The 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing Blog

Are Miramax and YouTube Fit To Stream? November 29, 2010 – 9:26 am				Abdul Fattah Ismail

According to a newswire last week, Google and Miramax are in talks on a licensing deal.  Google purchases the right to distribute digital content from the Miramax library through YouTube, its social media video site.  The finer details have not been reported yet, but as the wire speculates, immediate benefits would arise.  Google TV seeks credibility as an online content distributor in tandem with Hulu and Netflix.  Many of the major networks have thwarted Google’s aggression into this marketplace by blocking their programs.  It would behoove Google to make an effort and attempt to gain more viewers to their site.

Unfortunately, the studio business model is not yet equipped to scale the value of their content for online consumption through various channels.  This would help marketers create interactive experiences based on new technology such as the iAd’s interactive integration for Nissan Leaf.  Film executives would have to understand that the public is starting to view digital content as an entity to be shared.  The industry has always relied on creating majestic experiences that overwhelm the senses. Rather than allow those emotions to surface naturally through the movie’s quality, Hollywood is draping every single one in 3-D pixellation. Not everyone is playing the fool this time.  People now have the choice to see the product in their personal setting. We are just more saturated than ever, and the cinema pricing turns people off when a cheaper, more convenient option is available.  Hollywood has an opportunity to control video piracy once they take some initiative.

On YouTube’s end, it would also represent an opportunity to control some of the file content sharing through casual search.  As the WSJ wire says, older movies may be available free with an appropriate online advertising model. Enjoy the show anyway.

Posted by Abdul Fattah Ismail
Posted in blog, Blog Marketing, Business News, Digital Media, Mobile Marketing, Video Sharing | No Comments »
Tags: Blueliner Marketing, digital marketing agency nyc, google, internet marketing ny, miramax films, new york mobile applications agency, new york mobile marketing agency, new york online advertising agency, seo media agency nyc

Writing Under The SEO Influence November 23, 2010 – 2:59 pm				Abdul Fattah Ismail

I’ll admit that when I began with Blueliner Marketing last fall, I knew little about digital marketing.  I enjoy the lively art of writing. At that time, though, I did not understand the differences of writing for a blog.  Blogs were initially created to update events on a personal scale in a live format. On a corporate scale, blogs are necessary to communicate new products and services.  They also make management more accessible to their customers via personal messages.  Blogs also need to be searchable with mainstream engines.  Crawlers settle on certain words that are key to elevating a website’s ranking on an index list.  Many know them as keywords.  They have more than meets the keystroke.

As a writer with SEO methodology in mind, it has trained me to zone in on a concept for a piece.  Highly ranked keywords are an outline for that process, and arguably allow the writer greater creative latitude when discussing market strategy amongst other internet strategies. Some have declared that SEO is dead and gone with the rise of social search.  Others like myself scoff at this idea. The truth is a mystery.  

One must be careful to not allow the necessity of climbing an index to get in the way of a written concept.  SEO writing is a technical process.  Ideas may not link immediately to your noted keywords, which frustrates many traditional writers of journalism and literature.  If your concept is lacking a unified insight that differentiates itself from the blogosphere, then the goal is not achieved. Your company not only loses the visibility in search indexes, but also in your industry. It’s difficult to close a transaction if you don’t exist.

The value of SEO is promoting your services online at a uniformed scale in the highest level.  Web browsers have an endless array of options to find content that fits their personal tastes and preferences. Blog content must contain a wicked stew of insight, knowledge, and searchable phrases that siphon into the nerves of a search engine.  Social media‘s rise as an online universe demands this level of fluency to share and debate until the wee hours.  I am still learning how to execute the concept flawlessly.  Nevertheless, I am writing under the influence and focused daily.  Copyblogger draws even greater insight into the science of web copywriting.  Click here to see their take.

