the man who ―invented‖ the internet are all baby boomers. But social media is notabout technology. It’s about people connecting with people. And it’s so much more. According to an Experian 2011 Social MediaConsumer Trend Report it also provides consumers with personalized way to connect to companies, brands and media andvice versa, making it an undeniable, if often complex, marketing tool.Other tidbits from the Experian report included: 91% of Americans use social media in an average month. That’s 129 million. 58% use Facebook monthly. The average number of friends is 130. 18% of parents try to connect with their children via Facebook, up from 6% in 2009. Facebook visits last five times longer than visits to Google+. Social networks are an infinite loop: 19% of all visits are immediately followed by a visit to another social network. 20% of users now access social media via their phones, up from 11%. 14% use phones to upload photos and video.Social media content and advertising should be easy to read and be experiential in nature. It should reflect empathy for thevalues mentioned above. Positioning your company as a gateway to desired experiences of your target markets should beyour goal.Consultant Jeff Korhan says ―traditional media may be dying, but you can learn a lot from it.‖ He goes on to say that―traditional media provides entertainment or educational content (including the news) – and in exchange for their hard workyou accept commercials and other forms of advertising.‖ Social media efforts, (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) haveoften taken a similar approach by becoming another distribution channel for traditional media saturating content with slickadvertising making the experience more like an electronic brochure for products and services than an interactive experience.Now it’s clear social media has evolved to focus on making profits, and that’s good and acceptable.Social media reaches out to an audience to engage it, and make a profit for all its efforts. However, if you want to besuccessful in your social media efforts you have you make it ―sticky‖; encouraging visitors to come back and interact. Visitorswill come back and interact when they believe you are about them and their needs and desires.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 154

So, how do you best use social media? Create interactive experiences. Since the primary purpose of social media is toencourage people to connect, content and advertising needs to have the best chance of generating interest and convertingthat interest into a longevity and loyalty reflecting empathy with the values and motivators of this demo.Our experience tells us that a key to capturing and keeping these rapidly growing lucrative demos is a better understandingof their values and how their behavior, buying motivators and satisfaction needs change as they get older. Their valuestypically include: Autonomy and self-sufficiency (independence/participation) Social connectedness (relationships/friendships) Altruism (opportunity to share wisdom and ability to do for others: family, community & country) Personal growth (gain knowledge) Revitalization (need to rejuvenate)The next step is applying knowledge gained to create effective content, titillating interactivity and online advertising,communications and sales strategies and tactics.To succeed in social media, marketers must have foresight. Yet at times they seem to have vastly better hindsight. Marketerscan be forgiven for not jumping on—if not foreseeing—radically new platforms, channels, and opportunities. How can someonepredict the impact of flash sales or social gaming? The point isn’t that marketers can’t agree on the future.If there are no longer one-size-fits-all solutions for reaching audiences, why should there be any for the marketersthemselves? Progressive marketers are the ones pushing the envelope, setting dialogues, and defining the industry. They’rewilling to commit, experiment and adjust aided, of course, by robust data collected at every step in the process.Has the ship sailed, then? Is it too late for the latecomers? No, it’s never too late. Even brands that have an early lead in socialmedia will need to constantly innovate in order to keep pace with the ever-changing landscape.‖ What’s more, brands justgetting into social media have the advantage of learning from the success and failures of early entries into social media.Social Media Connections Between Consumers and Brands That Inspire SalesLee OddenWhile the topic of return on investment with social media participation seems to polarize many marketing, advertising, andpublic relations pundits, there are a growing number of companies and agencies that are implementing social mediamarketing and analysis efforts to answer the question firsthand.Weve all read about or seen favorite examples going back to Dell Outlet selling a few million dollars worth of discountedcomputer equipment through Twitter, to Blendtec selling more blenders because of its YouTube videos showing what happenswhen a Blendtec meets an iPhone, or a rake. Of course, theres also the famed Old Spice example of selling more body washbecause of Isaiah Mustafa on a horse on a beach.Its about the customers. Besides those very viral and frequently shared social media ROI examples, there are also marketersthat realize that its not always about selling widgets on Facebook or YouTube. Its about the connections they make withcustomers being instrumental for recommendations and serving as inspiration to buy. It might not mean purchasing at themoment of social media interaction, but at some point in the future as the customer navigates the search, social, and mobileweb.Its about relationships. The value companies can get from investment in social media is directly tied to the relationships theybuild with customers and a relevant community. If a business wants to sell more widgets through Twitter, they could certainlyachieve that goal providing they understand what information and experiences trigger those purchases and respond with anappropriate customer engagement plan. Whether Twitter is the sales channel or simply a proxy to the sales experiencedepends on the customers - not the brands objective of selling widgets on Twitter.ROI is also about cost savings. Sometimes realizing measurable business value from social media investment is a matter ofcreating efficiencies as some companies have by developing internal social network platforms that result in more effectivecollaboration and operational effectiveness. Those efficiencies often translate into better, faster, and more usefulinformation for customers that result in cost savings or even more sales.Measure what matters. The better connections brands have with consumers, the more likely those consumers will bepositively inclined to buy. Many social media ROI models are based on a direct marketing approach with an offer andresponse model. The problem is that companies are chasing after a platform where relevant customers might be vs.understanding how to influence those customers through a social experience. The ROI from social media investment doesnthave to come from direct sales through social networks, but thats exactly how most companies evaluate.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 155

