B2B Marketers Have Much to Learn About Social
Online Media Daily News

Recent reports suggest that as much as marketers like social media, they’re not spending proportionately on the new channel.

A new report from Pardot—focused on B2B marketers—finds a different problem. Enterprise marketers are spending millions of dollars annually on social marketing, the cloud marketing automation software vendor finds, although nearly 30% are not tracking the impact of such campaigns on lead generation and sales.

And among those who do, about 42% of marketers replied that zero or an uncertain number of sales leads resulted from social media programs—a startlingly high percentage, according to Pardot, given the resources required to operate the campaigns.

Based on input from dozens of company interviews, a full 95% of B2B marketers indicated they use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or corporate blogs to reach prospects, Pardot found.

Pardot, for its part, suggests that the gap between cost and return for social marketing may have something to do with social media protocols within companies, which are still evolving.

According to survey respondents, approximately 11% of marketers said their companies have a formal social media policy.

A full 55% said contacting a social media-generated sales lead by phone or email is appropriate, even if the prospect had not invited the vendor to do so.

Meanwhile, 48% said it is appropriate to respond to a prospect via social media, if the prospect contacted the vendor via email or phone first.

Also of note, 100% of respondents said it is acceptable to invite a prospect to join a marketer’s online social networks, though some suggested the invites be limited to networks such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora, Plaxo and YouTube, versus more personal sites like Facebook.

What’s more, 31% said it is acceptable to critique a competitor via social media

“Social media is an exciting and enticing sales and marketing medium, but best practices are clearly still emerging,” said Adam Blitzer, co-founder and COO for Pardot.

Another obstacle facing marketers who are engaged in social media is the tools and services they use for implementing and measuring their campaigns. According to the survey, over 64% of respondents use “internal, free tools” only to manage social media campaigns, which may or may not be ideal for effective program management. Meanwhile, only 9% rely on an outside agency or social media expert for help with social media marketing.

Separately, the survey also revealed that Twitter was the most popular social media channel, followed by LinkedIn and Facebook, while, social bookmarking services and paid channels including promoted tweets were cited as the least popular tools.

Billion Dollar Draft — 27 Million Americans play fantasy football — and companies are cashing in
Ad Week

The 5-foot-7-inch Jacksonville Jaguars running back Maurice Jones-Drew earned the nickname "Pocket Hercules" for his bruising running style, but the diminutive chatterbox can't seem to take a verbal hit.

Addressing listeners on his Sirius XM fantasy football program, Runnin' With MJD, just before the NFL season began, he groused about his middling fantasy draft prospects. "A lot of people are out there saying, 'Can he come back on that knee? Can he do what he did in '09?'" Jones-Drew said. "A lot of fantasy football gurus who've never stepped on the field before or been in a locker room, they seem to know best."
How far the game has come. Once a cultish pursuit of stat nerds, over the past decade fantasy football has grown into a sport with some 27 million players, including athletes themselves. Along with the office drones who consider themselves devotees are A-list actors, politicians, and captains of industry. (One exclusive league populated by a number of hedge fund titans competes for a $1 million cash prize.)

Americans spend an estimated $800 million per year on all fantasy sports media products and services, according to the market research firm Ipsos. (Out of that, football gets a majority of the money, as 71 percent of fantasy players follow that sport.) Add subscriptions to platforms indirectly related—such as DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket, NFL's RedZone, and Sirius XM's MLB packages—and the total market impact, says the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, is now nearly $5 billion per year.

Indeed, the big winners are not so much the players, but online media companies. They're generating revenue not only through league fees, online paywalls, and, of course, "traditional" ad buys—some 80 percent of the portals are ad-supported—but through new and creative ad opportunities that are helping point the way for websites feeling hemmed in by banners and video pre-rolls.

All Brands Are Publishers: Here’s How to Be a Good One
AdAge

It's illuminating to remember that five years ago, Twitter was three months old, and Facebook had just opened to non-students. Neither company had a business model. Oh, and Digg was considered the pre-eminent social news service.

Over the next half-decade, of course, Twitter and Facebook have become huge forces, driving the rise of what I then called "conversational media" as opposed to "packaged-goods media," where marketers just send a message to consumers.

I laid out five "golden rules" of this new media in several blog posts, and over the years, I've come to believe that it comes in two distinct flavors: independent and dependent.

"Dependent web" platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Google and Yahoo are where people go to discover and share new content. Independent sites are the millions of blogs, community and service sites where passionate individuals "hang out" with like-minded folks. This is where shared content is often created.

Marketers need to play in both spheres to effectively build their brands. They need to get past a one-size-fits-all approach to media—the web ain't TV. Dictating a message to your audience is no longer acceptable. Consumers online expect dialogue, so pairing your brand with relevant and passion-driven topics is one of the best ways to ensure that you are engaged with key audiences.

There are many ways to ensure that brands are deeply involved in the conversations that matter. My advice here is simple:
• Choose media partners who are native to the conversational web, understand a marketer's needs, and have a track record of scale, quality, safety, engagement and proven ROI.
• Work with those partners to figure out what you want to say, how you'll say it and who's listening. Change and adapt that approach as you learn what works, and as your marketing goals and messages evolve. Sites such as American Express' Open Forum, for example, have a high percentage of return visitors because they are built as ongoing services with new and useful content every day.

Ipsos Reid Survey: TV Still Strong
Marketing Daily News

A new study released on the eve of the CMA and Marketing’s Digital Marketing Conference reveals that North American marketers continue to focus and increase efforts on digital marketing with spend levels in social media, mobile, search and email marketing all expected to increase.

This from Ipsos Reid in collaboration with the Canadian Marketing Association and Marketing Magazine. The survey asked Canadian marketers about their thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors toward the expanding world of digital marketing, and how their business is managing or embracing it. A year ago, 38% of the marketers surveyed said that their spending on TV will decrease over the next two years. This year, that number has dropped to 22%, per the firm.

Steve Levy, president of Ipsos Reid East, said marketers are reconsidering the trend to reduce budgets allocated to television, with fewer indicating plans to spend less than last year (11% net decrease in 2011 vs. 25% net decrease in 2010).

“Is this related to an economy that bounced back in 2011, does it reflect a reset in marketing sentiment, or is it simply a realization that TV is still unparalleled for its ability to reach a wide audience?” said Levy.

The data is based on the findings of a joint CMA and Ipsos Reid online study fielded from 09/16 to 10/07, 2011 among 415 marketers and advertising agency staff.