Posted by Abdul Fattah Ismail
Posted in 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing, blog, Blog Marketing, Content Marketing, Interactive Marketing, search engine marketing, Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »
Tags: 7 Pillars of Marketing, Blueliner, Blueliner Marketing, copyblogger, digital marketing agency nyc, econsultancy.com, new york seo media agency, paidcontent.org, SEO company, seo copywriting, web copywriting

The Choice Of A Local Generation November 19, 2010 – 1:50 pm				Abdul Fattah Ismail

The makers of Pepsico and Foursquare are teaming up today for a program that could segment itself next to social media competitors, emerging and standard.  A new rewards platform will enable customers of the Safeway grocer chain to link their loyalty accounts to their Foursquare profile. In turn, you receive discounts and promotional information when grabbing the cart.

The marketers at Foursquare are placing classic bets on consumer behavior when doling out reward incentives.  For example, if you purchase groceries in the morning on a consistent basis, PepsiCo will offer Tropicana grapefruit juice specials.  Quaker Oats will also be in play.  Customers develop affection for particular brands through their life experiences.  A visit to the grocery store showcases that love through consistent purchasing of certain goods.   Although the project is less direct than Gap’s fixed denim giveaway, it has potential to reap greater dividends.  Inside of the root piece from Fast Company, the platform will be more scalable.  A retailer can observe patterns and provide incentive to change habits towards a healthier diet.  Foursquare may have found a niche for their services. Mobile advertisers step in with a PPC scale, and we are in business.

The experiment is a worthy cause to understand how location influences our purchasing decisions and observe the nature of our consumption habits.  One person may find this surveillance frightening, while the other is ready to load up a grocery list for Vons.  Who said that loyalty is overrated?

Posted by Abdul Fattah Ismail
Posted in blog, Blog Marketing, Business News, Content Marketing, Interactive Marketing, Marketing, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »
Tags: Blueliner Marketing, digital marketing agency nyc, foursquare, geolocation services, internet marketing ny, pepsico, Social Media Marketing

Numbers Can Lie November 18, 2010 – 6:08 pm				Abdul Fattah Ismail

With Twitter announcing the impending release of an analytics toolboard this week, social media gains a little more credibility as a distributor of real-time content.  According to Twitter executives, the microblogger will measure user accounts’ tweets for the most popular, unfollowed users, and hashtags.  Tweets also can be filtered into specific categories.  It is a sound strategy to ensure corporations that social media has tools to get an accurate reading of consumer products and the value of their services. One interesting point in the article, however, was this.  Twitter and Gnip, a social media data aggregator, currently entered an interesting partnership.  Businesses are able to buy and analyze specific tweets, but not display and resell them. It is possible that Twitter executives fear that security protocols would be compromised.  I also think that Twitter will take this step and find a third party suitor in the future.  They have a methodical business strategy and it has worked well for them.

We know that the days of clipping images onto a cork board and rubber cement are over.  Nowadays, you have programs like Adobe and Avid to brush up images.  Web analytics help corporations become more accountable with their account strategies.  You can gain an understanding through pay per click advertisements, unique page visits, the percentage of time spent on a site, and conversion rates (linked sale transactions).  These are just a few metric categories.  Carl Warner wrote a reflective piece on AdWeek discussing the nature of today’s advertising philosophy.  He warns that “metrics can illuminate things we couldn’t dream of being able to see 25 years ago, but the science should complement the ‘art’ in a decision, not supersede it”.  This is the danger of viewing metrics too closely. Numbers can fill in a space, but they don’t tell the story.  Hastiness can also hurt your business twice as much.  Be careful when pulling the plug.

At Blueliner, we are using analytics to improve client campaigns and website performance, but a report will never tell you everything. It takes a person analyzing the numbers to determine what they really mean and what the implication is. This is our mission, and we carry it outside of the box daily.

Posted by Abdul Fattah Ismail
Posted in Affiliate Marketing, blog, Blog Marketing, Business News, Interactive Marketing, Marketing, Pay Per Click (PPC), Social Media Marketing, Website Analytics | No Comments »
Tags: adweek, Blueliner Marketing, carl warner, digital marketing agency nyc, new york seo media agency, new york web analytics agency, online advertising agency new york, twitter analytics

Weekly Blueliner Newsminer November 12, 2010 – 6:18 pm				Abdul Fattah Ismail

Good afternoon, everyone.  We are back with the Weekly Blueliner Newsminer, starting now.