Its about inspiration and influence. A lot of productive social media marketing efforts are more likely to influence businessoutcomes than be the channel where those outcomes occur. Public and media relations, for example, isnt that different.Positive media coverage creates awareness and inspires search or discovery of the brand and the sale occurs on the companywebsite. Social experiences can provide brand-advertising benefits and inspire consumers to buy sooner, more quantity, ormore often, as well as to choose one brand vs. another. What company wouldnt want to sell more products, more often, morequickly?Here are a few interesting data points and examples that suggest a correlation between social engagement and consumerbuying behavior:  eMarketer - Over 50 percent of Twitter followers are more likely to purchase from brands they follow.  USA Today - Coca-Cola Facebook fans are two times as likely to consume product and 10 times more likely to purchase than non-fans, according to Wendy Clark, senior vice president of integrated marketing.  Yahoo - Brands who sponsored content with social features increased purchase intent by 13 percent.  Mashable - "Following Brands on Twitter Increases Purchase Intent." A study by Constant Contact and research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey reports that 60 percent of brand followers are more likely to recommend a brand to a friend after following the brand on Twitter, and 50 percent of brand followers are more likely to buy from that brand.The missing piece to many assessments of what value social media participation provides is that most marketers are chasingpopular platforms with their own interpretation of what will motivate customers to buy. What they should be doing isunderstanding customer preferences and optimizing for the kinds of social experiences that will not only inspire purchase,but social sharing, advocacy, and loyalty. Social media is a communications platform that can help businesses serve customerneeds across the lifecycle, not just at the top of the sales funnel. Understand that and an entirely new opportunity isrevealed.Do We Need Stinkin Badges?Sean Carton"Badges? We dont need no stinkin badges!"Mexican Bandit, "Blazing Saddles," 1974If youve ever been responsible for hiring someone, you know that it can be a nerve-wracking experience. Sure, they mighthave a stellar resume, have sailed through the interview process, and have glowing references, but its still tough not to feelthat little tug in your gut the first day they show up at work and you have to ask yourself "Will they actually be able to dowhat they say they can do?"Hiring an agency or a consultant is no different. Will they perform? Were they worth the investment? Will they embarrass youin front of your boss? Will one bad consultant hiring decision cost you your job?Considering the kind of work marketing professionals do, there are good reasons to be nervous. After all, measuring whatmakes someone "good" at their job is often more of an art than a science. Marketers deal with a lot of subjectivity and mostwork is done in teams. Even if someone brings you a portfolio of their past work, its tough to determine exactly what partthey had to play in it.Because we online marketers are in such a young industry, job titles dont mean much either. The person who is a "webdesigner" at one place might be considered a "developer" somewhere else. An "account leader" at one agency might havesimilar skills to a "project manager" at another. Heck, just because someones a "chief [insert noun] officer" doesnt guaranteethat they know more than a lowly "director" or "manager" or even "analyst" somewhere else.When looking at any job in the "digital" industry (even though we have a tough time defining even whatthat means), it seemslike they usually follow a pattern as a technology matures. When a new technology arises, those who "specialize" in it areusually more technically-oriented. As that technology matures, jobs seem to split into technical andstrategic/creative/content camps. Rising complexity necessitates increasing specialization. In the early days, self-taught"experts" usually have to be able to master both the technical and the creative, but over time the "creative" and/or "strategic"folks move away from the hands-on work of mastering the "technology" and the more technical move closer and closer to thecode. It wouldnt surprise me if many of you old-timers reading this (or…ahem…writing this) who now function in morestrategic roles havent touched a line of code or had to master the intricacies of a new application for a long time. Youve gotother people to do that stuff. You focus on the big picture.The result of all this is a lot of confusion when it comes to hiring. Titles dont mean much. Skills are hard to determine.Standards vary from organization to organization. While older, more mature disciplines like medicine and the law havestandardized job titles and credentials through a system of certifications and licensure, were still in a state of flux.Right now theres probably nothing more confusing than trying to sort out what people with "social media" in their title do.But thats not surprising…the whole social media marketing industry is pretty young. Still, however, the slapping of "socialBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 156

