The BrandZ top 10 for 2010
Yesterday I mentioned results of a casual though telling internal survey that led me to make the statement above, read below. Today I want to emphasize one potential takeaway for marketers, by picking up on a an idea from a presentation our director of search marketing, Jiri Vala, did at MediaPost’s recent Search Insider’s Summit. I won’t go too deeply into it since we are going to post it at some point soon. But the point was search marketing today is in a constant state of evolution. It doesn’t live in a vacuum. And it never will.
True, for many small marketers, a search only/driven strategy can be hugely successful. But for larger brands, or those with big aspirations, the importance of integrating search into a more cohesive overall communications plan — involving any of many trusted media sources like those noted in my last post — continues to increase. Understanding how to do this — and creating programs that are capable of attributing successful search results to their original media source, and/or vice versa — is one place search marketing is going.
It’s also a holy grail of sorts. He/she who can figure out a fool proof method will likely receive a buy out offer in rapid time. Until then, the teams of people most likely capable of sensibly integrating search with other aspects of the marcom mix, and then being able to make actionable sense of the data, are those with expertise across a wide variety of disciplines, including search.
Our office is one where such a team exists. There are others out there, I’m sure. If I were a marketer facing complex challenges in dynamic markets, I’d engage one of these sorts of shops in dialogue. I’m not sure anyone has all the answers yet (Jiri and co, correct me if I am wrong here). Because in the future, no matter how many years BrandZ names Google the world’s #1 brand, the inability to closely tie search marketing to the rest of the trusted media landscape will have a major impact on everyone else who wants to be on that list.
Lots of big announcements from Qualcomm at CES this year:
Mobile search has become more and more prevalent with the introduction of the iPhone and with smart phones becoming more mainstream. This trend is seen in recent research from Google, which has identified search patterns for mobile phones. Results suggest that iPhone searches mimic computer-based search behavior in terms of query length, which are about three words per query for both computer and iPhone. Conventional cell phone queries average 2.5 words. Searchers on smart phones are becoming more like computer-based searchers, not only in query length and diversity, but also in repeat search behavior. This makes sense because as the line continues to blur between cell phones and computers – behavior is sure to follow.
Continuing on my earlier post about the 
IM, Chat, Email and Social Networks Gone Wild
December 8th, 2009 by Rory Partalis
Categories: Digital Innovations | Tags: all-in-one, api, buddy media, chat, comments, communication, content, dashboard, digsby, email, facebook, fan pages, friendfeed, google, google wave, IM, images, inbox, instant messaging, media landscape, mobile, open, ping.fm, pixelpipe, platforms, profiles, social media, Social Networks, status updates, trillian, twitter, video, websites | 2 Comments »
The Social Media Landscape has become so complex that something needs to be developed to help us manage all of our profiles.
There is a quiet battle brewing under the shiny-new-thing syndrome we all are guilty of from time to time. This battle grew out of the complexity and exploding number of websites the average internet user has profiles on today. Modern advertisers and marketers are especially plagued by the inability to keep up with all the comments, inboxes, and instant messaging clients we use to communicate with our family, friends, coworkers and clients.
This provides an opening for smart companies to build an all-in-one online communication dashboard. And this opening gets bigger and bigger as companies like Twitter, Facebook and Google keep rolling out more and more open platforms and APIs. This allows other websites, widgets and mobile apps to have greater access to content and information from those platforms.
Friendfeed was obviously the original social network aggregator, and Facebook mimicked their methods and then bought them outright. Now Google has ambitions with Google Wave, but there are still gaps for an all-in-one online communication dashboard that both pulls and pushes content from all other communication platforms.
I’ve seen a few emerging spaces where companies are trying to partially realize this dream. The first battlefield is combining IM, Email and Social Network communications and content into one chat client. The two rivals I’ve found in this space are Trillian and Digsby. Each are strong contenders and pull from many of the same sources. I am currently testing Trillian on my work laptop and Digsby on my home laptop. I prefer Digsby’s IM client and chat window layout, but like the look of Trillian’s pop-ups better. In my opinion either works fine for my needs, both are strong contenders in the all-in-one space, but neither are quite there yet.
The second area where I see a battle brewing is the content uploading battlefield. This is where you can login to one place and post text, images, videos and other content to all of your social network profiles. Both Ping.fm and PixelPipe have a lot to offer in this space and also push to many of the same sources. Both also have mobile apps, which is awesome for posting content on the go.
I’ve also seen a third battlefield begin to emerge after having a conference call with a company called Buddy Media. They provide a dashboard that manages the layout of Facebook Fan Pages and Twitter Profiles. Very cool stuff, but still in its infancy.
Have you seen any other similar tools like this that would make all of our online lives easier? If so, please mention them in the comments section below.
2 Comments »