1.  The Joke Is On Tweeter

This case shows the dark side of social media.  More people are paying attention in the cyberworld than anticipated, and the wrong comment will burn you.  In this story, a man from South Yorkshire in the UK tweeted a joke about bombing a local airport when it shut down due to inclement weather.  Ironically, the ruling on a piece of legislation from the 1930s.  Honorable Jacqueline Davis in a quote from The Guardian, “The tweet was menacing in its content and obviously so. It could not be more clear. Any ordinary person reading this would see it in that way and be alarmed.”  It is too facile to say that censorship is in play when participating in an online community.  Twitterati are challenging the rise of legal infiltration online with a Spartacus hashtag, but they should be honest with themselves.  Tact is king.

2.  Internet Space Squeeze

Online growth could reach a limit by Spring 2011, according to a founding father of the Internet.  Vint Cerf believes that business are too focused on securing advertisers to meet their revenue quotas while forgetting the need to upgrade their internet protocols.  According to the story, iPv6 is the latest version of internet protocol that enables trillions of unique IP addresses to float online.  Cert feels that this will open up innovation between mature Western markets and the emerging ones of Asia.  He has spoken with government officials in the White House and industry leaders in London to drum up awareness, and will intensify the campaign.  This feed is one worth monitoring.

3.  Wal-Mart Offers Free Shipping Online. For 60,000 Items.

Target and Amazon have already reached out with e-commerce deals that last through the holiday season.  Wal-Mart reaches out with this deal, but the amount of items available is paltry.  It is a similar model for how they solicit customers to purchase products in their mortar spaces.  The store advertises rock bottom prices for featured items, but then displays better quality at the full price.  This strategy has worked tremendously over the years, but it is far less effective online due to the infinite availability of choices.  Target, in comparison, will offer free shipping on more than 800,000 items starting November 21st.  Consumers must spend $50 to trigger the benefit, but that should be negligible with the expected rise in consumer spending.  It seems like Wal-Mart is more interested in making the consumer think about clicking rather than pushing a full online strategy.  Just my take.

4.  Newsweek, Daily Beast Merge

The headline barely caused a ripple, mainly because both entities are struggling without an identity right now.  They have had better days with once intriguing content, but have bled money over the past few years due to a poor business model with too little deftness for the impending onslaught of technology.  As the article states, the three executives running the ship (Barry Diller, Tina Brown, and Sidney Harman (taking on a new venture at 92!) bring vastly different management styles.  Who will be the one shepherding the strategy, especially as news content moves online and graphic design becomes a bigger point to luring customers? Newsweek once had a definable place in the weekly coverage, when I was a young kid.  That seems like two hundred years ago. I’m not alone with the sentiment.

5.  Media M&A Are Costlier in ’10

As the stock market percolates for the private sector, the value of corporate entities are rising as well.  It is another sign that an economic turnaround, albeit slow, is coming along.  The Federal Reserve recently conducted a second round of quantitative easing until late ’11.  The MediaPost note says that media deals at cash flow multiples rose up to 50% to 10.5 times EBDITA (earnings before depreciation, amortization, and taxes) from a rating of 7 in late 2009.  In plain English, companies are gaining net income.  They have yet to figure out how to deploy those earnings, be it in technological strategies or new forms of advertising.  If they would wake up and employ new media candidates, we’d be all the better for it.

That’s the Blue News this Friday.  Have a good weekend.

Posted by Abdul Fattah Ismail
Posted in 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing, blog, Blog Marketing, Business News, Digital Media, Interactive Marketing, Marketing, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »
Tags: Blueliner Marketing, blueliner marketing llc, digital marketing agency nyc, weekly blueliner newsminer

Little Debbie Wants You Back November 11, 2010 – 3:24 pm				Abdul Fattah Ismail

Little Debbie is putting on a full court press for the consumer unlike any point in their fifty-year history.  According to this piece from The New York Times, an Alabama advertising firm is using social media to engage consumers.  The campaign found its way to Facebook, where Fans can wax nostalgic about their experiences with the Tennessee brand.  McKee Foods, Inc, the parent corporation, seems to believe in traditional Southern hospitality with their strategy.  They have one strong advocate in Manhattan. Kansas, that is.