media" onto someones title can cause some pretty strong reactions: Peter Shankman (of HARO fame) even goes as far as todeclare "Id never hire a social media expert, and neither should you" in his article of the same name. "I was going to call thisarticle All Social Media Experts need to go die in a fire," he writes, "…If you call yourself a Social Media Expert, dont evenbother sending me your resume."Im not so sure about the "die in a fire" thing, but I know that Im not the only one out there whos snorted in disgust whenencountering so-called "social media experts." Sure, there are some people out there who are pretty savvy about how tomarket with social media, but there are also an awful lot of BS artists who declare their "expertise" after creating their firstblog or Facebook page or Twitter feed. There are also a lot of "experts" who happen to be pretty adept at making HootSuitedance, but who couldnt write (or strategically think) themselves out of the proverbial paper bag. Slapping the "expert"sobriquet on themselves seems a little extreme.Extreme, but understandable. After all, what does it mean to be a "social media expert" anyway? Is it an indication of yourtechnical expertise? Does it mean that youre great at devising ways to build relationships with customers using social mediatools? Does your "expertise" derive from the fact that youre incredibly connected and have managed to build a list offollowers in the thousands? Could it be that youre just an obsessive tweeter?The fact is that theres no way of knowing. And the disappointment left in the wake of this expertise confusion does nothingbut damage the industry. People with real expertise are lumped together with others calling themselves "experts," and clientshave no way to tell whats what. "Heck, my son/niece/neighbors kid put up a Facebook page," they think, "what makes yousuch an expert?"But before you get too worked up, you have to look at it in the context of the history of the digital industry in general. In theearly days of the web, those of us building professional websites often had to contend with the "my kid can do this…whyshould I pay you?" attitude often displayed by unsophisticated clients. And while weve pretty much long gotten past that (Iused to respond with "Im sure your kid knows how to use a video camera too…do you want him to shoot your next TV spot?"),the rapid growth of new technologies keeps bringing back the problem. And until we do something about it, were all going tocontinue to suffer the consequences of skill and title confusion.Thats why I was excited recently when I received an email from the eMarketing Association announcing its new CertifiedSocial Media Marketing Association Certification. While details about what exactly is being "certified" are still sketchy (andthe industry recognition and influence of the eMarketing Association are somewhat debatable), its a step in the rightdirection. Creating an industry-wide certification is a big step in the maturation of the digital marketing industry…and a bigstep in making everyones life easier by insuring a standard set of competencies. Whether this takes off or not, it definitelybares a serious look…and serious support.And yeah, I know: many of you out there are going to balk at the idea of "standardizing" your "complex skill set." Heck, theAIGA has resisted any kind of "designer" certification for decades now, and its incredibly well recognized and respected. Butall you have to do is look at one of the other biggest creative industries - architecture - and compare it to the designindustry if you want to see what a difference certification can make. Anyone can call themselves a "designer" (with cringe-worthy results in many cases), but calling oneself an "architect" means something very specific and understandable, mainly asa result of the efforts of their trade association, the American Institute of Architects. The PR trade has made great steps inthis same direction with the PRSAs "APR" certification. If youve had to hire a PR person, you know that an "APR" after theirname actually means something.If you step back and look at the big picture, its no wonder that the eMarketing Association is moving toward certification. In aworld of rapidly-changing technologies, multiple alternative avenues for learning (such as free online universities, self-study,online tutorials, etc.), declining valuation of college degrees, and general industry confusion, the idea of creating standardized(and recognized) ways of identifying someones skills in many different areas starts to make sense. In fact, the MozillaFoundation (along with the MacArthur Foundation) has even begun an "Open Badges Initiative" to examine ways of awarding"badges" (really "mini-certifications") for a wide variety of life skills…no matter where theyre learned. Its a great idea andone that I hope catches on.Do we really need those stinkin badges? If were going to grow and mature as an industry, the answer is "yes."Casting the Right Hook Into the Digital Talent PoolChris CopelandWere an industry of fisherman. This advertising industry is one built on ideas, but funded on the hours spent executing offthose ideas. In many ways, advertising (especially digital advertising) has become the antithesis of the Chinese proverb, "Givea man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats forever." But to teach a man to fish, he must first bereceptive to learning.When I consider what this means for digital advertising talent, its clear that before we can become greater than our parts, wemust change the current culture. Theres little doubt that the present digital environment is challenged by a shortage oftalent based on the demand the marketplace has created. Sitting on the agency side, this is further compromised by theopportunities for financial growth that are constantly presented at virtually every turn, which lead to job hopping and aBabelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 157

