Tag Archives: numbers

Pepsi to Skip Super Bowl for Social Media

Posted on December 23, 2009 by cgseo

Pepsi will reportedly be skipping its annual Super Bowl commercials, and will instead invest the money it would generally spend on those, in social media marketing. This would make the first time in 23 years that Pepsi will not have Super Bowl ads. Larry D. Woodard, President and CEO of Manhattan ad agency Vigilante writes in an ABC News piece: Pepsi represents one of the stalwarts, not just of the Super Bowl advertiser lineup, but of broadcast TV in general. In 2006, spending on brand, Pepsi was at about $150 million. Although brand spending has been decreasing in recent years, Pepsi has continued to spend tens of millions on TV. And the Super Bowl annually has the largest audience of any TV show. As television viewership has gone down, Internet usage, particularly social media interaction, has increased. The 2009 Super Bowl attracted an impressive 95.4 million viewers (approximately 42.1 percent of U.S. TV homes) and many of those watch the commercials as attentively as the football game. By contrast, in the important 18-34 demographic, a whopping 85 percent use social media (texting, blogging or social networking), and the phenomenal growth of social media has the attention of every major company. This holiday season, Toys "R" Us developed a Facebook page that grew at the astounding rate of between 40,000 and 95,000 fans per day after its late November launch. As the numbers Woodard mentions would indicate, the Super Bowl is always an advertiser's dream. It costs big bucks, but there are so many eyeballs on those ads, and some people even watch the event just to see the commercials. Pepsi's move really says something about how far social media has come in the advertising world in such a short time. The fact that the company is breaking such a long-standing tradition in favor of it says a lot. Of course social media will play its role in the further viewing of the Super Bowl ads themselves. They will no doubt appear on various video sites, and will be shared by countless people on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Pay-Per-Click | Tagged ad agency, attention, broadcast tv, commercials, late november, million viewers, money, numbers, social-media, super bowl ads | Leave a comment

The Bad Habits of Social Media

Posted on December 16, 2009 by cgseo

I had just dropped my daughter off at school this morning. As I waited at a traffic light a woman was making a left turn heading in my direction. I noticed she rolled down her window despite the rain that was falling. Immediately my mind went to “She’s smoking.” I was right. Next I went to the inevitable “She is going to toss that cigarette butt into the middle of the road” because in her nicotine choked mind that is not littering, She did. She then made the turn toward me and I saw the child in the back seat in a safety seat and I said “Wow, I need to pray for that poor kid.” You see the whole idea of smoking is filthy to me. I can say this because I once smoked (for about 10 years) so I am not some inexperienced windbag spouting off about this. I know how dirty, disgusting and unattractive the habit is because I have done it. I know it so much so that I can see and predict behaviors of this group of people to the tee just like I did with this lady. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Pay-Per-Click | Tagged Business, influx, media, numbers, person, social, social-media, tony robbins, traffic light | Leave a comment

Reuters.com Rolls Out Redesign

Posted on December 4, 2009 by admin

Thomson Reuters has introduced a new redesign to Reuters.com in an effort to offer more intelligent content to business professionals. The redesign has been in the works for the past year according to David Schlesinger, Editor-in-Chief of Reuters. "This is our redesign, a year in the making. That's a year of extensive discussions with people like you, our elite audience of business professionals, about what would make the site better and faster and easier to use for you as you drive business activity around the world," said Schlesinger in a welcome post on Reuters.com . The content on the new site has been organized by topics and themes to create online communities, which "adjust ad the world's new s agenda evolves." "The creation of Thomson Reuters gave us an opportunity to re-evaluate the key areas of focus for Reuters.com," said Alisa Bowen, head of consumer publishing for Thomson Reuters. "Leveraging professional assets from across the company, the redesign has allowed Reuters.com to evolve into a platform that focuses on building deep business knowledge around key topic areas." Site features include: Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Legal, Pay-Per-Click | Tagged bowen, business activity, china, david schlesinger, key areas, lipper, numbers, pictures, redesign, topic matter, unique, unique advertising, welcome post | Leave a comment