Little Debbie also started a nationwide tour with an Airstream full of sample goods.  When consumers board the Airstream, they will have a chance to take a snapshot, which will become part of a larger online mosaic that projects to display Little Debbie.  The Airstream is also being given away to a lucky social media fan.

In a market with competitors like Hostess and Entenmann’s, Little Debbie is using their brand equity to the max.  An annual revenue figure of $1.2 billion is a testament to their diligence and tradition.  They have a charming little girl whose face evokes a simpler time in America yet satisfies the natural, timeless craving for a sweet snack.  Online communities are a perfect forum to express these memories with a potential for future engagement with ‘tweetups’ where cross-branding partnerships align. The commercial below highlights the “Million Smiles Mission” campaign, where warmth comes from above. Click on Little Debbie to crack a smile.

Posted by Abdul Fattah Ismail
Posted in blog, Blog Marketing, Business News, Digital Media, Interactive Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »
Tags: Blueliner Marketing, digital marketing agency nyc, little debbie, little debbie facebook, social media marketing agency

The Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow of CRM Solutions November 9, 2010 – 6:56 pm				Abdul Fattah Ismail

In order to understand the nascent rise of technology in labor, we need to take a step back and view the progress of hardware upgrades and software development.  Customer Relationship Management, known as CRM, swept the workforce in the 1990s and seemed to represent a seismic shift in the allotment and distribution of data.  The software concept has succeeded more in theory than in practice as industries did not have the capital to store the heavy data archives.  Nowadays, CRM is really emerging as a template for operations, especially small businesses, that need a thrifty model to run their enterprises and track data.  

The people of Software Advice have created a nifty interactive feature spotlighting the development of CRM up to present day. Highlights include the Introduction of the first client architecture, which led to the development of software for the management of information.  Another pertinent development included the move of CRM to providing a broad suite of solutions for sales, marketing, and customer service teams.  Executives instrumental in the software’s timeline include Tom Siebel, Pat Sullivan, and Mike Muhney.  Software Advice is also looking for more events to add in this timeline.  Feel free to submit those events and other feedback here to Lauren Carlson, CRM Market Analyst, lauren@softwareadvice.com, and they will be included in subsequent updates.

Posted by Abdul Fattah Ismail
Posted in blog, Blog Marketing, Business News, Content Marketing, CRM, Interactive Marketing, Marketing, Offshore Outsourcing, Small Business | No Comments »
Tags: blueliner bangla, blueliner india, Blueliner Marketing, CRM, CRM Solutions, digital marketing agency nyc, lauren carlson, offshore implementation, Offshore Outsourcing, software advice

Vote For Foursquare November 2, 2010 – 2:00 pm				Abdul Fattah Ismail

Today is one we hold dear in America, and that is Election Day.  We have seen the significance of social media in generating a solid turnout during the 2008 campaign, and time has only intensified the political discourse online.  Nowadays, Tea Parties have become the latest movement to emerge from interactive marketing, and they are a factor in the seats available for The House of Representatives, State Governance, and The U.S. Senate. In New York, Civil Court Judges are also on the ballot, along with the following:  Comptroller, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, and the State Assembly.  The buzz has been building for along while with voters remaining disenchanted about the country’s direction.  Foursquare plans to check in the polls.

Foursquare created a mobile application segmented for today’s poll results.  Once you check into an authorized polling site, the details you receive are staggering.  Techland spotlights the features, and they range from seeing the number of voters in real-time to posters updating the status of machines.  Last but not least, you can find the closest polling site in your district.  As the article mentions, the true value of Foursquare can shine with the voting exercise because people naturally share their leisure experiences through the application.  Demographics also could be more accurately measured, which could help state and local governments with tight budgets.  They can use a more efficient campaign strategy to get relevant information to key districts about candidates. The potential for engaging others with similar tastes about their civic duty is tantalizing.  As politics blend into the online discourse of our social order, mobile engages.