reticence to invest in talent just to see it walk out the door for greater pay elsewhere. This growth, however, comes with aprice.I recently spent time with an individual who, during our conversation, lamented that he didnt have the right mentor to helpwith his career growth. The tragedy of the moment was that the individual, who is immensely talented with great potential,doesnt lack a mentor. He lacks a manager. Therein lies the real challenge with todays talent crunch - the lack of individualsqualified to be actual managers of people.In the digital space, we hire for talent, we develop skills to manage clients and execute strategies, but we rarely hiremanagers who truly understand how to cultivate and inspire those who work for them. Yes, we have team leaders, but thatresponsibility set and the rewards we place on them are rarely tied to developing our talent to the degree that they willbecome the next generation of leaders.In sports, its suggested that a great coach is, above all, a leader of men and women. She is someone who can unify and alignpeople behind a common vision. This person is someone who can motivate people to give more of themselves than what theymight have otherwise believed possible. Are we doing the same in our digital environment? Are we hiring people becausethey can plan and execute a media buy alone? Is that enough? Are we not obligated to them and ourselves to expect morebecause the returns will have tangible value for us in the work product and business growth that can be delivered over time?When was the last time you heard someone utter the phrase "They taught me everything I know" and it meant more than howto buy something? Digital advertising has the benefit and curse of being a very, very young industry. Yesterdays planners arejust now starting to evolve into strategists and even bleeding into traditional media roles in select cases. However, for thedigital side to truly meet the challenges of tomorrow, we need more managers and stronger leaders who understand andprioritize the value of training and investing in employees. Without these managers and leaders, well continue simply fishingfor our supper day in and day out, and will miss the opportunities to teach team members to fish so theyre able to eatforever.Babelfish Articles Dec 2011 Page 158

Babelfish Articles Dec 2011

by Babelfish - Brian Crotty

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