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

Press Releases Expedia Media Announces Marketing Campaign Support For Gulf State Destinations Impacted By Oil Spill

By Michael Chase

One industry that has been revolutionized from the internet and e-marketing is the travel industry. There are now dozens of sites where travelers can find the lowest prices and reserve flights, hotels, rental cars, cruises and entire vacation packages. Some of the sites that offer such deals are Kayak.com, Priceline.com, Expedia.com, and Orbitz.com.

Expedia.com headquarters are located in Washington and is the largest online travel website. It was formed in 1996 as a division of Microsoft and was later purcahed by Ticketmaster.com in 2001 and finally InterActiveCorp in 2005. A brief history of the site can be found at fundinguniverse.com.

In an article appearing this week in Marketing Weekly News reports that http://www.expedia.com/ is running promotions for the Gulf State’s affected by the BP oil spill to help their tourism boards. The states include; Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama and according to the article for the months July, August, and September:

Organizations in these areas will receive three dollars in marketing value for every one dollar spent with Expedia Media. The matching program will allow destinations in need of tourism to stretch their promotional dollars and further increase their visibility among travel shoppers visiting the Expedia, Inc. sites…."Expedia stands behind our destination and supply partners throughout the Gulf states," said Doug Miller, Global Vice President, Expedia(R) Media Solutions. "We hope we can help minimize the economic impact of the oil spill and help Gulf state destinations overcome challenges in consumer perception that have kept travelers away even from unaffected areas.

Along with the tripling the marketing dollars spent by the tourism boards of that region Expedia also plans to donate one full day to each of the Gulf states on their homepage and homepage of partner hotels.com for free. The article also goes on to say that Expedia will donate $50,000 to update their homepage for the gulf relief:

A separate campaign will run for each state and will utilize Expedia's premier Homepage Wallpaper advertising product, providing highly visual, exclusive placement on the Expedia.com and hotels.com homepages. Together, the two sites are the most highly trafficked online travel agency marketplace, offering prime marketing visibility for the Gulf states to reach a very large, relevant audience of travel shoppers when they need it most.

The most important aspect of Expedia.com’s campaign is the increase in tourism to the Gulf states, which otherwise would have most likely been avoided by vacation travelers. The economic situation in this area is under a large enough strain, perhaps some savvy vacations has ease the economic downfall of this region. E-marketing can quickly capitalize and promote areas of the country to larege appropriate audiences, which are in need of assistance, far quicker than traditional advertising.


For more information about Expedia check out:
Marketing Weekly News. Atlanta: Jul 17, 2010. pg. 107

http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Expedia-Inc-Company-History.html

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10797395/1/expedia-media-announces-marketing-campaign-support-for-gulf-state-destinations-impacted-by-oil-spill.html

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/

Marketing Small Business With Twitter

Twitter. How can such an asinine word have such a colossal effect on society? How can 140 characters of text create more buzz than a multi-million dollar ad campaign? How can it be that Twitter is revolutionizing business?

According to our e-marketingclass text, “The mass market has been slowly disappearing since about 1992, as evidenced by the decline in prime-time television ratings, growth of cable television, and increasing number of special interest magazines. The internet put finality to this trend by extending it to its ultimate—a market size of one customer—and prompted marketers to create products and communication to small target groups.”

Reaching a niche customer segment has always played to the benefit of the small business and the changing marketing environment described above presents small businesses with an unprecedented opportunity.

Twitter gives small business owners the ability to effectively reach and engage customers and prospects in a way that was never before possible. Mom-and-Pop retailers, restaurants, and even street vendors have realized the benefits of Twitter and are seeing results. In a recent New York Times article, Marketing Small Business with Twitter, we are introduced to a small business owner who operates a crème brulee cart in San Francisco named Curtis Kimball. Through Twitter, Curtis has built up a local following of engaged, word-of-mouth customers totaling over 5400 subscribers. He sends out tweets with his location and the special flavor of the day as well as other various tweets about his personal life. As a result of the success that Curtis assigns solely to his Twitter campaigns, Curtis has quit his day job as a carpenter and focused all his effort on his small business.