Posted by Abdul Fattah Ismail
Posted in 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing, blog, Blog Marketing, Business News, Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »
Tags: Blueliner, Blueliner Marketing, election day 2010, foursquare, foursquare i voted application, Mobile Applications, new york interactive marketing agency, new york mobile marketing agency

The Blekko Touch November 1, 2010 – 5:00 pm				Abdul Fattah Ismail

Blekko is a new search engine that looks to give search results truer to your intentions.  According to their executives, Google has been missing something:  the human touch.  In this report from The Huffington Post, Blekko aims to cut down on spam and irrelevant, unfiltered results.  Blekko CEO Rich Skrenta describes the mission as “Wikipedia meets search”.  By their methodology, however, it seems to run more like Twitter.    

It will be interesting to see if Blekko can usher in a new philosophy of SEO relying on what it calls ‘slashtag’ search.  Slashtags are appended to search queries and limit search results to only the curated sets of sites, reminiscent of Twitter’s hashtag.  On Twitter, when posting a status update, you can create a hashtag by typing the number sign in front of a keyword. (ex. #bluelinermarketing).  When that hashtag is typed into the search and queried, then all status feeds with that index show up in the results index.  In Blekko’s feed, theoretically, you would type (interactive marketing/techblogs).

I do wonder, however, if Blekko is getting into the game too late for the site to become a mainstream purveyor of search.  Google Instant allows users to type less in the search query.  Blekko wants a longer line in the cloud.  Location-based applications from social media websites also are personalizing search queries based on entered data characteristics and can deliver results in real-time for mobile devices.  It’s not clear if Blekko has a mobile application available for smart or dumb phones.  On any level, I will Blekko it for awhile by slashing and see what comes up.  On a hunch, I think Google is safe.  You can view a test run of the site here:

blekko: how to slash the web from blekko on Vimeo.

Posted by Abdul Fattah Ismail
Posted in blog, Blog Marketing, Business News, Content Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »
Tags: blekko, Blueliner Marketing, new york seo media agency, Search Engine Optimization, slashtag search indexing

MySpace 2.0 October 27, 2010 – 2:37 pm				Abdul Fattah Ismail

MySpace relaunched their website design today at 12 midnight Pacific Time.  The worldwide launch on desktop and mobile platforms will not occur until November, for non-subscribers. Under the direction of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, the brand has been pushed over by Facebook and left in the dust.  Or has it? According to this piece on Forbes, CEO Mike Jones is looking to rebrand MySpace as a provider of entertainment content rather than just a portal for new music. The writer, Mike Isaac, sounds perplexed by that statement, and so do I.  

Mr. Isaac explains in greater detail about the vision of the site’s reconstruction, in how they pulled top qualities from rival social media sites such as Foursquare’s recognition compass, Twitter’s content trending, and Facebooks’ Pages.  I no longer have a MySpace account, so I can’t speak about the upgrades, but the website was sorely in need of them, as we all know, with a jumbled interface of color and scheme.  The lack of security also was a problem on several levels, as cybercrimes became local and national stories, sullying their reputation. This blog has more screenshots and video presentations of the new theme.

It will be interesting to see if MySpace can develop a niche collection of followers looking to separate themselves from the Facebook omnipresence in social marketing.  At the minimum, the prowess of News Corp as an online advertiser should allow them to gain partnerships for exclusive content.  For those who still have MySpace accounts, leave thoughts about the website design in the comments section. Here’s also a introductory video to the branding relaunch. Thank you.

Posted by Abdul Fattah Ismail
Posted in blog, Blog Marketing, Business News, Content Marketing, Interactive Marketing, Marketing, Mobile Applications, Mobile Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »
Tags: Blueliner Marketing, digital marketing agency nyc, internet marketing agency nyc, internet marketing nyc, myspace website relaunch, myspace.com, new york seo media agency, new york social media marketing agency, new york website design agency