With Kindle, the Best Sellers Don't Need to Sell

The introduction of e-readers such as the Kindle to the world has revolutionized the publishing industry. The question of ways to encourage growth in this industry have been challenging to answer and publishers continue to disagree on what are the best ways to resolve this problem. One solution that has been effective is allowing users to download free e-books from emerging authors.

View my assessment of this strategy at my blog: http://antkegremi.blogspot.com

E-Marketing Class: "Power I" Helps Online Advertisers Stay Ahead of Looming Legislation

The issue of privacy may be the most prominent battlefield in the ongoing e-marketing war that pits government legislation against industry self-regulation. As a recent article in Advertising Age magazine explains, some e-marketing strategists have adopted new technologies to not only fend off government regulation of internet data collection, but to give individual internet users more control of how their data are being used by companies that advertise on the internet. Last month, a company called Better Advertising launched a trial of its “Power I” (Eye) system. Used by several Fortune 500 companies like AT&T, American Express, and Microsoft, the “Power I” system places an icon in the corner of every internet ad that, when clicked, brings up a window with more information about the ad, information on the company that placed the ad, and most importantly, a method for the internet user to opt-out of specific interest-based advertising providers. Not only does Better Advertising believe that its new system gives consumers access to clear information and choices, but it also believes that it provides evidence of ongoing compliance with new industry self-regulatory guidelines. Why should e-marketing strategists be interested in self-regulation? Read my e-marketing class blog to find out what Washington may have in store for online advertisers.

Shopping Cart Applications on Facebook...too much or just right?

In the Wall Street Journal Article "Merchants Push Sales Through Social Media; Early Adopters Add Shopping-Cart Apps to Fan Pages to Sell Items, Services" by Sarah Needleman details how merchants are using their Facebook and MySpace pages to attract purchases through offering sales and services to their fans. Fans will be able to see items for sale on the social media pages and then be directed to the company's website to purchase the items. This increases traffic for the company's main website, as well as gives incentives for people to become fans of different company's pages to receive special deals. Though sales through social media seem to be a great idea for many companies, it is more effective for company's who already have a large fan base. For companies who don't have many fans, they would have to combine marketing for their page and their sales as well to see any true profits. As seen with the article the company, Guitar Syndicate has seen an increase of 17% since their online social media sales offering has been offered, but in the same instance Sun & Ski Sports has only seen social media sales offering 1% to their online sales. There also is a fee for adding shopping cart applications, starting at $24.99 but with the possibility to increase if more items are being offered for sale. This is new territory that is being incorporated with social media sites and it is intriguing to see how consumers are and will react to it.

Adding shopping cart applications to social media sites is an intriguing topic because it seems to be one of the few untapped markets within social media. Now with it being offered by companies, there can be a mixture of excitement and also wary. Companies can be willing to add the applications since it can mean more traffic onto their actual website, as well as their social media page. But, as noted before, companies have to make sure that they already have enough fans to be profitable. Therefore, adding a shopping cart application could mean increased marketing henceforth increased costs the companies have to face. There is also the fee of adding a shopping cart application as well as Face book stating that they are going to have a 30% share of sales for various virtual goods. Companies, especially ones on a smaller scale, are going to have to weigh the pro and cons of adding this application. It could lead to greater online sales and fan traffic on their pages, but it could also mean financial headaches...

To see the full write up please visit http://kayz-coffeespoons.blogspot.com

Did Twitter Cost McChrystal His Command?

General Stanley McChrystal possessed two masters degrees, attended three different military schools, earned 13 prestigious badges and served in three wars overseas yet he faced his greatest enemy of all was that of Twitter4 . What started off as nonchalant remarks that carelessly rolled off the tongue of McChrystal with a Rolling Stones reporter in earshot, quickly ignited a firestorm of seismic proportions on Twitter. “It was the article from Michael Hastings that broke the story, but it was Twitter who got the story rolling”.



For more information on this story and additional e-marketing topics, visit my blog at: http://emarketingcanisius.blogspot.com/

E-marketingclass article summary #2 (Hodgeman)

In our e-marketingclass we’ve created a blog and discussed the importance of blogs to potential marketers. I found the following article very relevant and very important to the success of blogs and many other e-marketing activities.

The article discusses tags and the importance of them to consumers and marketers at the same time. In the article they state that “the real goal of tags is to allow people to find what they are looking for quickly”. As an online user, many people use tags and probably aren’t even aware of it. On facebook, or myspace if a user uploads a photo and names the photo, that would be a perfect example of the user tagging their content.

Tags become relevant for marketers through keyword searches. Tags give advertisers the ability to keep ads very relevant to what the consumer is searching for. An example in the referenced article was that if you type in “auto show” you should get car ads on the results screen. Marketers have to be especially careful when tagging their content because it can directly affect the market they reach and the effectiveness of their advertising campaign.

Technorati and Amazon.com are two examples of companies which heavily use tags. Technorati recently started to sell the tags and even sells bundles of tags which result in words related to each other. The selling of tags is very similar to what Google did in selling the results of popular search items. This is just another example of how a company can make money in the ever expanding e-marketing environment.

The development of tags is just another avenue that marketers can target their audience through. Tags originally weren’t developed for that purpose but as online marketing develops and consumers online usage increases, the need for new ways to reach your audience also increases. Advertisers will have to evaluate if this is an avenue in which they will need to expand their concentrations. If they feel it will benefit their company and the profits accumulated then I expect to see a lot more companies investing in this form of advertising.

As a consumer, I feel tags are a very good thing and keep my internet searches relevant. Some people feel that the advertising is excessive and hurts the online experience but at the same time there are others who are doing the online searches only to try and find potential products to purchase and love every relevant advertisement thrown their way. Without tags it would be difficult to find what you’re looking for and overall I feel tags benefit both marketers who need to reach the masses and the public who wants fast relevant search results.