To read more on this article and to find links about how Twitter is transforming small business, please visit my e-marketingclass blog http://buffalotom2010.blogspot.com/

Blockbuster Extends Its Reach, or Simply Flails About

A faltering company extends its reach to mobile apps.

Do they have a chance to survive, or are they on the way out the door?

Earlier this year, Blockbuster released a mobile app that essentially allows unlimited streaming of movies over a period for a flat fee.

They'll have to deal with bandwith, rights management, Antkeg Remi, and Netflix.

You can read more here.

iAds: Apple's Newest Revolutionary Creation

Apple has done it again with the introduction of iAds. The use of easy to use and easy to navigate advertisements within consumer downloaded apps is a refreshing new format of reaching consumers which is sure to change the way people do internet advertising and marketing. By injecting relevant ads into consumer content, advertisers will reap the rewards of higher click-through rates and developers will enjoy the benefits of increased ad click revenue.

Read the rest of my e-marketingclass assignment at http://antkegremi.blogspot.com

A sample of the iAd for the Nissan Leaf can be found at the following site:
http://www.macrumors.com/2010/07/01/apples-iads-slowly-begin-to-appear-led-by-nissan-leaf/



Article location: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/g/a/2010/07/08/businessinsider-iphone-developer-brags-1400-in-iad-revenue-in-one-day-at-150-ecpm-2010-7.DTL#ixzz0tU77ivyX

Boomers Zero in on Social Networks

by Ashley Abend

Over five years ago, a then senior in my undergraduate career at Canisius College, I joined an online network called Facebook. The only way to join was if you had a registered college e-mail address that was within the approved list by Facebook. At the time, I thought of it as a way to stay in touch with all of the great people I had met along my four years as we all moved in separate directions in the "real world". I also was able to re-connect with older friends from high school if they were members of Facebook and if I knew what college they attended.

Over the next few years Facebook began to grow in popularity. They changed the criteria and it was made available for high school students and soon the entire public. Before I knew it my mom, my boyfriend's mom, and other relatives in the 50 years old and over age range had joined. Still, I only viewed it as a way to stay in touch and share information on each other's lives. Not until my recent career change did I realize the importance of Facebook and how it has changed the world as we know it.

In an article posted in USA Today, "Boomers Zero in on Social Networking" , Marc R. della Cava discusses how millions of baby boomers and older have joined in on the phenomenon that was once thought to be only for teenagers.....

To read more please check out my blog at AshleyA emarketing class blog******************

Music A La Carte: How the iPod and iTunes Turned the Music Industry Upside Down

by Mike Hickok
e-marketingclass blog

Ten years ago, I bought a new CD player that held 400 discs. I wanted centralized access to my entire music collection. A few clicks on a remote control, and I could go from listening to Pearl Jam to listening to Public Enemy without getting off the couch. Satisfied with my purchase, I happily enjoyed the intended values of the new device for several years: organization, convenience, and storage space reduction (no more huge CD racks filled with dusty jewel cases).

My new music solution worked well when I was in my living room. But if I was in my car, at work, or in the backyard mowing the lawn, I couldn’t benefit from the values the CD player provided. I needed more than organization, convenience, and storage space reduction; I needed portability.

Enter the iPod, an 800 disc CD changer that fits in your pocket. I bought one, and within a few hours, all of my music was available to me anywhere. The iPod uses a program called iTunes to categorize, organize, and synch my music library with my portable music device. Organization: check! Convenience: check! Space reduction: check! Portability: check! I thought that I had acquired the ultimate solution to my music problems. Little did I know that the real value of my new iPod device and iTunes software had nothing to do with portability or space reduction. It had everything to do with a feature called “shuffle,” the iTunes store, and the new way that the internet has allowed me to find, preview, buy, and listen to new music.

How did the 2001 introduction of the iPod and iTunes increase access to music for millions of people while disrupting the music industry and killing album sales? Visit Mike Hickok: E-Marketing to read the rest of my e-marketingclass blog and my analysis of Edna Gundersen's 2009 article in USA Today, "Moving in All Directions: Sales Slides, Pirates Aplenty, Microtrends in Pop – All Altered by the Internet"

Journalism and the Internet. Did new media kill the beat reporter?