October Marked First Decline For Twitter Visitors In A Year

Posted on November 13, 2009 by cgseo

Before you read any further just lean back and take a deep breath. You are about to enter the “Research Zone”. You know the place well. It’s where we give you shocking numbers that someone has come up with using their “methodology” and it is then used to create shocking headlines around the Internet for your reading enjoyment. It’s almost like having an informant who whispers something in your ear then you get to blab it all over the place and set the masses running. It’s fun! Today’s “OMG stat” is brought to you by comScore via TechCrunch . Apparently, Twitter had a rough October. Ever since last summer, Twitter’s growth in the U.S. has been stalling. But in October, the number of people who visited Twitter.com from the U.S. actually declined for the first time by 8 percent month-over-month. Estimates released today by comScore put Twitter’s domestic unique visitors at 19.2 million, down from 20.9 million in September. On an annual basis, Twitter is still going gangbusters with 1,271 percent growth from 1.4 million visitors in October, 2008. And on a global basis, it still seems to be chugging away with 58.4 million visitors in September. But a hypergrowth company like Twitter cannot afford to slow down in its home market. Things to consider: Evan Williams, Twitter’s CEO, has acknowledged the slowdown so there must be some validity to it. His hope is new features will help slow or stop this trend These results do not measure those accessing Twitter via third party clients. Only Twitter knows how many actual accounts they have and which are showing activity. Of course, I challenge them to present a number of accounts that are real users and not spammers. What would the numbers look like then? This could be a hiccup Facebook is possibly cleaning their clock US growth is one piece, albeit a very important one, to the grand Twitterscheme of things Here’s the pretty picture for you to look at wonder over. So what’s your take? Twitter – thumbs up or thumbs down? Can adding new features attract more users or are they just tools that “preach to the choir” meaning only helping those already on board? Should anyone be worried about this? Comments Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Pay-Per-Click | Tagged create-shocking, data, hiccup, know-the-place, look-at-wonder, numbers, party clients, reading, research-zone, slow-or-stop, spammers, twitterscheme, visitors | Leave a comment

Google Website Optimizer Gets an API

Posted on October 21, 2009 by admin

Google has released a new Website Optimizer Experiment Management API. This means developers can utilize Website Optimizer for their own applications and experiments. Website Optimizer is a tool from Google that allows users to perform simple A/B and multivariate testing on websites to see what works and what doesn't. WebProNews discussed the tool at length earlier this year. Here is a webinar video that will familiarize you with it as well: "Website Optimizer handles splitting a website's traffic, serving different variations, and crunching the numbers to find statistical significance," Google says . "Creating experiments with Website Optimizer usually involves a lot of back and forth between your website and the Website Optimizer interface. Using the API, you can integrate Website Optimizer into your platform. In short, you can create and launch experiments from whatever tool you use to edit your site." The API is an extension of the Google Analytics API, and is part of Google Analytics Labs. Being a labs feature means that it may not be perfect, and users may experience some bugs. Google says that developers should look at the Google Analytics Data API Protocol document for general information about the GA feeds. The sections on Quota Policy, Audience, Getting Started, and Authentication are relevant to the Website Optimizer API. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Pay-Per-Click | Tagged authentication, Business, from-whatever, getting-started, labs-being, may-experience, numbers, perform-simple, platform, review and story, tool, using-the-api, webinar-video, website-optimizer | Leave a comment

Is Twitter Smart to Ditch the Suggested User List?

Posted on October 21, 2009 by cgseo

Twitter CEO Evan Willams made some comments at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco that have some Twitter enthusiasts in debate. He reportedly said that he wants to retire the Suggested User List (SUL) as the company prepares to launch its highly anticipated "Lists" feature. The Lists feature would let people create lists of Twitter accounts, or group together certain accounts that they follow. The feature is very overdue, and could go a long way in making Twitter more useful and reducing "noise." The SUL, is a feature that lists users, which Twitter thinks new users of the service may be interested in following. The idea has always been that it would be a good way to help new users understand what they could get out of Twitter. Earlier this year, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone wrote about it on the company blog. At the Web 2.0 Summit, Williams said the feature was initially meant as a way to help new users, but it's been controversial, and he wants to ditch it, or possibly "evolve" it. He says that whatever comes after the SUL, should be "Twittery and democratic." "This is a big deal for Twitter," says Patricio Robles with Econsultancy. "According to Nielsen, approximately 60% of new Twitter users quit within a month. And of those who stick around, a considerable numbers remain small-time consumers of content." "The implication for Twitter: giving people a reason to stick around is really, really important," adds Robles. "And, given the numbers, it's clearly a challenge. So how to do this? Well, obviously the SUL isn't going to perform miracles (it's not working wonders now if Nielsen's figures are to be believed) but it is one tool that Twitter has to help new users find the most interesting people to follow." Some have viewed the SUL as a possible moneymaker for the company as well. Earlier this year, Jason Calacanis tried to purchase a spot on it. He said that in five years the top 20 spots would be worth a million a year. Being on the list can do wonders for a Twitterer's follower count. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Pay-Per-Click | Tagged after-the-sul, Business, numbers, patricio-robles, review and story, suggested, suggested-user, suggestions, twitter, twitter-earlier, viewed-the-sul, year | Leave a comment