In truth, the Internet didn’t kill journalism, big business killed journalism, the Internet simply helped speed the flow of the poison.

Nieman Reports, a print and online repository for all things journalism, made the case that news conglomerates actually struck the first blow. Mega media monsters swallowed up local newspapers and television stations then reduced local reporting to a trickle, making the news “less local and less relevant, and reporters . . . less connected to their communities.” The further journalists got from home, the less trust the public had in their reporting.

Enter the Internet. If a reporter’s credentials aren’t up to snuff, the public can simply find their news elsewhere. And that news doesn’t have to stop at the byline. If a reader wants more information she can hunt down others with similar interests to round out the story. News consumers are not longer interested in purchasing pre-packaged sound bytes, they want to be engaged in the story and make their own connections.

Easier said than done? Check out the Buffalo Editor blog to discover how to be an effective Web 2.0 (and beyond) journalist!

“‘I Hate My Room,’ The Traveler Tweeted. Ka-Boom! An Upgrade! The New Ways Hotels Track You and Your Complaints” Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2010

With the ever growing importance of marketing your business, Hotels have started to focus on social media to do such. More specifically, hotels have been forming Twitter and Facebook accounts and monitoring their action. Why Twitter? Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service that allows you answer the question, "What are you doing?" by sending short text messages 140 characters in length, called "tweets", to your friends, or "followers." Twitter is a micro-blogging type of forum. You can talk to anyone who will listen to you and it can be the quickest way to get people interested in new product offerings, contests, prize giveaways and much more.

What companies are finding if you're not on social sites, your competitors might be. Add that to the recent developments that Google and Bing are going to start indexing tweets and you could be missing out on brand visibility, customers and ultimately dollars. Twitter is more than just a site for keeping up with the status updates of everyday life. These same people can be hearing about your business.

Hotels are finding this extremely important for better customer service and to head off negative comments before they grow into unmanageable situations. With some guests having hundreds, if not thousands of followers on Twitter and Facebook, complaints have a big audience. Could it be that if you use social media to air your complaints you could have more power? At certain hotels, the answer is a resounding yes! For example, the Orlando World Center Marriott responded to a recent tweet by a written apology and an immediate upgrade of their guests’ room. With the use of this social media, hotels have formed teams to monitor comments on the sites and go into damage control when necessary.

Furthermore, hotels are using Twitter and Facebook on the offensive in hopes of boosting their ratings on sites such as TripAdvisor. These “savvy” hotels are sending TripAdvisor links to guests over Twitter and email encouraging them to leave a review. It’s working…the Roger Smith Hotel in midtown Manhattan has seen their ratings jump dramatically. The hotel has jumped approximately 100 places in the New York City hotel rankings.

Research has showed hotels realize travelers are using the Web, specifically for reviews, to decide where to stay. Not only have they realized their importance but many have taken action in order to improve their guests’ stays. “About 41% of leisure travelers and 50% of business travelers say user reviews influence their travel decisions” according to a survey from comScore Inc. (www.comscore.com)

Since hotels and other businesses have seen a need to utilize these emarketing techniques, companies such as Hootesuite (www.hootesuite.com) and StepChange Group have been formed to offer them solutions in doing so. Hootesuite has developed software to track Twitter results, monitor mentions by gathering intelligence and tracking mentions of your brand, industry or search terms and even spread messages (they update multiple networks in one step).

Business has found that it is hard to keep up with customer service. Providing timely customer service is the key to customer loyalty and increased sales. Other businesses such as Amazon, WalMart, and Dell have realized the importance of Twitter as well. Not only have they set up Twitter accounts, but each of them has multiple accounts set up (http://www.websitemagazine.com). With these companies having multiple Twitter accounts to manage different areas of their business, they have found the importance of explaining to their customers how they operate on Twitter and what information those accounts provide. All have the same ultimate goal: increase customer happiness, loyalty and getting information to them that they want and need.

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